Yearly Archives: 2004

Practice What You Preach

11/11/2004 – 11:52 am

Today is the 11th of November; when I was a child, people still called this “Armistice Day,” in commemoration of the cease-fire that ended the First World War. Maybe it’s a good day to call an armistice in America’s red-vs.-blue civil war. Maybe not. Presidential advisor Karl Rove was quoted in Wednesday’s New York Times […]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

The Government We Deserve

11/4/2004 – 9:33 am

It was dusk on Election Day and I was reaching a state of exhilaration. Exhausted, dehydrated, I had been running on adrenaline for the past 36 hours and now I was literally running through a low-income housing project in Ocala, Florida. We’d been through there a few days before, knocking on doors, urging citizens to […]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

Weather is Fine, Wish You Were Here

10/28/2004 – 3:14 pm

How’d you like a pre-election postcard from central Florida? I left 30-degree Vermont Monday and landed back in what seems the middle of July, made all the hotter by the political hot air. My friend Matt and I volunteered to spend the last week before the election helping MoveOn’s political action committee turn out the […]

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The Machine Age

10/21/2004 – 2:07 pm

I’ve had a profound sense of déjà vu for the past few weeks and this year, it’s not coming from the Red Sox. As we enter the final, agonizing weeks of the election campaign it’s become clear that the Republican Party has revived, on a national level, a device that was once the specialty of […]

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What’s In Your Wallet?

10/14/2004 – 4:22 pm

In my wallet is a green and white card with my name, address, date of birth, height, weight (approximately) and eye color, along with various codes and numbers. It’s my driver’s license and unlike almost every one of the millions of other American drivers’ licenses, it does not have a photo. Vermont is the only […]

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Missing the Point

10/7/2004 – 10:56 am

The key moment of Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate was not about toe-to-toe slugging or one side making a more exaggerated claim than the other. The crux of the debate was a question about African-American women and AIDS. Moderator Gwen Ifill posed the question to Vice President Dick Cheney. She said, “I want to talk to you […]

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What’s To Debate?

9/30/2004 – 10:24 am

Tonight’s first presidential debate will be a carefully stage-managed event; much has been made of the 32-page Memorandum of Understanding agreed upon by the campaigns, with provisions requiring the candidates to shake hands and prohibiting them from moving from behind their podia or posing questions – or even directly addressing – their opponent (rhetorical questions […]

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