Author: Steve
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Facebook is a terrible place
I have two things that I feel I have wasted years of my life on that I regret: The first is my time in intercollegiate debate, deluded that it was a place for teaching. It’s not. I either should not have done it at all, or done it at about 1/6th the amount of time…
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The Dissolving Federalist Papers
Still no sign of my ancient copy of The Federalist Papers but for some reason Amazon gave me a 15 dollar discount on a Kindle version of them, so I’m good to go for my super-awesome procrastination plan of reading them through instead of doing any actual work. I feel like a rhetorical defense of…
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Originalism, Interpretation, and Really Important Job Interviews
This amazing op-ed from history professor Jack Rakove is perhaps an attempt at a liberal “take down” of originalism, but winds up being a pretty good defense of an originalism that we could all support: What were the topoi and commonplaces of the debates around constitutional issues? What sort of metaphorical connections can we make…
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Originalism, Interpretation, and Really Important Job Interviews
This amazing op-ed from history professor Jack Rakove is perhaps an attempt at a liberal “take down” of originalism, but winds up being a pretty good defense of an originalism that we could all support: What were the topoi and commonplaces of the debates around constitutional issues? What sort of metaphorical connections can we make…
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What the Lincoln-Douglas Debates Teach Us about Political Debating
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates have captured the American imagination on what debate should look like, and I’m really at a loss as to why. They were for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois. Most people think they were Presidential debates. Although Stephen Douglas had presidential ambitions, they were never realized. The Senators at that time were…
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What is Real Debate?
The Vice Presidential Debate yesterday was cold, calm, and “civil.” It seemed to include everything we thought was lacking in the First Presidential debate (with the exception of a good moderator). Yet it seemed so profoundly disappointing. Did we learn anything? Did we move forward in our understanding of the candidates? I think most of…
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What Chris Wallace Should Have Done as Moderator of That Horrible Debate
Nobody wanted to be in Chris Wallace’s shoes last week at that terrible debate. Not even sure it was a debate. Lots of shouting. For most people, it was a preview of Thanksgiving dinner, maybe even before drinks. In this video I suggest three options Wallace had that would have been a bit better than…
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What Chris Wallace Should Have Done as Moderator of That Horrible Debate
Nobody wanted to be in Chris Wallace’s shoes last week at that terrible debate. Not even sure it was a debate. Lots of shouting. For most people, it was a preview of Thanksgiving dinner, maybe even before drinks. In this video I suggest three options Wallace had that would have been a bit better than…
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How to Watch National Political Debates, such as the U.S. Presidential Debates
Here’s a video I made as a first attempt at teaching the rubric I’ve designed for evaluating and making Presidential (or national party leader) debates tolerable and perhaps useful. The goal of these debates, and the Commission on Presidential Debates, is to create a forum to inform voters on the issues. What they leave out…
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The Presidential Debates in the Context of How Bad We Are at having Debates at Any Kind
Monday night I gave a talk to Cornell Law School’s American Constitution Society about the history and development of Presidential Debates. I thought I had shared this already, but it looks like I forgot to post the thing I was originally writing about it. It’s a good thing too – these debates are well beyond…
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