The California recall and Arnold Schwarzenegger's candidacy have been a boon to President Bush, pushing questions about Iraq and stories about the Democratic presidential campaign off the front pages and out of the nightly newscasts.
Two weeks ago, questions about Iraq, reconstruction and weapons of mass destruction accounted for more than an hour of news time on the evening network newscasts. Last week, that was cut in half, said Matthew T. Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs.
"Karl Rove must be the luckiest man on the planet. The phrase 'yellowcake uranium' has completely disappeared from the public lexicon," said Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and director of the Norman Lear Center, which studies the convergence of entertainment and society.
"Attention is a limited quality, and the public only has a certain amount of attention it can pay to things at one time. And that's also true of the media, and right now the recall and the freak show surrounding it has pretty much used up the available attention," Mr. Kaplan said.
Well, as Rove previously has used War as a method of distraction, I guess I should be glad that this time he's only sacrificing California's already dwindling dignity rather than the lives of our soldiers.
This is a "team" blog. We are a bunch of
Americans, whose rising distress
in our leader's decisions brought us together to make this site.
As Bush said, he's a "uniter." Many of us have never even met.
That's the internet for you.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves." - John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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