OPINION

08/27/2008

Carl P. Leubsdorf: Obama-JFK comparisons run deep

AP PHOTOS

There are compelling similarities between the career trajectories of John F. Kennedy, the young, dynamic Democrat, and Barack Obama, the young, dynamic Democrat.
Q&A Ron Kirk
Blog: Trail Blazers

Ron Kirk: Q&A on the Southern vote, race and Democratic moderates
An excerpt from an e-mail exchange yesterday between former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, an Obama backer at the Denver convention, and Dallas Morning News editorial columnist William McKenzie.

Mark Halperin: Will overreach scuttle Obama's big plans?
Most national polls suggest that the presidential race is very tight. Yet Barack Obama seems to be targeting enough states to net 370 electoral votes, about 100 more than he needs. If the strategy backfires, it could cost him a race he should win.

Eugene Robinson: Democrats, stop your fretting
I was going to say that the Republican Party's hobby is driving Democrats crazy with worry, but the truth is that the Democrats are doing this to themselves.

Mark Davis: Tonight, tonight at the DNC
I'm guessing Bill Clinton will talk about Bill Clinton. He clearly feels he has not been shown sufficient deference by the upstart Obama supporters. Throw in the bitterness of his wife's defeat, and it may be hard for the former president to stay on the message a unity-hungry convention craves.

Froma Harrop: Increasingly, Americans outsource health care
What does this "medical tourism" mean for American providers? It means they had better get cracking on supporting a national health care system that insures everyone and controls costs. Clearly, they no longer have a monopoly hold on the U.S. consumer.

08/26/2008

William McKenzie: Can Obama score among 'values voters'?
Democrats are making a play this week for those "values voters" whose faith shapes their politics. Some party secularists may not like that, but they do want to win. And they have a new opening, for which they can thank Barack Obama and Karl Rove.

Richard Cohen: Obama is right to make establishment pick
I applaud Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate, but the one thing he does not represent is change.

Balance of Opinion: What the Biden pick says about Obama
As pundits are taking measure of Joe Biden and what the Delaware senator brings to the Democratic ticket, they also are considering what the selection says about the decision-maker.

08/25/2008

Dalton Sherman: I believe in me. Do you?
A fifth-grader from Charles Rice Learning Center in South Dallas reminds 17,500 DISD teachers, administrators and staffers what their mission is all about.

New York Times: Who writes the checks for conventions?
The lush national conventions – staged in the name of ordinary Americans – are largely paid for by private, unlimited donations from corporations, deep-pocketed donors and unions that shop 24/7 for privileged government access. So much for changing the way Washington works.

Georgie Anne Geyer: What awaits the next chief executive?
The next president, no matter who he is, will find an American situation intensely changed from the ones our former presidents inherited. These changes are painfully difficult ones to address: a hollowed-out military, only a mirage of prosperity and serious danger abroad.

Sophia Dembling: Oak Cliff needs real, sustainable business
Sure, it's nice to see a fresh new building replace the ratty nail salon that sat on that corner. But another check-cashing place offers nothing my neighborhood needs. There's one a few doors down in the same shopping center and yet another across Ithe street.

08/23/2008

Steve Chapman: The perils of a lower drinking age
And why permit 18-year-olds to vote but not drink? Because they have not shown a disproportionate tendency to abuse the franchise, to the peril of innocent bystanders.

Scott Henson: The case for lowering the legal drinking age
Encouraging more widespread respect for law and the justice system – and discouraging an oppositional culture that disdains government authority – is the best argument behind lowering the drinking age.

Gerald Britt: A blueprint for a successful DHA
Mayor Tom Leppert may want to consider a clean sweep of the Dallas Housing Authority board. At the very least, he should look for executives with deep experience in low-income housing and real estate development.

Craig Estes: Why I support Harrold ISD's gun policy
Students' security is the primary concern. But this is not just about security for the students, but security for teachers and staff members who often come to work early and stay late. While intended to keep guns out of schools, the gun-free zone also creates unarmed victims for those not deterred by a sign.

08/22/2008

Trey Garrison: Finding myself on the other side
We were somewhere outside of Amarillo driving toward Colorado when the feeling kicked in. It happens once every road trip. Usually I'm with my wife, but this time I was driving with a photographer on our way to the Continental Divide.

David Brooks: McCain's long-shot candidacy is taking hold
On Tuesdays, Senate Republicans hold a weekly policy lunch. The party leaders often hand out a Message of the Week that the senators are supposed to repeat at every opportunity. Sometimes there will be a pollster offering data that supposedly demonstrates the brilliance of the message and why it will lead to political nirvana.

Balance of Opinion: Obama gets conventional advice
With the opening of the Democratic National Convention just three days away, pundits are setting the stage, telling Barack Obama – with unbridled bluntless – that he's got his work cut out for him.

08/21/2008

Star Parker: Why Rick Warren's forum was a bad idea
Whatever good intentions Rick Warren may have, by posturing as a neutral broker between different points of view, many of which have profound moral and religious implications, he contributes to the moral ambiguity which we'd expect a pastor to be combating.

Carl Leubsdorf: Are political conventions still worth it?
Mostly, the Democrats next week and Republicans the week after in St. Paul will display a carefully scripted facade aimed at giving their party its best chance of winning. That raises the question of whether conventions are still worth the time, effort and money. Here's one enthusiastic vote in their favor.

Froma Harrop: It's no longer just about Hillary
After hearing her name placed in nomination at the Democrats' convention next week, Hillary Clinton will no doubt urge her followers to support Barack Obama. What good that gesture will do for the Obama candidacy remains to be seen. Mrs. Clinton has already made it several times, but a new Pew Research Center poll shows that 28 percent of her primary voters do not intend to vote for Mr. Obama, a number virtually unchanged from June.

Georgie Anne Geyer: Warren forum offered a great solution
Thanks to Pastor Rick Warren for what he did for common sense and, his favorite word, "civility," in the candidates' visit to his California church Saturday night.

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