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Obama: The Extremists’ Nightmare

In the struggle against the extremists and terrorists, the new president understands how to divide the enemy and neutralize their base—and is uniquely suited to accomplish the mission. He got elected in the United States of America, after all.

Posted on Apr 8, 2009 READ MORE  |  23 COMMENTS


Close These Refuges for Scoundrels

The story of former AIG executive Joseph Cassano points up once more how tax and regulatory havens across the world encourage nefarious conduct, lack of transparency, evasion of taxes and corporate criminality.

Posted on Apr 2, 2009 READ MORE  |  16 COMMENTS


The Right’s Twisted Blame Game

Listening to the president’s critics, it would be easy to believe that Obama is responsible for the deficits, bailouts, bonuses, nationalized institutions and careening markets. It would be easy to believe but it’s entirely false.

Posted on Mar 26, 2009 READ MORE  |  96 COMMENTS


Push Back Against AIG’s ‘Best and Brightest’

Having long flattered themselves as “masters of the universe,” the creative financiers of Wall Street and London are today exposed as grifters rather than geniuses, yet their arrogance remains intact.

Posted on Mar 19, 2009 READ MORE  |  22 COMMENTS


From Frozen Minds, a ‘Spending Freeze’

Things are bad, and very likely to get worse—but the Republicans seem determined to plunge us into a real depression, gambling that catastrophe would return them to power.

Posted on Mar 12, 2009 READ MORE  |  35 COMMENTS


Rushing Toward Irrelevance

Once, conservatives liked to say that “ideas matter.” Although many of their theories later proved flimsy, they at least attempted to address real problems with fresh thinking. But ideas no longer matter—and in fact they’re dangerous, according to the maximum leader of the right.

Posted on Mar 5, 2009 READ MORE  |  49 COMMENTS



Flickr / Foraggio Fotographic

At Last, Accepting Some Clues From Across the Pond

We suddenly seem willing to consider sensible ideas that were always deemed unthinkable. Soon we may be mature enough to observe how other developed countries address problems that have baffled us for generations.

Posted on Feb 25, 2009 READ MORE  |  34 COMMENTS


There Was No GOP ‘Victory’

Republicans congratulate themselves for remaining unified in defeat and whine about Obama’s refusal to capitulate—but in fact it is they who have failed in the initial episode of a confrontation that will certainly continue for four years.

Posted on Feb 18, 2009 READ MORE  |  29 COMMENTS


Stronger, Please, Mr. President

Having allowed his Republican opponents to dominate the economic debate, Obama used his first news conference to rebut them—coolly and civilly, yet without leaving any doubt that he can strike back harder if necessary.

Posted on Feb 11, 2009 READ MORE  |  8 COMMENTS


Stimulus Skeptics Wrong (Again)

Mythology is overshadowing history in the debate over Obama’s plan to stimulate the depressed economy. Excessive airtime is devoted to the prejudices of cable hosts and radio personalities who regurgitate ideas they barely understand.

Posted on Feb 5, 2009 READ MORE  |  24 COMMENTS


Let the Limbaughs Whine

How fortunate for Barack Obama that Rush Limbaugh, big radio personality and leader of the instinctual far right, has yet to retire to a sunny island with his bottles of pills.

Posted on Jan 29, 2009 READ MORE  |  60 COMMENTS


Defining ‘Bipartisan’ in a New Era

When Obama delivered his stunningly eloquent and inspiring address at midday on Jan. 20, he provided a powerful hint of what bipartisan, a term hollowed out by habitual and insincere misuse, means to him now.

Posted on Jan 22, 2009 READ MORE  |  7 COMMENTS



Flickr / exfordy

The Party of No Ideas

Would it be rude to ask whether the Republicans have any new proposals to save the country from this worsening recession? If not, they should halt their reactionary opposition to Barack Obama’s stimulus plan.

Posted on Jan 14, 2009 READ MORE  |  33 COMMENTS


Now Is No Time for Phony Thrift

As the government contemplates spending very large sums of money, it is reassuring to know that somebody still worries about waste. Or it would be reassuring, if only that somebody were not Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader.

Posted on Jan 8, 2009 READ MORE  |  13 COMMENTS


What Nixon Admitted (and Cheney Won’t)

To understand the philosophy of government that Dick Cheney brought to Washington over the past seven years, it is most instructive to see “Frost/Nixon,” with Frank Langella’s remarkable reanimation of Tricky Dick for a generation that never knew him.

Posted on Dec 24, 2008 READ MORE  |  13 COMMENTS


Should She Be Sen. Kennedy?

In the culture of celebrity, the media have instantly deemed Caroline Kennedy a leading candidate to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate, much to the frustration of elected officials who feel they have earned a chance to win what she would merely take.

Posted on Dec 18, 2008 READ MORE  |  20 COMMENTS


Dangerous Bias Against Detroit

Nearly every current poll shows that most Americans oppose federal assistance to the auto industry, but legislators should also consider how voters would feel if the nation suffered the full consequences of a cratering auto industry—and if those voters then found out that the facts were not quite what they seemed to be.

Posted on Dec 11, 2008 READ MORE  |  45 COMMENTS


Not a Team of Rivals at All

When the journalistic pack bites into a tasty cliché, they often refuse to let go, lazily chewing and regurgitating a phrase like “team of rivals” long after the flavor is gone.

Posted on Dec 4, 2008 READ MORE  |  18 COMMENTS


Obama’s Shrewd Choices

Barack Obama’s appointees will implement the Obama program, not only because that is what he tells them to do but because that is what they have come to believe is best for the country.

Posted on Nov 26, 2008 READ MORE  |  26 COMMENTS


Why Obama Can Keep Gates

If the prospect of appointing Hillary Clinton as secretary of state irritates the Obama base, what will they make of keeping the man who has executed President Bush’s policies at the Pentagon?

Posted on Nov 20, 2008 READ MORE  |  91 COMMENTS


Who’s Afraid of a Filibuster?

Is there enough muscle behind the GOP filibuster threat to block Obama’s mandate? The short answer is no—and the new president’s own political arsenal should enable him to call the Republican bluff.

Posted on Nov 13, 2008 READ MORE  |  8 COMMENTS


The New Political Center

Obama can be expected to behave as Bush ought to have acted in a time of national crisis. That means drawing on goodwill wherever he can find it, drawing on talent regardless of party and drawing on the powerful desire of most Americans to live again in one nation.

Posted on Nov 6, 2008 READ MORE  |  16 COMMENTS


Sarah the Scapegoat

Writing a postmortem for John McCain’s presidential candidacy would be premature. But if and when that moment comes next week, toxic staff infection will be listed as a primary cause of death.

Posted on Oct 30, 2008 READ MORE  |  7 COMMENTS


McCain’s Socialist Delusion

Wherever John McCain appears on the stump in these waning days of the presidential campaign, he is always accompanied by his imaginary friend “Joe the Plumber,” but it is the specter of Karl Marx that lurks just offstage.

Posted on Oct 22, 2008 READ MORE  |  24 COMMENTS


A Bush-Style Whitewash

For anyone who followed the story of how and why Sarah Palin fired her state’s public safety commissioner, last week’s release of a legislative investigation that found she had violated state ethics statutes was anticlimactic.

Posted on Oct 16, 2008 READ MORE  |  8 COMMENTS


Honor Won and Lost

Nothing in the presidential campaign so far has been as instructive as its swift descent into the politics of personal destruction. Although voters have probably heard little lately that they did not already know about Sen. Barack Obama, they have learned something very important about Sen. John McCain.

Posted on Oct 8, 2008 READ MORE  |  8 COMMENTS


Making the Bailout Less Toxic

The initial failure to pass bailout legislation reflected a political system as bereft of confidence as the financial markets.

Posted on Oct 1, 2008 READ MORE  |  43 COMMENTS


A Special Prosecutor for Wall Street

Before this is over, we will need a special prosecutor with an ample budget to find, prosecute and imprison the criminals responsible for this disaster and ultimately deter such criminals in the future.

Posted on Sep 24, 2008 READ MORE  |  17 COMMENTS


The ‘Reform’ McCain Wants to Forget

With the markets in frightening turmoil and the public outraged by financial irresponsibility and excessive greed, John McCain has suddenly rediscovered the importance of strong, watchful government.

Posted on Sep 17, 2008 READ MORE  |  10 COMMENTS


Two Bridges to Nowhere

Even cursory examination shows that Sarah Palin’s posturing is wildly exaggerated and her campaign claims veer toward fraud.

Posted on Sep 10, 2008 READ MORE  |  21 COMMENTS


Why Bristol’s Pregnancy Matters

Families deserve privacy about family matters, but families that want absolute privacy should stay out of politics. The question that remains is what, if anything, Bristol Palin’s plight may portend for the rest of us.

Posted on Sep 3, 2008 READ MORE  |  54 COMMENTS


Questions for Hillary’s Zealots

As the Democrats convened in Denver to celebrate Hillary Clinton and nominate Barack Obama, a tiny minority of her supporters continued to behave petulantly. They whined, they blustered, they agitated themselves and each other. But what was it about Sen. Clinton’s repeated endorsements of her former opponent that they could not understand?

Posted on Aug 27, 2008 READ MORE  |  39 COMMENTS


A Cut-and-Paste Foreign Policy

The discovery that John McCain’s remarks on Georgia were derived from Wikipedia is, to put it politely, disturbing and even depressing—but not surprising.

Posted on Aug 13, 2008 READ MORE  |  15 COMMENTS


His Drilling Plan Is Full of Holes

Touring America’s oil rigs and nuclear plants, John McCain sometimes sounds as if he’ll produce enough wind to power the nation all by himself.

Posted on Aug 6, 2008 READ MORE  |  30 COMMENTS


McCain’s Oil Drilling Hoax

John McCain’s newfound enthusiasm for oil drilling probably has more to do with campaign donations than any public benefit—that’s because there isn’t any.

Posted on Jul 30, 2008 READ MORE  |  25 COMMENTS


Washington’s Overrated ‘Old Hands’

The strongest argument for Obama is the weak performance of the Republican regime’s vaunted “grown-ups,” including McCain and his advisers. They have gone far in proving that experience can be overrated.

Posted on Jul 23, 2008 READ MORE  |  22 COMMENTS


They Must Be Joking

An expression of outrage is the highest compliment that politicians can bestow upon a satirist. So when spokesmen for Barack Obama and John McCain echo each other and many another stuffed shirt in complaining about the current cover of The New Yorker, the magazine’s editors and cartoonist Barry Blitt should accept such remarks in precisely that spirit.

Posted on Jul 16, 2008 READ MORE  |  27 COMMENTS


Fake Outrage Over Clark Comments

Despite all the feigned outrage fanned by the mainstream media and the right-wing noisemakers, Wesley Clark—retired four-star general, former supreme commander of NATO, wounded and highly decorated veteran of ground combat in Vietnam and a military man to his core—assuredly did not denigrate the war record of John McCain when he talked about the Republican candidate on television last Sunday.

Posted on Jul 2, 2008 READ MORE  |  27 COMMENTS


Inventing a Country-Club Muslim Marxist

Precisely on schedule, the usual assortment of right-wing operatives is preparing its expected assault on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Posted on Jun 25, 2008 READ MORE  |  19 COMMENTS


Taxes, Integrity and Character

Once upon a time, there was a fiscally and socially responsible senator named John McCain.

Posted on Jun 18, 2008 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS


A Challenge Obama Should Accept

McCain has invited his rival to join him in a “town hall” tour. That would provide a forum for discussing the economy and for looking at just who has helped ease Americans’ pocketbook troubles in the past.

Posted on Jun 11, 2008 READ MORE  |  11 COMMENTS


The Running Mate Dilemma

The selection of a vice president is not only an exercise in political handicapping but also a national rite of statecraft. Candidates, advisers, pundits and assorted experts try to calculate the ethnic, geographic, gender and ideological characteristics of potential running mates, but what this choice actually reveals is the character of a presidential nominee.

Posted on Jun 4, 2008 READ MORE  |  17 COMMENTS


Blame to Share in Primary Farce

When the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meets Saturday to determine the status of the votes cast in the Michigan and Florida primaries, its members should try to look past self-serving campaign arguments and bumbling party leaders’ silly attempts to save face.

Posted on May 28, 2008 READ MORE  |  21 COMMENTS


McCain’s Shocking Discovery

Perhaps the senator hasn’t been paying attention for the past few decades, for he somehow seems to have surrounded himself with exactly the kind of Washington hustlers he professes to despise.

Posted on May 21, 2008 READ MORE  |  14 COMMENTS


Cindy McCain Flaunts Her Privilege

Double standards are endemic in American journalism. But Cindy McCain, wife of the Republican presidential candidate, displayed poor taste in flaunting her family’s special immunity from press scrutiny.

Posted on May 14, 2008 READ MORE  |  26 COMMENTS


Hillary Plays the Crazy Card

In this protracted and often dispiriting prelude to the general election, few remarks have been as poorly chosen as Sen. Hillary Clinton’s threat to “totally obliterate” Iran.

Posted on May 8, 2008 READ MORE  |  34 COMMENTS


Why Celebrate Rev. Wrong?

As Jeremiah Wright gleefully tours the airwaves, inflicting severe political damage with almost every utterance, he is proving that racism isn’t the only obstacle to a black president.

Posted on Apr 30, 2008 READ MORE  |  21 COMMENTS


The Ritual Flaying of Jimmy Carter

Nobody with a functioning memory should be too quick to condemn Jimmy Carter for daring to speak with the leadership of Hamas, as nearly everyone along the American political spectrum suddenly has felt obliged to do.

Posted on Apr 24, 2008 READ MORE  |  40 COMMENTS


Whose Elitism Is Worse?

It is hard to blame John McCain for mocking Barack Obama as an “elitist” following that silly remark about bitter folks who cling to guns and religion. Rarely does the Arizona senator—one of the wealthiest members of Washington’s most exclusive club—encounter such a tempting chance to masquerade as a populist.

Posted on Apr 17, 2008 READ MORE  |  21 COMMENTS


Are We Closer to ‘Victory’?

Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, is more candid than his publicity agents. Unlike the senators and editorial writers who claim that the glorious “surge” should be hailed as one of the most successful military campaigns in history, he warns that the escalation’s achievements are mixed at best.

Posted on Apr 9, 2008 READ MORE  |  21 COMMENTS


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