From W to Newt: Downward, Ever Downward

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I remember watching George W. Bush on television at one of his first group meetings with foreign leaders.  It was a NATO summit meeting of European leaders in Brussels six months after he took office.  As the leaders gathered for the traditional group picture, they stood around the nervous President of the United States, who at one point looked up and behind him to laugh at something one of the leaders had said.  In that split second, Bush looked like a lost schoolboy, out of his element.  I will never forget the thought I had then.

This country is rich – rich enough to squander the Presidency.

Any country that would elect a neophyte and a person so lacking in intellectual depth was presumptuously wealthy enough to risk the Presidency on someone whom I was convinced would be a disaster.  I had only a clue from someone who knew him how much of a debacle was at stake.  Now we all know.  The same thought came to me as I watch the spectacle of today’s Republican presidential candidates.

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George Will: Wrong for So Long

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Years ago, when I was an editor at The Austin American-Statesman, I had to decide whether to run George Will, the conservative columnist at The Washington Post, on a regular basis to balance the pages with perspectives from the left and the right.

I had admired Will’s writing but more and more I had to force myself to read him – still do.  My struggle began many years before with a piece that suggested to me that he fundamentally misunderstood where the country was headed.  Will had written at the height of the Reagan Revolution – I’m paraphrasing – that the country had entered a conservative era that would last for generations.

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No Newt is a Good Newt

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A cardinal rule in politics holds that you cannot beat somebody with nobody.  Another rule becomes operational when the first rule is violated:  Political animals roam the landscape in search of a political void.  Another reality is that journalism is not dead – meaning no one should crown Newt Gingrich just yet.

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All for Newt, Newt for All

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Sometimes what passes for political reporting from Washington swamps the senses.  A report in one of the nation’s leading newspapers suggests that New Gingrich has built a network to make inroads into the HispanicLatino vote.  Goodness.  That is news.  Gingrich does not have an organization in Iowa and cannot pull together a full slate of delegates for the caucuses to vote on, but, by gosh, he has a network within the HispanicLatino population.  Yes, and peanuts turn into gold if you stare at them long enough. Continue reading →

Slow Down the Slowing Down

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Decision-makers, especially those in business, should take a considered view of recent reporting on the slowdown of the growth of the HispanicLatino population.  Changes in population by their very nature alter the composition of the marketplace, but the formation of new markets and a work force that is more HispanicLatino remains fairly on course.

Much is being made of the slowdown in the HispanicLatino birthrate since 2007.  As the Great Recession took hold, it dampened the disposition of HispanicLatinos to add to their families.  Coupled with the dramatic increases in deportation of individuals in the country illegally and increased border security to prevent their return, the lower birth rate is causing some observers to move quickly to ratchet down estimates of the size of the HispanicLatino population going forward.

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Our Size Does Matter

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A cousin forwarded me what I thought was one of those ridiculous internet chain letters.  Instead of blogospheric claptrap, the letter contained a brilliant, graphic description of how almost insignificantly small the earth is compared to other stars and planets in the universe.  The earth’s sun – that thing we see every day that we might not realize is one million times the size of earth – is not even a pencil dot next to the massive supergiant, Antares.

“Humbling, isn’t it,” the letter smugly asks.  Ah, no.  Not humbling at all.  Quite the opposite:  It is exhilarating!  Despite our dinky size, we are alive compared to what we know – so far – of the rest of the universe, which appears to be generally a large empty, chilly, gaseous mass.

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Texas: Justices, Help Turn History Back

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his fellow justices are being asked to stop redistricting maps in Texas drawn by three federal judges who voided the plan of the state Legislature.  The three judges concluded state lawmakers purposefully diluted the strength of minority populations.  The 2010 Census confirmed that minorities provided the vast majority of the state’s demographic growth since 2000.  Scalia oversees appeals from Texas.  The Court’s response could be instructive to other states.

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A Different Kind of Tea Party

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My tea this morning is perfect.  As Premier of China and head of government and the State Council, I seldom get a bad cup of tea.  The intra-party struggles have been resolved.  We seem to be managing that burst of inflation that reared its head in the economy.  Our balance of payments continues to grow spectacularly in our favor.  Things are fine.  We need to open up credit a bit more, but generally we are on our way.  Why do I feel so odd, then?

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Gingrich: The Newt Slaveholder

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Newt Gingrich is at it again.  He sat down for an interview yesterday with CNN and repeated the idea that most of the world ridiculed when he offered it at the most recent Republican presidential debate.  The notion that local panels or juries would decide the fate of immigrants who are in the country illegally boggles the mind.  But he is serious.  He apparently believes that citizens other than hate-filled, blood-thirsty bigots would serve on the local boards.

Gingrich would have us believe, too, that such a system could be built.  The mountains of files, the numbers of lawyers, the need to hire experts to verify piles of paper – the whole thing is an unworkable mess.  Come to think of it already exists.  It used to be called the INS.

However unseemly and unmanageable his idea, Gingrich presses on.  His new system would never, ever grant citizenship or voting rights to the immigrant community – even after 25 years of lawful and productive existence.

You would think that someone from Georgia – especially someone who seeks to convince the public that he was paid $100 million to provide “historical perspective” to corporate interests after he left the Speakership – would know the definition of slavery.

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What Luck!

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Newt Gingrich’s proposal for local citizen juries to decide which of the individuals illegally in the country gets to stay is of course nuts.  Why even discuss it?  The arguments against it are monumental.  The idea is being laughed at across the board and it shows one of the reasons Gingrich would be an excellent choice for Republicans to nominate as their candidate for president – if they want to lose in a landslide.

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