Monday, June 21, 2004
Don't Inhale. Don't Blow Either.
It was kind of warm and nostalgic watching Bill Clinton on 60 Minutes last night--nice to remember a time when the economy created 22 million jobs, the country was mostly at peace, the president could speak in complete sentences, and the biggest national problems we had regarded extramarital blow jobs. But the interview was mighty light on the genuinely newsworthy, and will be remembered largely for the personal revelations, the scene we all had to imagine before now, when he told Hillary the truth. And the interview won't convince anybody who already holds an opinion about Clinton, one way or the other, to change it. From what I've been able to glean, his book won't change any minds either. Salon's Geraldine Sealey has a summary of the interview and her impressions of it here.
Recommended Reading: Tim Harper of the Toronto Star on the influence of religion on the 2004 presidential election. He cites some poll numbers from a recent edition of Time magazine:
It was kind of warm and nostalgic watching Bill Clinton on 60 Minutes last night--nice to remember a time when the economy created 22 million jobs, the country was mostly at peace, the president could speak in complete sentences, and the biggest national problems we had regarded extramarital blow jobs. But the interview was mighty light on the genuinely newsworthy, and will be remembered largely for the personal revelations, the scene we all had to imagine before now, when he told Hillary the truth. And the interview won't convince anybody who already holds an opinion about Clinton, one way or the other, to change it. From what I've been able to glean, his book won't change any minds either. Salon's Geraldine Sealey has a summary of the interview and her impressions of it here.
Recommended Reading: Tim Harper of the Toronto Star on the influence of religion on the 2004 presidential election. He cites some poll numbers from a recent edition of Time magazine:
Respondents who call themselves "very religious" back Bush over Kerry, 59 per cent to 35 per cent; and those calling themselves "not religious" back Kerry over Bush, 69 per cent to 22 per cent."United We Stand"? I don't think so.
Should a president be guided by his personal faith in developing policy? Again the gulf--63 per cent of Democrats say "no" while 70 per cent of Republicans say "yes."
Bush's "intense religious views" worried 2 per cent of those who will vote to re-elect him, but worry 34 per cent of those who told the pollsters they would vote Kerry.
Similarly, only 5 per cent of Bush voters agreed the president's faith made him too closed-minded, while 65 per cent of Kerry backers agreed with the statement.
