Safe Democracy Foundation - Safe Democracy

L. Gordon Crovitz
10/18/2010

Crovitz reflects on an unprecedented open letter from 23 well-known Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elders calling for free speech. The party elders note that Britain gave its colony of Hong Kong more freedom than the Communist Party gives China. Disillusioned, they are now demanding press freedom. Crovitz says the CCP will reform itself when its splits become too wide to cover over. For the outside world, the opportunity is to encourage the growing number of disillusioned cadres who understand that modern countries rely on a free flow of information, for ordinary citizens and their leaders alike.

Crovitz writes ‘Information Age’ for the Journal.

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Charles Krauthammer
10/15/2010

Instead of waiting until after the elections to give his analysis, Krauthammer performs a dissection now, and not without humor. From the “Most suicidal candidate” (Carl Paladino) to the “Unlukiest guy on the planet” (Beau Biden) to the “Most irresistible political name” (Ovide Lamontagne), Krauthammer points out the flaws, victories, and potential of various candidates and recognizes the importance of the rise of Republican women, apparently overlooked by conventional feminism. The electorate, says Krauthammer, has been misrepresented as irrationally angry, when in fact the elections of 2010 are driven by sensible anger and dissatisfaction with the first two years of this administration.

Krauthammer is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on foreign and domestic policy and politics.

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Paul Krugman
10/15/2010

The latest in the mortgage foreclosure crisis is that many servicers, or companies that collect payments on behalf of mortgage owners, who have been foreclosing on many mortgages and seizing homes have been ignoring the law and doing so without required documentation and in some cases seizing homes that were not in default. Significant numbers of borrowers are being defrauded by these trusts. Krugman says this could create another financial morass. The Obama administration’s response has been to oppose any action that would upset the banks, while Republicans have asked Americans to trust the banks. Krugman says this is unacceptable. Where no clear property rights exist, it’s the government’s job to create them because what we are doing now is not working.

Krugman is a New York Times columnist.

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Bruce L.R. Smith
10/15/2010

The author takes issue with Dinesh D’Souza’s piece about how President Obama’s current policies were shaped by his father. Smith knew Obama, Sr. personally if not closely and presents him as a serious liberal intellectual with a somewhat quirky sense of humor. Obama Sr. was not, as D’Souza claims, an anti-colonialist. Rather, Obama Sr. was a reasonable man who spoke out against tribal politics and corruption. Where D’Souza sees rage in President Obama’s “Dreams from My Father,” Smith sees a pragmatic, cerebral sense of injustice. Perhaps this detachment has been instrumental in Obama’s ability to incite anger from various political coalitions. Smith concludes that conservatives have their reasons for criticizing the president, but the portrait D’Souza paints does not aid political discussions.

The writer is a retired senior staff member of the Brookings Institution and now a visiting professor at George Mason University’s School of Public Policy.

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Dana Milbank
10/14/2010

Christine O’Donnell’s debate with her opponent, Chris Coons, showed a candidate considerably evolved but still substantially unrefined. While there was no mention of witchcraft or mice with human brains, she charged Coons repeatedly with holding Marxist beliefs and went out of her way to tweak Blitzer, even revealing in the course of the debate that she’d refused a prior interview request from him. Coons actually came to her defense, suggesting that the attention given her past statements was unfortunate and distracting from the more serious concerns of the election.

Milbank writes about political theater in the nation’s capital.

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Timothy Egan
10/14/2010

A rookie Democratic congressman named Walt Minnick is leading the polls in Idaho’s First Congressional District race. Minnick’s unlikely success in leading a district rated the third most Republican in the nation is because he reflects the Republican view that the government should not tell people how to live their personal lives. Egan looks at the mix of political convictions Minnick has and says this was typical of what used to be called the Western independent, governing from the middle, and, as Minnick says, pragmatic and moderate.

Egan blogs for The New York Times on American politics and life as seen from the West.

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