Current Events and the Psychology of Politics
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Archive for January, 2009

Jan 22nd, 2009

Summary: Speaking as “a good Republican,” former Congressman Joe Scarborough responded to the inauguration of Barack Obama by saying, “I’m damn proud to be a part of this great republic.”


Jan 21st, 2009

Summary: In his January 20, 2009 inaugural address, President Barack Obama promised to “begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people” and forge “a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan,” the two wars he inherited from President George W. Bush. President Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq is on the agenda for the first full day of his presidency, January 21, 2009, when the new commander in chief meets with top national security aides and senior commanders.


Jan 20th, 2009

Summary: On January 20, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States of America.


Jan 19th, 2009

Summary: President George W. Bush presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, with economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly viewing his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation’s thorniest fiscal challenges. Specifically, the number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush’s tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans’ incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush’s father George H. W. Bush.


Jan 18th, 2009

Summary: How can George W. Bush restore his legacy upon leaving office in a climate where 98 percent of historians view his tenure as a failure and only 13 percent of Americans believe Bush has helped solve the country’s problems? … Personality profile of George W. Bush.


Jan 17th, 2009

Summary: By actually putting into practice the Neo-Conservative theories of pre-emptive war and unilateralism, George W. Bush demonstrated their failure more persuasively than could the most articulate progressive critic.


Jan 16th, 2009

Summary: In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “FOX & Friends,” U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), talking about the state recount in the Coleman-Franken Senate race, besmirched the integrity of Minnesota’s election system by alleging that “a lot of irregularities occurred during the voting process.”


Jan 15th, 2009

Summary: British foreign secretary David Miliband says the phrase “war on terror” — though capturing the urgency of the situation immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — is ultimately “misleading and mistaken,” because it gives the impression of a unified, transnational enemy embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.


Jan 14th, 2009

Summary: Iranian demonstrators, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Death to Obama,” burned photographs of Barack Obama in Tehran as they protested against America’s inaction over Israel’s Gaza offensive. Iranian demonstrators have often burned effigies or pictures of U.S. presidents, but this appeared to be the first time Obama’s picture had been defaced, a week before his inauguration as president.


Jan 13th, 2009

Summary: In response to President George W. Bush’s ultimatum to Iraq to disclose illegal weapons and disarm — or face serious consequences — Saddam Hussein on December 7, 2002 apologized for invading Kuwait in 1990 and delivered a 11,800-page weapons disclosure to U.N. inspectors in Baghdad, which he said proved that Iraq had no illegal weapons programs.