There's an old saying that a gaffe is what results when a politician inadvertently tells the truth. By that standard, then, the Republican Party must be confessing its deeply held beliefs when it comes to race. After all, despicable racial slurs like Arnold Schwarzenegger's lecture on black and Latino blood and George Allen's MacacaGate are […]

The fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks and primary politics have helped to once again bring out the worst from the mouths of the right. Featuring fear-mongering, the politics of the pulpit and outright racism, here are the latest mantras from the leading lights of the Republican Party. "I wonder if [Democrats] they're more […]

On this the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Department of Defense once again organized the "Freedom Walk" 9/11 commemorative march to the Pentagon. But as I wrote last year in "9/11 and the Culture of Grief," this and other ritualistic displays of grief and remembrance reflect the new mass cultural experience of […]

With this weekend's upcoming mockumentary "The Path to 9/11," Disney and ABC are breaking dangerous new ground in the conservative propaganda war. Even as the ABC network follows in the footsteps of Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ in "mobilizing the base," ABC News on Sunday declared Robert Greenwald's new documentary "Iraq for […]

Despite grandiose claims from the White House regarding the strength of the U.S. economy, a flood of new data helps explain Americans' continued feelings of insecurity. While the unemployment rate (4.7%), GDP growth (2.9%) and productivity gains (2.3%)look impressive, below the surface the picture for wages and income grows bleaker still. Whether the incumbent Republicans […]

The Avenging Angel, punisher of miscreants of the conservative ascendancy, offered yet more retribution this week in response to the latest Republican buffoonery. The fun and frolic began with Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens. The Republican porkmeister suffered a double-dose of humiliation just in time for Labor Day. Just days after it was revealed that Stevens […]

With the one-year anniversary of hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans now at hand, the Bush administration has launched its revisionist history project. (Last week's stage-managed journey of the Big Easy Republican Rockey Vaccarella was just the first salvo of the full scale blitz from the White House.) Central to President Bush's effort […]

In a welcome change of course, the Bush administration ended its stonewalling of over-the-counter sales of the Plan B emergency contraceptive. After five years of outright deception and promises broken, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Barr Pharmaceuticals its blessing to proceed with OTC sales to women 18 and older. As Perrspectives reported two […]

With this week's revelations regarding the UK terrorist plot to blow up airliners en route the United States, the Perrspectives Conservative Threat Level (CTL) has been raised to Red/Severe (Return to Middle Ages Likely). Despite President Bush's poll numbers languishing in the low 30's, the 2006 GOP midterm platform of "nothing to run on but […]

President Bush's cynical efforts to block over the counter sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B have taken on almost comic proportions in recent days. But kowtowing to the radical right on Plan B has come at a steep price for Mike Leavitt, George Allen and other Republicans in the administration and Congress. The Senate […]