- Only five people have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom & the Congressional Gold Medal but one of those names probably isn’t recognizeable to most people. Jonathan Alter looks at the life of Norman Borlaug.
- John Fund looks at the national implications of Dr. Broun’s upset victory in a special House race in Georgia.
- Rich Lowry says Hillary Clinton “has done more than any other Democrat to show she’s ready to be president” and says “I will never support her, but nor will I ever again underestimate her.”
- Pat Buchanan takes the opposing view on Hillary Clinton seeing her debate-follow-up attack on Sen. Obama as a misstep and taking his side on the issue.
- David S. Corn notes that despite Richardson & Romney’s push to elect governors they haven’t yet won back the support they gave.
Peggy Noonan discusses Robert Novak’s new memoir and notes the following from his stories and those like it she has read about Washington in the 1950’s:
Washington in the 1950s was a pretty wonderful place to be. It seems in almost everyone’s memoirs, certainly this one, to have been the last time Washington was fun. It was “shabbier and less pretentious” than today, but it was also an easier place, a more human one, in part, apparently, because everyone in the White House, on the Hill, and in the newspaper bureaus was drunk. (In fact, that would explain the ’50s, wouldn’t it?) In the Washington young Mr. Novak enters, senators plot over whiskey and cigars; reporters knock back scotches while trading tidbits at the press-club bar; lunches with sources begin with doubles; the senate majority leader is soused in the lobby, singing to himself. Beehived women chain-smoke with the boys and listen to their tales of woe.
- Tom Bevan deconstructs slogans as well as John Edwards stance on them.
- Peggy Noonan says the Bush administration has left the base entirely and lays into him like I haven’t seen anyone do in a long while. A further sign Republicans are turning on this administration and are looking for a change in this election.
- Richard Reeves uses the Congressional Democratic strategy of Vietnam to highlight the current Republican strategy toward Iraq and says Only Republicans Can Stop the War and says if they don’t they face defeat in the next election.
- Joe Klein writes about Religion, good works & the opposite of sin and the two presidential candidates who are doing the same.
It is Friday which means its time to recap what the columnists have been saying about the elections this past week. This week the big talk of the town was Rudy Giuliani’s abortion stance.
- Rich Lowry sums up the conservative viewpoint that has now lead Rudy Giuliani to begin “clarifying” his abortion views. ”
- Pat Buchanan also writes about the Giuliani abortion issue and doesn’t write favorably toward Giuliani or his position.
“Rudy’s pro-choice, pro-Scalia stance seems intellectually incoherent and politically inexplicable. He loses part of the pro-life vote and all the pro-choice vote? This is smart politics?”
- Richard Cohen looks inside Giuliani’s conflicting views.
- George Will writes about the Republican strategy to take back the House in ‘08.
Howard Kurtz writes about how stories move from the campaign trail to our minds.
The Return of Pragmatism?
Howard Fineman sees a return to Bush 41 style foreign policy and he finds it in some unlikely sources. Who has been talking with Colin Powell & who has been talking with Brent Scowcroft, Fineman has the scoop?
Entitlement
Richard Reeves uses John Edward’s pricey haircuts and a few other examples to speak to a growing sense of “entitlement” in our nation and in our elected officials.
The Abortion Wars
Eleanor Clift takes a look at the impact a major Supreme Court ruling might have on the campaigns and the country.
Starting today every Friday I will give you a review of what some of the top columnists in the country were writing about during the week relating to the ‘08 election.
- Peggy Noonan
On Friday she had an interesting piece entitled McCain’s Meltdown.
- E.J. Dionne Jr.
Writes about what he terms the McCain Tragedy.
- Larry Kudlow
Writes about Four Dead Bodies or what he sees as signs of an impending inflation. (A changing economic picture could radically alter the campaigns.)
