Someone shook the Etch-a-Sketch, and Mitt Romney 1.0 showed up at last night's debate. After years of running away from his time as Massachusetts governor, he re-embraced his home state. He bragged about its #1 ranking in education and said Romneycare (though he didn't name it as such) would be a good model for the …
Category: Media
Corrected post: Brown, Warren debate; Gregory the loser
After last night's Brown-Warren debate at UMass Lowell, co-sponsored by the Boston Herald, supporters of the two spilled into parking lots outside Tsongas Arena, arguing over which candidate won, but they were agreed that the clear loser was moderator David Gregory. As Dan Kennedy observed, it was "a miserable performance." Gregory spent a third of the time …
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Kennedy versus Bielat in only televised debate
Fourth congressional district candidates Sean Bielat (R) and Joe Kennedy III (D) finally met in their only televised debate, on Channel 5's On the Record. It's hard to know how many viewers they had, but it's easy to see how foolish Joe Kennedy has been in avoiding face-to-face televised debates. While Kennedy initially came across as young and …
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Warren, Brown face to face for first time
She listened, she learned, and took a big step forward. For weeks, many sympathetic to Elizabeth Warren’s US Senate candidacy have expressed exasperation at her campaign and her candidate skills. In this, the important first debate against her often affable opponent, incumbent Scott Brown, she more than held her own. Brown, in an overbearing (television …
“Innocence of Muslims” film tests First Amendment beliefs
Set aside such unacceptable (and criminal) "clear and present" dangers such as shouting Fire in a crowded theater, as a journalist I have always thought of myself as something of a First Amendment absolutist. That's being tested these days. The cornerstone of democracy is having a vigorous marketplace of ideas, where all ideas, regardless of merit, are tested, …
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“Meet the Press” jumps the shark
Over the summer it was rumored that NBC was going to drop David Gregory from the Meet the Press moderator's chair because of dramatically declining ratings. Would that they had. Except for FOX appearances, Mitt Romney has been AWOL from network news interview programs. On Sunday, host David Gregory missed opportunity after opportunity to quiz Romney …
Murdoch, Bloomberg call for GOP to have courage on immigration
News Corp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg came to Boston Tuesday to hail immigrants' contributions to our economic vitality. Touting the findings of a report by the Partnership for a New American Economy, the two cited the shortage of skilled workers in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, …
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Public opinion polls: take with grain of salt
Last week I was surveyed by the Gallup organization, confirming two things: first, that the venerable public opinion survey actually talks to real people, and second, that the results of questions they ask can't possibly be a reliable reflection of, er, public opinion. One problem is that the questions are designed to force choices, elicit simple …
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Colorado shooting scares, saddens and stymies us
Shouting fire in a crowded theater is a terrible thing to do. Opening fire is a horror of a whole order of magnitude. Most of America is struggling to make sense out of 24-year-old neuroscience student James Holmes' rampage, which so far has resulted in the deaths of 12 people and injured 59 others, some of whom may …
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Tierney v. Tisei: Time to focus on the issues
Last Tuesday, Congressman John Tierney did what he should have done many months ago. He held a press conference and faced questions about what he knew and when he knew it regarding his brother-in-laws' illegal activities. For Tierney, there were no new revelations. Too bad he waited until he was backed against a wall by the two …
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Marjorie Arons-Barron 