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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
http://www.itworld.com/Man/2681/061023copa/
Trial challenging Child Online Protection Act begins
IDG News Service 10/23/06
Grant Gross, IDG News Service, Washington BureauA federal trial that began Monday in Philadelphia will decide whetheroperators of Web sites can be jailed and fined for not blocking children'saccess to materials deemed "harmful" to them.
The U.S. Congress passed the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) in 1998, andthe law has never been enforced because of court challenges against it. Afederal district court in Philadelphia and a federal appeals court havefound the law unconstitutional on freedom of speech grounds, and the U.S.Supreme Court upheld the ban on enforcement of the law in June 2004.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/bi/gold_print.cgi
President Obama? It depends upon what's beyond the buzz
09:13 AM CDT on Tuesday, October 24, 2006
And now it's Barack Obama's turn. The media glare is full force on theIllinois Democrat since he cracked open the door Sunday to a presidentialbid.
For a while, the first-term senator had kept it firmly closed. But whenevera politician says something like, "Given the responses that I've beengetting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility,"you know he is really thinking about running.
That's what Mr. Obama said on Meet the Press. And his titillating responsefollows urgings to run from a pair of dissimilar New York Times columnists,the rightish David Brooks and the leftish Frank Rich.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.alternet.org/stories/43365/
The Problematic Pop-Culture Movement to 'Save' Africa
By G. Pascal Zachary, AlterNet
Posted on October 24, 2006, Printed on October 24, 2006
Madonna, famous for going to extremes to gain attention, is reminding theworld in a fresh way that Americans abroad are dangerous. A wideningcontroversy surrounds her adoption of a one-year-old African baby from theimpoverished country of Malawi. And the debacle illustrates how ham-handed,clumsy and ineffective American aid efforts can be. Stunts like Madonna'sperversely tend to reinforce Americans' sense of moral superiority --without doing much for the aid recipients themselves.
The former Material Girl's misadventures in adopting the boy, David Banda,have made her the newest Ugly American -- big-footing her way through aforeign country, violating local laws and sensibilities in the name of aprivate agenda she calls "doing good." Now even the father of the boy saysMadonna's adoption is a mistake, joining a growing number of human-rightscritics is saying the entertainer should return the child.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102406J.shtml
Advertising Terrorism
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown
Monday 23 October 2006
The key to terrorism is not the act - but the fear of the act.
Tonight, a special comment on the advertising of terrorism - thecommercial you have already seen.
It is a distillation of everything this administration and the party inpower have tried to do these last five years and six weeks.
It is from the Republican National Committee;
It shows images of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri;
It offers quotes from them - all as a clock ticks ominously in thebackground.
It concludes with what Zawahiri may or may not have said to a Pakistanijournalist as long ago as 2001: His dubious claim that he had purchased
"suitcase bombs."
The quotation is followed (by sheer coincidence no doubt) by an image ofa massive explosion.
"These are the stakes," appears on the screen, quoting exactly fromLyndon Johnson's infamous nuclear scare commercial from 1964.
"Vote - November 7th."
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.bcheights.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=c8d39c9a-be40-4237-98a4-73378091dc25
Symposium puts justice system on trial
Grant Hatchimonji
Posted: 10/23/06
As part of The Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities' AnnualSymposium, Boston College hosted the discussion panel, entitled "The LeastDangerous Branch? Liberty, Justice and the U.S. Supreme Court," in RobshamTheater on Saturday. The panel consisted of three members: Judge RichardPosner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; Renée M.Landers, associate professor of law at Suffolk University Law School; DavidGreenberg, professor of history and journalism and media studies at RutgersUniversity; and the moderator, Jeffrey Rosen, legal affairs editor of TheNew Republic and law professor at George Washington University. Theirdiscussions ranged from what makes a good justice, to defining andexercising temperament, to judicial exposure before opening up the panel toquestions from the audience.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301133.html?referrer=email
U.N. Says Human Rights Violators Cite U.S.
By Nick Wadhams
Associated Press
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; A04
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 23 -- Several governments around the world have triedto rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are onlyfollowing the U.S. example in fighting terrorism, the U.N. specialrapporteur on torture said Monday.
Manfred Nowak said that when he criticizes governments for theirquestionable treatment of detainees, they respond by telling him that if theUnited States does something, it must be all right. He would not name anycountries except Jordan.
"The United States has been the pioneer . . . of human rights and is acountry that has a high reputation in the world," Nowak said at a newsconference. "Today, many other governments are kind of saying: 'But why areyou criticizing us? We are not doing something different than what theUnited States is doing.' "
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301069.html?referrer=email
Debt Keeping Troops From Duty
Growing Numbers Seen as Security Risks Because of Finances
By Thomas Watkins
Associated Press
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; A17
SAN DIEGO -- Thousands of U.S. troops are being barred from overseas dutybecause they are so deep in debt they are considered security risks,according to an Associated Press review of military records.
The number of troops held back has climbed dramatically in the past fewyears. While they appear to represent a very small percentage of all U.S.military personnel, the increase is occurring at a time when the armedforces are stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We are seeing an alarming trend in degrading financial health," said Capt.Mark D. Patton, commanding officer at San Diego's Naval Base Point Loma.
The Pentagon contends that financial problems can distract personnel fromtheir duties or make them vulnerable to bribery and treason. As a result,those who fall heavily into debt can be stripped of the security clearancesthey need to go overseas.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102301174.html?referrer=email
Solidly Republican, Suddenly in Doubt
GOP Faces Unlikely Challenges in West
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; A08
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- It is, perhaps, the political equivalent of hellfreezing over in the interior West.
This red state where conservative Republicans routinely wipe the floor withhapless Democrats has a Republican running for Congress who just might lose.
The suddenly competitive race is a delicious development for Larry Grant, aDemocratic candidate for the House who finds himself transformed fromsacrificial lamb to reason for worry among national Republican strategists.
His Republican opponent is Bill Sali, an eight-term state representativewith a corrosive reputation for irking his fellow Republicans. TheRepublican speaker of the Idaho House, Bruce Newcomb, said this spring ofSali: "That idiot is just an absolute idiot."
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/43359
Vets group proves GOP does not support troops
By Bob Geiger
Posted on October 23, 2006, Printed on October 24, 2006
Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director and founder of Iraq & AfghanistanVeterans of America (IAVA), the country's first and largest Iraq Veteransgroup, announced on Friday that IAVA has made available a web site givingthe results of their analysis of who in Congress truly backs up their wordson supporting the troops.
"Sure, politicians say they support the troops. But whose votes back uptheir rhetoric, and who's just wearing an American flag lapel pin?" askedRieckhoff in a Huffington Post column last week. "Now there's an easy way toknow for sure. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans ofAmerica's Action Fund has tallied up every Congressional vote cast ontroops' and veterans' issues for the last five years. We've crunched thenumbers, and given every legislator a letter grade - the IAVA CongressionalRating."
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/24/schools_of_many_colors.php
Schools Of Many Colors
Alan Jenkins
October 24, 2006
Alan Jenkins is executive director of The Opportunity Agenda, acommunications, research and advocacy organization with the mission ofbuilding the national will to expand opportunity in America. He is a formerassistant to the solicitor general at the U.S. Department of Justice andserved as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun from1990 to 1991.
As the Supreme Court begins its new term this month, parents and kids inhundreds of communities around the country are anxiously anticipating twocases that will be argued later this year. In two cases-one from Louisville,Ky., and the other, Seattle, Wash.-the court will consider whether localschool districts' voluntary efforts to foster racially diverse schools arelawful under the Constitution.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102500276_pf.html
Republican Party's liberal senator in danger
By Jason Szep
Reuters
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; 7:47 AM
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (Reuters) - Lincoln Chafee, the only RepublicanU.S. senator to vote against the Iraq war, often breaks ranks with his partyto survive in one of the nation's most liberal states.
But in two weeks Rhode Island may break ranks with Chafee, ousting one ofthe most moderate voices in the Republican Party and handing the Democratsone of six key seats needed to seize control of the Senate.
Democratic challenger Sheldon Whitehouse is casting the November 7 electionas a referendum on President George W. Bush and the Republican-controlledCongress, saying not just Rhode Island's future but the direction of thecountry is at stake.
Trailing by four to 11 points in recent polls, Chafee is stressing hisunique brand ofRepublicanism -- from championing environmental issues tofighting Bush's tax cuts, pressing for direct talks with Iran, opposingBush's Supreme Court nominee and even voting against Bush in the 2004election.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400691_pf.html
Rush Limbaugh On the Offensive Against Ad With Michael J. Fox
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; C01
Possibly worse than making fun of someone's disability is saying that it'simaginary. That is not to mock someone's body, but to challenge a person'sguts, integrity, sanity.
To Rush Limbaugh on Monday, Michael J. Fox looked like a faker. The actor,who suffers from Parkinson's disease, has done a series of political adssupporting candidates who favor stem cell research, including MarylandDemocrat Ben Cardin, who is running against Republican Michael Steele forthe Senate seat being vacated by Paul Sarbanes.
"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners."He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This isreally shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication orhe's acting."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401237_pf.html
Halliburton Cited For Iraq Overhead
Costs in Oil Contract Called Extreme
By Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; D01
Administrative overhead accounted for more than half the costs that aHalliburton Co. subsidiary passed on to the government under a key contractto restore Iraq's oil industry, a figure that critics said was unusuallyhigh.
A report released yesterday by the inspector general's office overseeingIraq spending found that at least 55 percent, or $163 million, of $296million in total costs rung up by Halliburton unit KBR went to expenses suchas back-office support, transportation and security. That percentage wassignificantly higher than it was on work by other firms in Iraq, and expertssaid it is far above what is typically found on a government contract.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401476_pf.html
A Contentious Campaign in a Battleground State
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A01
COALMONT, Tenn. -- John Layne is a 57-year-old white Republican with a longgray beard, no job and advancing emphysema. He arrived an hour early to hearHarold Ford Jr. speak in this struggling mountain town.
"Oh, sure, there's some prejudice," Layne said as he contemplated casting aballot for a black man. "I wouldn't want my daughter marrying one." But he'smore concerned about rising medical costs: When it comes to voting, "yougotta look at the person, not the color."
Ford announced his Senate campaign 18 months ago with three strikes againsthim: He was a Democrat, he was black, and he carried family baggage. Thefive-term congressman was wildly popular in his Memphis House district andwas viewed as a rising star in the Democratic Party. But statewide officeseemed beyond reach in Tennessee, a state with a history of racially dividedvoting where Republicans had won recent Senate races.
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Inside Higher Education
October 25, 2006
Searching for Answers at Gallaudet
As the fractious situation at Gallaudet University appears headed for somekind of resolution on Sunday, with a special meeting planned by theuniversity's Board of Trustees, supporters and critics of Jane K. Fernandesremain deeply divided over the core of the dispute about her possibleascension to the presidency.
Fernandes has continuously said that Gallaudet should be open for all deafpeople and has implied, and sometimes stated, that she has not been acceptedbecause she learned American Sign Language late in life. In an essay shewrote for The Washington Post titled "Many Ways of Being Deaf," she arguedthat during the selection process for the president, "the issues of audismand racism that have plagued the deaf community for centuries came to theforefront." Audism is discrimination based on hearing ability.
In a later interview, she said , "I am not a native signer.... Theprotesters want to make this about me." And in an online discussion, shewrote that the turmoil is caused by the external pressures on the deafcommunity, including cochlear implants, more powerful hearing aids andgenetic research. "My African American friends seem to understand thepressures the deaf community is feeling," she wrote.
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http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/25/aid
Inside Higher Education
Pell Grants Down, Tuition Up
Total funding for Pell Grants dropped to $12.7 billion in 2005-6, from $13.6billion the previous year - the first decline in six years. The average PellGrant per recipient dropped as well, to $2,354 from $2,474. Those figureswere released Tuesday by the College Board as part of its annual review ofcollege costs and financial aid.
As has been the pattern in recent years, tuition averages are up at ratesthat exceed the rate of inflation, with four-year institutions imposinglarger increases than community colleges. The average increase for communitycolleges is 4.1 percent for 2006-7, while the averages are 6.3 percent forpublic four-year institutions and 5.9 percent for private four-yearinstitutions. The percentage increase last year was identical for privateinstitutions and slightly larger in the public sector, where communitycolleges were up by 5.4 percent a year ago and public four years by 7.1percent.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400911_pf.html
Tax Breaks for Football
By George F. Will
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A17
Before Miami police quelled the recent riot involving more than 100University of Miami and Florida International University football players inthe Orange Bowl, fighting erupted among fans in the stands. In twomasterpieces of misdirected anxiety, the commissioner of the Atlantic CoastConference, to which Miami belongs, said the rioting "has no place incollege football" and the commissioner of FIU's Sun Belt Conference said"there is no place in higher education for the type of conduct exhibited."
But the question really raised by the barbaric behavior, and by nonviolentbut nonetheless lurid behavior by some universities, is: What is the placeof high-stakes football in higher education?
Twelve days before the Orange Bowl brawl, Republican Rep. Bill Thomas wrote,as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, an eight-pageletter to the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association,asking awkward questions. Thomas wonders how, or whether, big-time collegesports programs, which generate billions of tax-exempt dollars -- CBS paysthe NCAA an annual average of $545 million, mainly for the rights totelevise the March Madness basketball tournament -- further the purposes forwhich educational institutions are granted tax-exempt status. Otherquestions include:
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401276_pf.html
Schools May Offer More Single-Sex Classes Under New U.S. Regulations
By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A04
New federal regulations announced yesterday give school systems around thenation more flexibility in offering single-sex public education, even thoughthe Department of Education concluded a year ago that there was not enoughevidence to definitively evaluate single-sex classes.
Critics contended that the move was an invitation to schools to violate lawsprohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education programs.
The action, announced by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, givesschool systems more freedom to establish single-sex schools and classes, aswell as extracurricular activities at the elementary and secondary educationlevels. The regulations will take effect Nov. 24.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400909_pf.html
Insult to Injury in Iraq
By Frederick W. Kagan
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A17
It's been coming for a long time: the idea that fixing Iraq is the Iraqis'problem, not ours -- that we've done all we can and now it's up to them.
Such arguments have been latent in the Bush administration's Iraq strategyand explicit in Democratic critiques of that strategy for some time. NowDefense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has declared: "It's their country. . . .They're going to have to govern it, they're going to have to providesecurity for it, and they're going to have to do it sooner rather thanlater."
The implication of these arguments is clear: The United States shouldprepare to leave Iraq, after which the Iraqis will work out their owntroubles -- or they won't. In any event, we can no longer help them. Thisnotion is wrong and morally contemptible, and it endangers American securityaround the world.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400908.html
The Hard Way Out
'Victory' Collides With Reality in Iraq
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A17
Some months ago, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wasexplaining to a senior Bush administration official his plan for a phasedwithdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq over 12 months, in consultation with theIraqis. "We're going to do the same thing," the senior official confided,"but we're going to call it victory."
This week it became official: The Bush administration's Iraq policy is nolonger "stay the course" but, in the phrase of White House spokesman TonySnow, "a study in constant motion." The reality, as near as I can tell, isthat the administration isn't sure yet where to move after the Novemberelections. Nor are most of the administration's critics. Major newspaperscarried editorials or op-eds this week advocating some version of "changethe course," but they were vaporous when it came to details.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401223_pf.html
Radio Hosts Get Closer to the White House -- if Only Physically
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A07
It sounded like the kind of friendly interview that administration officialsexpected when they invited 42 mostly conservative radio hosts to broadcastyesterday from beneath a long, heated white tent on the president'sdoorstep.
"The American people, in my humble opinion, don't realize we're at war,"Neal Boortz, an acerbic libertarian based in Atlanta, told presidentialcounselor Dan Bartlett. "How do you communicate to the American people thatthere is a grave threat that must be addressed?"
Moments after Bartlett moved down the rows of folding tables to the nextinterview, however, Boortz said during a break: "I've adopted the opinionthat maybe I'd like to see the Republicans take it in the teeth in thiselection, lose the House and lick their wounds. They just haven't done enough to be rewarded with continued control in Washington."
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401563_pf.html
The GOP Leans on A Proven Strategy
White House Courts Conservative Base
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A01
Beset by discouraging polls and division within ideological ranks, the WhiteHouse is accelerating efforts to woo back disaffected conservatives andenergize the Republican base in a reprise of a strategy that succeeded inthe last two campaign cycles.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney have given multiple interviews to conservative journalists, senior adviser Karl Rove has telephoned religious and social activists, and the White House has staged signing ceremonies forlegislation cracking down on terrorism and illegal immigration. Two weeksbefore Election Day, Bush aides invited dozens of radio talk show hosts fora marathon broadcast from the White House yesterday to reach conservativelisteners.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/washington/25inquire.html?pagewanted=print
October 25, 2006
Congressman From Arizona Is the Focus of an Inquiry
By DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - Federal authorities in Arizona have opened an inquiryinto whether Representative Rick Renzi introduced legislation that benefiteda military contractor that employs his father, law enforcement officialssaid Tuesday.
The officials said the inquiry was at an early stage and that no searchwarrants had been issued, suggesting that investigators had yet to determinewhether there was a basis to open a formal investigation or empanel a grandjury.
Mr. Renzi, 48, a Republican who represents the First Congressional District,is a former insurance executive and real estate investor who was firstelected in 2002. Almost from the start, he has been a target of citizenwatchdog groups who have accused him of ethical laxity in office.
Law enforcement officials said that the most serious accusation involved Mr.Renzi's sponsorship of legislation in 2003 that appeared to indirectlybenefit the ManTech International Corporation, a communications companybased in Virginia that employs Mr. Renzi's father, Eugene, a retired Army general, as executive vice president.
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The New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/opinion/25dowd.html?pagewanted=print
October 25, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Running Against Themselves
By MAUREEN DOWD
Things have become so dire for the Republicans that now even Bush isdistancing himself from Bush.
The president is cutting and running from the president.
In a momentous event at the White House on Monday, Tony Snow made a majorannouncement about an important new strategy for Iraq. The president will nolonger stay the course on the rallying cry "stay the course."
A presidency built on message discipline (Message: "Stay the course") istrying to salvage itself with some last-minute un-messaging (Message: "Nomore stay the course").
Of course, the administration has never really said what "the course" is, soit was never really apparent what "staying" it meant, anyhow.
It was a wacky moment for Tony Snow, who renounced the slogan while stickingto the policy. "It left the wrong impression about what was going on," thepress secretary said, "and it allowed critics to say, 'Well, here's anadministration that's just embarked upon a policy and not looking at whatthe situation is,' when, in fact, it's just the opposite."
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/opinion/25wed1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
October 25, 2006
Editorial
A Congressional Endorsement
The most fundamental rule of democracy is that when elected officials failrepeatedly, voters throw them out of office. If the polls are anywhere nearaccurate, most Americans have concluded that the Republican Party -particularly the Republican majority in the House of Representatives - hasfailed egregiously. On Iraq. On ethics. On oversight of a reckless WhiteHouse. But that conviction sometimes comes into conflict with the feelingthat a good representative should be rewarded with re-election, withoutregard to party.
All of that brings us to Representative Christopher Shays, a Republican fromConnecticut's Fourth District. Mr. Shays has been in office for nearly 20years, during which his state has grown increasingly Democratic. This yearhis race with Diane Farrell, a former first selectwoman of Westport, is regarded as one of the tightest in the nation.
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