TALK / TALK
A fun, feisty, and philosophical dialogue among two leading independents as they reviewed the week's top political news.
ARCHIVES: 2006 ‐ 2010
For years, Fred Newman and Jacqueline Salit ‐‐ two leading activists and intellectuals within the independent political movement ‐‐ watched the political talk shows and discussed them over coffee. In early 2005, they began transcribing these conversations and distributing them to their friends and followers. Over the years, their "talk about the talk" developed into a popular weekly missive distributed via e‐mail to tens of thousands of readers worldwide. Making ﴾Non﴿ Sense of an Irrational World is a compilation of some of their most popular and thought provoking discussions from the last five years.
Back to the Past, or Deconstructing Arnold.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was on "Meet the Press." Here's some of his political approach: It doesn't matter what party you're from, it's all about the people. The reason we've been successful is that we don't look at issues as "Democrat" or "Republican" issues, we're doing the work of the people. Does that make him a new kind of politician?
Continuing the End of History.
Did independents gain greater political strength off of the results of the election? There's an old saying in politics: Power is what power does. If you don't exercise it, there is no power. Power as an abstraction means nothing. So the answer depends on what independents do.
Independents are Controlling the Action.
It was the independents that made the war the issue of the campaign. Where else did it come from? It didn't come from the Democrats. It didn't come from the Republicans. It came from the independent movement.
Benchmarks or Stenchmarks: It’s all a Matter of Semantics.
If you listen to the pundits now, they want to make it sound like there are real differences between the two positions (on the war). But, obviously, there are not. Both parties supported the war. They supported all the appropriations. There never was much of a difference between them on this question and there still isn't.
The Obama Drama.
In addition to the war, another focus on this week's shows was the potential presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Bob Novak commented that his popularity is a measure of the resistance within the Democratic Party to a Hillary Clinton candidacy.
Bush Gets Taken to the Watershed.
The Bush press conference announcing adjust-ments in his Iraq policy was a big topic this week. John McLaughlin called it a "water-shed."
Moving On.
...the world is moving on. McLaughlin would say that third world (so-called) insurgencies are growing, that the creditability of the U.S. is decreasing, that the balance of power in the world is shifting, that the drive for self-determination in the Arab world and Africa and Latin America is strong.
On the Road.
Is there such a thing as American moral leadership or American moral standing that is being eroded?
Selling the War.
The strategy of moving the front of the war on terror to Afghanistan, to Iraq, to the Middle East and off of American soil has been successful. Still, Cheney has to defend the position that this makes us safer in the long-term.