The Jaker

More than anything else, Southerners value authenticity. To illustrate this, let me get a bit anecdotal and tell you about my father, whom if you remember is a card carrying, rock-ribbed conservative who listens to Rush Limbaugh nearly every single day. Anybody care to take a wild guess about who he wanted to win this election? To those who guessed George W. Bush, nice try, but no cigar. My father wanted Howard Dean to win. He liked the fact that governor said what he meant and meant what he said. He liked Dean's record with the Vermont budget. And he doesn't like George W. Bush that much, so he was eager to vote for someone else, but only if they met his criteria. Ironically enough, Howard Dean met this criteria. John Kerry, unfortunately, didn't. The 'voted for before I voted against' meme was just too damaging in my father eyes (as well as many others, I would imagine.)

Running a slick national campaign with high-dollar ads can do a little bit, but that strategy alone will never win in the South. It's not that people aren't willing to vote in their economic interests, but many are simply unaware that voting Democrat would be in their economic interest. We must get much more creative and energetic in communicating to the average voter.

The bottom line is that the West has been suckered by Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin. Rather, he's a Russified Pinochet or Franco. And he is not guiding Russia toward free-market democracy, but into fascism.

Some economists believe that the administration, while publicly professing support for a strong dollar, actually prefers the decline in the greenback's value against other currencies as a way of dealing with the country's huge trade deficit.

The point is to follow red-region Democrats who have diminished the electoral impact of traditional social issues by redefining the values debate on economic and class terms.

It was one reason I thought Dean was a decent strategic choice (at least before his mid-winter gaffe-fest). My feeling was that the party was dysfunctional: You had to win the support of liberals to win the nomination, but what you had to do to win their support basically made you unelectable. The trick, in my mind, was to appeal to liberals in the least substantive (and therefore least damaging) way possible. In Dean, I saw someone who appealed to liberals stylistically--with his angry, anti-Bush screeds--while remaining substantively pretty moderate.

The United States cannot allow a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda, with apocalyptic aims, to kill its citizens; nor could it allow a regime like the Taliban to harbor terrorists. But the United States also has to recognize the roots of Al Qaeda in the cauldron of the Middle East--not in its poverty or destitution, but in its troubled relations to the West, for which the West itself bears some responsibility. Invading and occupying Iraq was exactly the wrong thing to do.

Should we be engaged, as Peter suggests, in a "global campaign for freedom"? America should always stand for freedom--although not the Republicans' Wal-Mart variety--but what we ought to do about it depends on historical circumstances. No one is suggesting, I hope, that the United States invade or break relations with China because it is still a communist oligarchy. And the Middle East is, if anything, an even more problematic region for advocates of global democracy. Genuine democracy, and not simply a transient, jerry-rigged electoral process erected atop sectarian chaos, will eventually come to that region, but it will be through the initiative of the people themselves, not through the imposition of a hostile power.

For example, to help parents juggle the demands of work and raising their kids, Democrats ought to champion paid parental leave policies as well as flextime arrangements with employers. But they should also talk more about reducing teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births, which have led to an expansion of single-parent families beset by poverty, welfare dependence, and other social ills.

Just as religious advocates of the "Social Gospel" infused early 20th century progressivism with moral fervor, Democrats should couch their social initiatives in the language of faith and morality. The sad truth is that since Clinton's departure, Democrats have had little to say about growing poverty and inequality in America. Surely, they are moral issues no less than abortion and gay marriage, and they give Democrats an opportunity to speak unambiguously of right and wrong.

The pundits have said that this election was decided on the issue of moral values. I don't believe that. It is a moral value to provide health care. It is a moral value to educate our young people. The sense of community that comes from full participation in our Democracy is a moral value. Honesty is a moral value.

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

The report finds that extending the life of the trust fund into the 22nd century, with no change in benefits, would require additional revenues equal to only 0.54 percent of G.D.P. That's less than 3 percent of federal spending - less than we're currently spending in Iraq. And it's only about one-quarter of the revenue lost each year because of President Bush's tax cuts - roughly equal to the fraction of those cuts that goes to people with incomes over $500,000 a year.

I will run for Governor of New York in 2006. I believe I can be a very good governor and I think the people of this state will be pleased by the job I do as governor.
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I bring people together whether they like it or not and we tackle complex problems – not with band-aid solutions, but with major reform and real change. We did it in the financial industry and other sectors and we can do it in government.

There is consensus in these reports that U.S. public diplomacy is in crisis. Missing are strong leadership, strategic direction, adequate coordination, sufficient resources, and a culture of measurement and evaluation. America's image problem, many suggest, is linked to perceptions of the United States as arrogant, hypocritical, and self-indulgent. There is agreement too that public diplomacy could be a powerful asset with stronger Presidential leadership, Congressional support, inter-agency coordination, partnership with the private sector, and resources (people, tools, structures, programs, funding). Solutions lie not in short term, manipulative public relations. Results will depend on fundamental transformation of strategic communication instruments and a sustained long term, approach at the level of ideas, cultures, and values.

MATTHEWS: How old were you when you chose to be heterosexual?
FALWELL: Oh, I don't remember that.
MATTHEWS: Well, you must, because you say it's a big decision.
FALWELL: Well, I started dating when I was about 13.
MATTHEWS: And you had to decide between boys and girls. And you chose girls.
FALWELL: I never had to decide. I never thought about it.