An Unhealthy Debate
Obama and Biden's health-care deceptions.
Posted: Sunday, October 5, 2008
In his debate with Sarah Palin, Joe Biden launched a series of attacks on John McCain's health care proposal that are either badly confused or deeply dishonest. None of them stand up to scrutiny.  [Full Story]

In the Beginning
The Democratic ticket confuses science and theology.
Posted: Monday, September 8, 2008
Barack Obama and Joe Biden intentionally confuse the question of when life begins and the question of human equality, seeking to mask scientific facts with ill-informed theological smokescreens. That's rather strange behavior for the self-declared "party of science."  [Full Story]

Blinded by Science
Diana DeGette's memoir of confusion.
Posted: Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Congresswoman Diana DeGette, a leader in the fight for federal funding for embryo-destructive research, has written a memoir filled with factual errors, lacking in ethical arguments, and brimming with disgust at social and religious conservatives. But what it has to tell us about the confusion at the juncture of science and politics in America is even more troubling.   [Full Story]

Public Opinion and the Embryo Debates

Posted: Monday, July 14, 2008
Our political debates about stem cell research in recent years have stood in a peculiar relation to public opinion. Rather than seek to marshal public sentiment, or even quite build public support, all sides have wanted to claim a preexisting bedrock of widely shared attitudes backing their favored policy outcome.  [Full Story]

Marketing 101
There's a way to sell John McCain's economic plan. The campaign hasn't found it.
Posted: Friday, July 11, 2008
John McCain's new economic plan could appeal to exactly the voters he most needs to attract, if he could only bring himself to focus on its most important elements. Balancing the budget matters, but to American families today lowering the tax burden on parents matters a great deal more. McCain should emphasize the ways he would help those raising the next generation.  [Full Story]

A Theme for McCain's Pudding
Here's how to tie together the campaign's assortment of ideas: a reform agenda for the 21st century.
Posted: Thursday, May 22, 2008
A successful McCain campaign would begin with noting what is wrong with the Democrats' main theme: change. In an election year marked by a vague but pervasive sense of anxiety among voters, there is something ironic about the Democratic mantra. Change, after all, is exactly what Americans have been experiencing over the last several decades.  [Full Story]

Indignity and Bioethics
Steven Pinker discovers the human-dignity cabal.
Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2008
Human dignity has long been a contentious subject in American bioethics. A frequently employed if ill-defined concept in European political life, in international law, and in the ethical tradition of the West, dignity has had a particularly hard time finding its precise meaning and place in the Anglo-American sphere.  [Full Story]

America's Unhappiest Millionaire
Michelle Obama's gospel of misery.
Posted: Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Barack Obama's wife Michelle has been traveling the country delivering a stump speech that lays out a deeply and relentlessly negative vision of American life, in which everyone is treated unfairly, and especially her husband. The Senator himself, of course, manages a peppier and more upbeat message, but in fact, especially when seen in light of her speeches, the same dismal view seems to underlie his rhetoric too. Both Obamas think America is bitter and deeply depressed.  [Full Story]

Unknown Quantity
Are the Democrats gambling on a mystery man?
Posted: Wednesday, April 2, 2008
In the past few weeks, Barack Obama's links with two controversial figures -- Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright -- have come back to haunt him. For Democrats, the greatest worry must involve not the substance of either scandal, but the fact that Obama's connections to them are only now really emerging. As both parties have learned the hard way in the past, nominating a relatively unknown figure for the presidency can carry very serious risks.  [Full Story]

Obama Fatigue
The dangers of an elite celebrity candidacy.
Posted: Saturday, March 8, 2008
Barack Obama's campaign has benefited immensely from his rock star status revivalist message. But might this strength turn out to be a weakness? Will the youth and celebrity culture that now embraces Obama turn on him? And is the great production turning off blue collar voters?  [Full Story]