As this blog’s resident conservative I have to take umbrage to Sam’s article below, in which he ascribes to Republicans a reactionary stance towards Obama fiscal policy. It’s true, there are many in my party who seem to want to make it the party of no. Yet I would not go so far as to say this is just pushing ... Read More
So I was reading this article by Nate Silver. It’s a good read, and you should look at the whole thing, but the last paragraph in particular caught my eye. The bigger risks, however, are probably for the Republicans. We’re not in What’s the Matter With Kansas anymore: the left’s economic populism has the potential to be an extremely strong ... Read More
In last summer’s issue, I predicted that the seemingly momentous gun-control case of D.C. v. Heller might turn out to be not such a big deal. I was mainly referring to the politics of the decision; it seemed likely to me that Heller would take gun-control off the table, so to speak, and lessen the danger that the issue poses ... Read More
Free-market economics has an impressive intellectual grounding and makes a lot of sense. It also happens to say that the people who hold all the money and power in our society are the ones who ought to hold the money and power in our society. Both of these statements are hard to argue with. Which aspect do you think has ... Read More
Science education improves gradually over time From our vantage point in the ivory tower, it can be tempting to assume that only a handful of school districts still fail to teach children about the lynchpin of modern biology, the theory of evolution. Yet, despite several adverse court rulings and eighty years of progress since the famed Scopes “monkey trial” marked ... Read More
Oliver Stone sets his eyes on Bush
Creating precedent for the law The term “legislating from the bench” is frequently used but rarely explained. In the 2008 presidential debates Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) promised he would not appoint judges who legislate from the bench. But as Bruce Peabody, author of Legislating from the Bench, a Definition and a Defense, told the HPR, “I don’t think we can ... Read More
Obama and the conservative legal movement That a president would search for judges who are ideological allies is unsurprising, to say the least. Certainly we are used to the idea that this is how presidents behave when it comes toƒ their Supreme Court nominees. President Bush vetted his nominees to the federal courts of appeals “to find those who shared ... Read More
Two weeks ago, Obama made a comment to House Republicans that they “can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done”. This was treated as the failure of bipartisanship*, and was perceived as an impolitic thing for him to say. Hypothesis: Obama messed up. Datum: Rush Limbaugh is incredibly unpopular. This story provoked a spate of Republicans rushing (I’m ... Read More
The everyday values of George W. BushBy Ian Merrifield ’12 Much of George W. Bush’s success in the 2000 and 2004 elections came from his remarkable ability to connect with American voters. Compared to Al Gore and John Kerry, President Bush looked and sounded much more like someone whom the typical American voter would “like to have a beer with.” ... Read More
A departure from Reagan’s conservatism By Jonathan Hawley ’10 and Allison Swidriski ‘11 As the presidency of George W. Bush comes to an end, unavoidable comparisons will be made between the outgoing commander in chief and the hero of the modern conservative movement, Ronald Reagan. Jennifer Donahue, political director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, told the HPR that ... Read More
I was recently reading the Harvard Independent (a mistake, I know), and one of the writers had a piece discussing two widely-read articles over the summer trashing students from Harvard and other Ivy League universities. I skimmed through most of it, and what really struck me was a passage mentioning Harvard students’ homogenized, unfailingly reasoned and moderate political positions. It ... Read More
“I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them,” Caroline Kennedy wrote in January in her endorsement of Barack Obama. From the start of his campaign, Barack Obama has wrapped himself in the mantle, and the myth, of the Kennedy family. But by turning down public financing for the fall ... Read More
