| Latest Commentary: | Volume IV, Number 133 |
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White House Staff to Take Remedial Ethics Classes -- When President Bush ran in the 2000 election, he campaigned in part on the pledge that he would restore dignity and honor to the White House. This slightly veiled attack on President Clinton’s inability to keep his zipper up helped pick up a few votes among those who believe the presidency should be a moral, as well as a political, office. What must those people be thinking now that Mr. Bush has told his staff to take seminars in ethics?
Latin Americans Give Bush Frosty Welcome in Argentina -- The Summit of the Americas is a photo-op posing as an international conference where things get done. The truth is that summits exist largely to ratify agreements made at the foreign minister level or lower, or they have no meaning beyond helping leaders escape from domestic troubles. It has been so since the word “summit” entered the diplomatic vocabulary in the 1970s. So, when Mr. Bush met with every head of government in the Western Hemisphere, save pariah Fidel Castro, over the week-end, the fact that nothing happened was nicely covered by the anti-Bush riots in Argentina. It isn’t just the blue states that dislike Mr. Bush. Shareholders Flex Muscles Scuttling VNU, IMS Health Merger -- Shareholders at Dutch information and media company VNU have dealt management a black-eye, forcing the company to start talks with IMS Health about halting their proposed $7 billion merger. The deal now looks dead, management looks silly, and the shareholders look like they run the company. One wishes more shareholders would speak up when they didn’t like the way a company was going. Gunpowder Plot Tested in ITV Documentary -- Four hundred years ago last Saturday, Guy Fawkes and a few conspirators tried blowing up Parliament. The result has become “A penny for the Guy,” fireworks and bonfires. Historians have long maintained that the plot was doomed from the outset because the gunpowder meant to destroy the English monarchy and legislature in one blow had decayed. However, new research, televised last Tuesday on ITV, shows just the opposite. History turned radically in just a few hours. © Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux. |
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