The Election of 2002
Even with the advantage of Bush’s popularity and the national security issues, Republicans did resort to some chicanery in the 2002 by-elections. New Hampshire Republicans successfully jammed...
View ArticleThe Election of 2004
In addition to working to put Nader on the ballot, the Republicans in 2004 attempted to hold down the number of registered voters who were most likely to vote for Democrat Kerry. In Arizona,...
View ArticleElectronic Fraud in 2004 Elections?
The New York Times has noted that the forms of electronic voting introduced in the United States “could end up undermining democracy by producing unreliable election results that cannot be truly...
View ArticleThe Media Accommodates the Right
The mainstream American press is certainly not an adjunct to the Republican Party, but its inclination, since the nineties, to handle Republicans with kid gloves has contributed to the GOP’s progress...
View ArticleGeorge W. Bush’s News Management
The Bush administration had shown enormous skill in information management. It built upon two decades of Republican success in information management and in framing the issues. Journalists have learned...
View ArticleThe Plame Case
The administration’s handling of the Plame matter is illustrative of how it handles critics and uses the press. Before the invasion of Iraq, Columnist Robert Novak wrote that he had learned in the...
View ArticleBushies Pressure Public Broadcasting
Public Broadcasting, which has long been denounced by conservatives for its liberal bias, has moved to the right since 1993. Even earlier, PBS sought to eliminate Republican complaints. When the Nixon...
View ArticleKid-Gloves Coverage for G.W. Bush and Conservatives
The media’s kind treatment of George W. Bush and his administration has been remarkable and is grounded in structural conditions that shape the conduct of the contemporary press. During the campaign of...
View ArticleIs the Mainstream Media Snoozy?
What Palast called “snoozy” probably meant lazy, which included a disinclination to report things many people did not want to read. Moreover, the U.S. press developed a “heard instinct” which...
View ArticleThe Media and US Foreign Policy
Sustained criticism of fundamental U.S. foreign policy has not been a mark of the mainstream U.S. media for decades. Positions that appear too critical of entrenched economic power or offer sustained...
View ArticlePress Treatment of Democrats
MSNBC offered a steady diet of “bash Clinton all the time” during the nation’s long obsession with his sex life and Whitewater. Was this due to the entertainment value of the stories or because...
View ArticleConstraints Effecting Journalism
Explaining why President George W. Bush was getting an easy ride, Harris wrote,” There is no well-coordinated corps of aggrieved and methodical people who start each day looking for ways to expose and...
View ArticleThe Transformation of Congressional Republicans
The Republican who engineered the Republican triumph of 1994 was neither a NeoCon nor a Christian Restorationist. He had contempt for the gentlemanly Republican leadership he encountered. Newt Gingrich...
View ArticleNewt’s Followers and the Courts
The Right was to demonstrate demonstrated impatience with the courts when they took positions contrary to what conservatives expected. When the judiciary failed to support indefinitely prolonging the...
View ArticleOne Party Government and the Absence of Congressional Oversight
Historian Lewis L. Gould has noted that Republicans have become so arrogant and high-handed in the exercise of power that they have raised doubts about whether the G.O.P. “really believe[s] in the...
View ArticleProcedural Abuses and the Decline of Minority Party Rights Under Republican...
Procedural Abuses and the Decline of Minority Party Rights Two respected observers--moderate Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution and conservative Norman Ornstein, have observed that Democrats...
View ArticleThe K Street Project
The so-called K Street Project was a potent tool for increasing Republican power. It was designed to force lobbying firms to purge Democrats, hire Republicans, and direct their contributions to...
View ArticleRepublican Scandals in G.W. Bush's SEcond T4erm
When George W. Bush’s second term began, pundit Kevin Drum said it would be marked by scandal. He thought they would be particularly susceptible to scandal because “Both Bush and the current Republican...
View ArticleRepublican Conservatism Falls Back on Authoritarian Roots
Lionel Trilling wrote in 1950 about conservatives becoming nearly extinct. In 2006, the ran the country but still complain “that liberals run things even when they manifestly don’t....” They still...
View ArticleImpatience with Dissent
Under George W. Bush, Republicans have evinced a great impatience with legitimate dissent. Republican campaigning techniques demonstrated an impatience with dissent and a disregard for the rights of...
View ArticleSome Possible Abuses of Power under George W. Bush
There is strong reason to believe that the FBI was used in an effort to influence a Philadelphia election. The Philadelphia mayoral election of 2004provided a blatant example of how the abuse of...
View ArticleBush Fires Eight US Attorneys
In George W. Bush's second term, the unwarranted firings of eight U.S. Attorneys did become major news. The Department of Justice ousted Carol Lam of San Diego in a purge of U.S. Attorneys. She put...
View ArticleThe G.W. Bush Administration and Secrecy
Even more dangerous for the republic than using the FBI for political purposes or the Interior Department manipulating situations to enrich a key Republican lobbyist is the persistent use of secrecy as...
View ArticleMore on Bush Secrecy
In dealing with Congress, the Bush administration has been worse than its predecessors in sharing information. To avoid confirmation hearings, it has resorted to a number of recess appointments. When...
View ArticleAbusing Detainees
The American public learned in April 2004 that some detainees were being abused in Iraq by U.S. military police who were encouraged to do so by Military Intelligence and by civilian employees of...
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