Michael Patrick Carroll's blog

A Post columnist contends that New Jersey offers a cautionary tale to New York.  He's right.

NJ, yet again, comes in dead last: the highest taxed state in the entire country. 

NJ STARS, while failing in its intended purpose, nonetheless demonstrates the need for fundamental reform in NJ's high schools.

Trenton created the property tax monster; now, with A-500, the Democrats want to make it worse.

McCain announce his intention to appoint real judges, and both teh Times and the Journal muff the story.

Discussing the vacuity of Barack Obama’s rhetoric, I find myself taken to task for ignoring the substance allegedly underlying it. Far from it. My initial post merely pointed out that Obama’s speeches convey essentially none of that substance. But don’t take my word for it; Hillary Clinton, too, laments the utter absence of specifics in her adversary’s public pronouncements. (She disagrees only incrementally with the policies Obama endorses) "I could make a big, ol’ speech ..." she mocks.

OK, so political rhetoric often lacks a certain intellectual pizzazz. Politicians – properly – speak to the electorate, and not to the faculty at Harvard. And what campaign wants for a fluffy, harmless sound-bite theme: "Morning in America"? Nothing wrong with that, either.

But what happens when rhetoric and sound-bites utterly supplant substance? When a campaign is based completely on fluff? Or, as herein relevant, upon "hope".

Alton Parker. John W. Davis. Wendell Wilkie. Hillary Cinton/Barack Obama.

In 1904, the Democrats, concerned about the radicalism of William Jennings Bryan, cast about for a more reasonable candidate, finally settling on Alton Parker, a non-entity whose entire public service consisted of serving in the New York Judiciary. Parker was so unimpressive and anonymous that one source reports that he stands alone as the only major party presidential nominee never honored with a biography.

I confess to a significant degree of puzzlement over (some) conservative attitudes toward John McCain. Who would ever have thought that a staunch pro-lifer who understands the need for unequivocal victory over our enemies in war and who strongly supports Second Amendment rights would ever secure the blessing of The New York Times and the enmity of so many conservative commentators? Alice, please call your office; it’s through the looking glass time.

After many years of solid growth, produced, in no small measure, by George Bush’s tax cuts, the economy burped, in part due to foolish borrowing practices. Comes now the President, in conjunction with the Democratic Congressional leadership, to propose a "solution": borrowing another $150 billion to "cut taxes", despite the fact that for tens of millions of the beneficiaries of this largesse, they paid no taxes to cut.