If there is any area of public policy where George W. Bush has been consistently "dead certain," it is almost certainly in the application of the death penalty. As Texas Governor and later as President, Bush showed himself to be an equal opportunity executioner, content to condemn the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled, racist thugs […]

The battle over the teaching of intelligent design and creationism crossed the Atlantic this week. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to condemn the teaching of creationism in the schools of its 47 member states. Given the recent public relations campaign by the Discovery Institute and other U.S.-based intelligent design front groups […]

The third visit to New York by the bombastic Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is producing predictable howls of protest. While Columbia students protested his upcoming address there and Mitt Romney called for his indictment for genocide charges when he appears before the UN, CBS 60 Minutes host Scott Pelle lectured Ahmadinejad on the supposedly laudable […]

Growing evangelical angst over its choices in the 2008 Republican presidential field reached new heights this week. Just two days after the GOP frontrunners skipped the supposed Values Voters Debate, Focus on the Family's James Dobson lambasted late entrant Fred Thompson. Dobson, whose previous crusades for moral righteousness included his campaign to out SpongeBob Squarepants, […]

As I recently detailed, in recent weeks the GOP White House hopefuls have sent a powerful message to minority voters by skipping the Univision, NAACP, and upcoming PBS presidential debates. Now, even many Republican proponents of the race card worry the GOP has overplayed its hand. As the Washington Post reports, Newt Gingrich, Jack Kemp, […]

John McCain's schizophrenia this week over his alternating Episcopalian and Baptist status is just the latest chapter in the faith-based follies of the GOP presidential hopefuls. In a delicious double Catch 22, those running as "men of faith" to win the nomination of what many of it own members call "God's Own Party" are now […]

Last week, I detailed the continuing aversion of the Republican White House hopefuls to participate in debates sponsored by minority organizations. Now hot on the heels of their collective snub of the Univision and NAACP presidential forums, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are skipping a PBS event hosted by Tavis Smiley […]

No doubt, the proliferation of presidential debates held by every interest group under the sun has become one of the more fatiguing aspects of the 2008 campaign. But by adding this week's Univision Hispanic presidential forum to a growing list of events they've skipped, the GOP White House hopefuls are sending a clear message as […]

In November 2005, Perrspectives reviewed the PBS Frontline documentary, The Last Abortion Clinic. The segment detailed the relentless, draconian and largely successful efforts by anti-choice forces to restrict women's reproductive rights in Mississippi. Now two years later in the wake of the Gonzales v. Carhart decision upholding the so-called partial birth abortion ban, NBC News […]

There's supposedly an old saying in the Middle East that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That may or not be true, but almost certainly the friend of my enemy is my enemy, or at a minimum, not my friend. And in their campaign to help hard-line Islamists in Turkey to propagate the […]