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Politicians in Washington often speak with their own vocabulary. If they're Republicans, Frank Luntz helped write their dictionary. The influential GOP pollster and language guru has had a hand in framing the party's message since 1994's Contract with America, persuading Republicans to drop terms like "estate tax" and "oil drilling" in favor of the far more message-friendly "death tax" and "energy exploration" among other rebrandings. His latest project: the health-care debate. Relying on polling and "instant response dial sessions," Luntz penned a 28-page memo, leaked to Politico, giving Republicans the soundbites designed to spin...
...Health Care 2009" often sounds, the bottom line is Luntz knows what he's doing. He's widely credited for helping Republicans seize and maintain control of Congress in the 1990s, and many Luntzisms continue to be staples of Washington rhetoric (just think of how often you hear about "tax relief"). Every American has a stake in the massive battle coming over health care reform, and voters would be wise to understand the weapons deployed to sway public opinion on both sides. However, how to craft smart reform and find common ground to get it done remain crucial questions...
...party's ideas - about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else - are not popular ideas. They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. A hard-right agenda of slashing taxes for the investor class, protecting marriage from gays, blocking universal health insurance and extolling the glories of waterboarding produces terrific ratings for Rush Limbaugh, but it's not a majority agenda. The party's new, Hooverish focus on austerity on the brink of another depression does not seem...
...party has shrunk to its base, it has catered even more to its base's biases, insisting that the New Deal made the Depression worse, carbon emissions are fine for the environment and tax cuts actually boost revenues - even though the vast majority of historians, scientists and economists disagree. The RNC is about to vote on a kindergartenish resolution to change the name of its opponent to the Democrat Socialist Party. This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN...
...tens of thousands of refugees. It will be even more important as the country tries to rebuild the north after nearly 30 years of war. Spending on military pay, pensions and hardware has put a huge burden on Sri Lanka's budget. This year, the government's total tax revenue, after debt servicing, will not be enough to meet its expected spending. And yet the Sri Lankan government has not only refused to accept humanitarian conditions on aid; it has tightened its position on access to civilian refugees, whom it calls the beneficiaries of "the largest hostage rescue...