Tag Archives: John McCain

The Fightin’ Fifth!

I spent 13 hours at my local polling place Tuesday. No, it didn’t take that long to vote. I volunteered to help out for a few hours, but the crowd was so big that I stayed for a few more and then a few more after that. Since I was the newbie on the poll […]

Return to Normal

It’s cold again. The furnace kicked on again this week, although we still wear sweaters in the house. The storm windows are up and the first snow storm of the year just missed us. The Adirondack Mountains to the west and the Green Mountains to the east both got hit Tuesday, but here the valley; […]

The Real McCain

I hate to keep doing this, because I think it’s unfair to Barack Obama, but I can’t help it. I keep seeing, in this campaign, shades of the 1992 Bush/Quayle-Clinton/Gore matchup. In the last month of the ’92 campaign, with a sluggish economy controlling the debate, the Republican candidate was falling behind in the polls. […]

“My Hot Little Hand”

It was an evening in the mid-1970s and I was riding with my dad in his pickup. The AM radio was tuned to 1180 WHAM and Ed Hasbrouck’s talk show was on. The topic was the American economy, which at that moment wasn’t doing very well. Ed was recalling the bank failures of the Great […]

State of the Race

The front page of today’s New York Times says George W. Bush in July gave orders for American forces in Pakistan to carry out operations without notifying the Pakistani government. Nearly a year ago, in a Democratic debate, Sen. Barack Obama said that if he is elected president and has a chance to capture or […]

Off Limits

One of the classiest moments of Bill Clinton’s political career occurred in the middle of the 1992 general election. After weeks of battling “bimbo eruptions,” the press was starting to pick up on rumors about George H. W. Bush’s mistress. In response, Mr. Clinton said, “I didn’t like it when people said it about me […]

General Wheeler’s War

On the morning of June 24, 1898, American forces advanced toward Las Guasimas, Cuba under the command of Brigadier General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler. The aged general was a cavalry commander who’d fought for the Confederates in the Civil War. Heavy fire from Spanish troops halted the advance and battle ensued. Gen. Wheeler called for […]