Sunday, January 25, 2009

"Partisan" statements

Which of the following statements from Barack Obama's inaugural speech indicate a partisan mindset?

  • The assurance that the federal government will "create new jobs" and "lay a new foundation for growth."
  • "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."
  • "The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."
  • "[To] those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it."

Answer, according to Robert L. Ehrlich in the Washington Post: All of them.

4 comments:

Rahul Basu said...

You missed a gem - point number two he actually calls class-warfare rhetoric!

But then he is a Republican -- and as Rahm Emanuel once said Republicans are “bad people who deserve a two-by-four upside their heads.”

Rahul Siddharthan said...

I think that's point number 3 (on favouring only the prosperous). As you say, these people deserve the cluebat treatment, but it is interesting that WashPo sees this sort of drivel fit to run.

Rahul Basu said...

The good news is that Bill Kristol is done with writing for the NYT Op-Ed page!! His Jan 25 article was the last. Small mercy....

Rahul Siddharthan said...

He's done, or they were done with him? But apparently he will be writing a monthly column for the Washington Post... where, I suppose, he can compete with Krauthammer.