You are browsing the archives of 2009 December.

This will be my concluding post for this current year, and I want to
thank my faithful subscribers for supporting this website and its blog
The Prairie Editor.
2009 was quite a year, and all of us faced new challenges, new
political conditions, and new concerns.
No predictions here about 2010, except to say that [...]

As 2009 comes to its closing days, amid violent man-made and
Nature-originated turmoil and violence, as well as potentially profound
political and social changes in the human family which covers much of
the planet, North Americans, South Americans and Europeans pause
to celebrate a season of traditional holidays.
It’s as good a moment as any [...]

My title for this op ed comes from the polytonal operatic masterpiece
by Harry Partch, one of America’s great, influential (and now neglected)
composers. But I don’t think Harry Reid’s version is any kind of masterpiece.
In fact, Mr. Reid’s work seems to be absolutely tone deaf.
How is it possible that we [...]

The only explanation for the current activities of the majority leadership
of the U.S. senate (as well as the same in the U.S. house) is that they are
intoxicated and disoriented from the thin rhetorical air available at the U.S.
Capitol and its immediate environs.
Employing legalized bribes available to those who control the [...]

Joe Lieberman is the true “profile in courage” in the U.S. senate in our
time. He was a popular choice for the Democratic nomination for vice president
in 2000, and performed well on the campaign trail. After the narrow loss (the
Democratic ticket actually won the popular vote), Lieberman went back to [...]

Following a tip from a savvy political friend who worked in Washington,
DC during the Reagan-H.W. Bush years, I began paying more and more
attention to Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana in recent months. As a
White House operative, I was told that Daniels in those years was right at
the top in intelligence [...]

Having for several weeks subjected my readers to relentless criticism
of President Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policy, I may shock with
my assertion that his speech in Oslo accepting the Nobel Peace Prize was
unexpectedly good, generous, occasionally eloquent, properly self-deprecatory,
unprecedentedly (for him) expansive in its understanding of history, genuinely
above usual partisanship, [...]

Brave little Honduras has become the modern David, teaching the
Goliath nations of our time an inspiring message about the power of freedom,
and the endurance of democratic capitalism when faced with formidable
obstacles. The recent free elections in the Central American nation have
ended a prolonged crisis when its elected president decided [...]

As my readers know, I have been rather critical lately of President Obama’s
actions in foreign and domestic policy. His announcement that he would send
30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, however, deserves praise. Some
might quibble that the number of troops is less than his field commander
requested, but I note that he [...]