Washington Post columnist David Broder reports on Elvin T. Lim’s new book, The Anti-Intellectual Presidency, which documents the decline in logical argument in presidential speeches, not only from intervews with former presidential speechwriters, but also from a statistical analysis of the speeches themselves: In what must have been a heroic effort, he applied standard techniques of content analysis to state papers of every president from Washington to the second Bush.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK), proud sponsor the “Bridge to Nowhere” earmark, has been named a “Hero of the American Taxpayer” by a coalition of Beltway anti-tax groups — Americans for Tax Reform, American Shareholders Association, Alliance for Worker Freedom, and the 60 Plus Association. Actually, “coalition” might be too strong a term.  The American Shareholders Association and the Alliance for Worker Freedom are actually projects of lobbyist Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.  Only the 60 Plus

Sometimes, less is more. The latest polling data from Gallup suggests that Americans overwhelmingly prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions, as opposed to taking steps to redistribute wealth.  Moreover, a majority of those making over $30,000 tend to agree that the government is doing too much (a figure generally consistent with the 2004 presidential exit poll data). John McCain may have shot himself in the foot with

Perhaps the most pathetic thing about John McCain’s appearance before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials yesterday was its sheer predictability on the issue of illegal immigraion. Although McCain’s prepared remarks referred to the need to prove to the (rightly) skeptical public that we can and will secure our borders before taking other measures, the Q & A that followed found McCain declaring that comprehensive immigration reform that includes a