Word: argument
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade. Within the bubble of Democratic Party politics, this was standard boilerplate, designed to fire up the base. The notion of engaging the other side on the issue was pointless, the argument went; any ambiguity on the issue implied weakness...
...religious affiliation; I have rarely heard God's name invoked during debate on the floor. Beyond the Senate's genteel confines, though, any discussion of religion and its role in politics can turn a bit less civil. Take my Republican opponent in 2004, Alan Keyes, who deployed a novel argument for attracting voters in the waning days of the campaign. "Christ would not vote for Barack Obama," Mr. Keyes proclaimed, "because Barack Obama has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved...
...argument went something like this: America was founded on the twin principles of God-given liberty and Christian faith. Successive liberal administrations had hijacked the federal government to serve a godless materialism and had thereby steadily chipped away at individual liberty and traditional values. The answer to American renewal was simple: Restore religion generally - and Christianity in particular - to its rightful place at the center of our public and private lives and align the law with religious precepts. In other words, Alan Keyes presented the essential vision of the religious right in this country, shorn of all compromise. Within...
...less than a disaster. No one, to be sure, regards it as a good thing. But it is possible to view the test--and the state of play in the nuclear world more broadly--in more apocalyptic terms than is warranted. Many question, for example, Allison's argument that North Korea will unleash a sort of nuclear domino effect--with one country after another scrambling to get nukes. Take, for example, the nonnuclear countries in East Asia closest to North Korea: South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. All are wealthy, technologically sophisticated countries that could go nuclear in a heartbeat. (South...
...McCain, who once said of his first marriage, "People wouldn't think so highly of me if they knew more about that." Obama's empathy is reminiscent of Bill Clinton, although the Senator's compassion tends to be less damp than Clinton's: it's more about understanding your argument than feeling your pain. Both those qualities have been integral to Obama's charm from the start. His Harvard Law School classmate Michael Froman told me Obama was elected president of the Law Review, the first African American to hold that prestigious position, because of his ability to win over...