The presidential power grab

The Boston Globe has a fascinating article on what Bush’s refusal to veto bills really means: Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing …

How did Stephen Colbert get away with it?

Such a brilliant performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner: But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go …

the west wing

Why Farhad Manjoo still watches The West Wing: The show is a fiction, certainly. There isn’t a politician in the world like Jed Bartlet, an exceedingly smart, (mostly) honest man with principles, who doesn’t govern by politics, who takes counsel from the cooler, calmer heads on his staff, and even from his opponents. Today in …

Marquette U doesn’t believe in free speech

A dental student at Marquette University got in a bit of trouble over a blog posting. I’ll let the Marquette Warrior sum it up: But this is the first case we know of (there probably have been many we don’t know of) when a precipitous and emotional reaction from University administrators led to a punishment …