As the president's job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it's time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from...

It's been a year since that exhilarating night last year when we heard the news that Barack Obama would be our next president. Over the course of that year, we have seen the leadership style of our new president.

Some say it is too early to tell; he's only...

I'm starting to gain new respect for President Bush. Wow, that's a scary thought.

Sure, he was an impulsive, narcissistic little man of at-best average intellect, who acted on his "gut" even when it was as empty as his head. Sure, he had a Manichean world-view and split the world...

Suppose, over the last 25 years, a half million Englishmen a year had entered the US. Most came on temporary work visas, whereas others came as visitors, but in both cases, they preferred it here and stayed. They were hard workers, but they didn't have papers, so they either took...

Pundits have offered a range of reasons for why health reform that was wildly popular and on which the President and two houses of Congress were elected has turned so far south in public opinion: The White House overlearned the lessons of the Clintons by letting a dysfunctional Congress try...

Over the last couple of weeks I've been hearing rumblings. They're not from the staged or misinformed protestors at town hall meetings who have decided that shouting down a member of Congress is their right as American citizens. They're not from "the left" -- that wild, unruly group of bloggers...

Economists may define "middle class" as the group whose income lies some distance from the mean family income (the average of all households) or the median income (the income level above which half of American families fall below and half above). But in the United States, as surveys over many...

One of the great character strengths of Barack Obama, and one of his greatest strengths as a leader, is his ability to treat people with civility and respect and to try to inspire others to do the same. We saw that in his speech on race in Philadelphia, in his...

President Obama has done his best to avoid discussions of social issues since the start of his campaign for the presidency. In so doing he has succeeded in staying on his central message: that what the American people need right now is not another politician exploiting cultural divides but someone...

Over 30 years have passed since the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s led to a severe recession and warned Americans just how vulnerable our economic and national security are because of our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. Yet over three decades later, we still have no coherent energy policy...

In one sense, it isn't hard to see why the Republican Party seems to be coming apart at the seams. When you get caught gutting the regulations that had kept us for 70 years from another stock market crash like the crash of 1929 and another collapse of the banking...

While the President is off being the leader of the free world and trying to restore prosperity at home, someone needs to manage the blind trust of the Democratic Party before its assets dwindle like shares of Citigroup. President Obama's approval ratings have continued to break records, and with good...

The president's magnificent speech last night in honor of Abraham Lincoln did exactly what he has been needing to do, and did it artfully and disarmingly: to begin re-branding government as something other than, as Reagan branded it, "the problem, not the solution." Behind a memorable branding campaign is...

In the Presidential election, Barack Obama ran on two messages. One was a message of change, following eight years of a the most morally, administratively, and ideologically bankrupt administration in our nation's history, which has left our country in its most precarious state since the 1930s. The other was a...

Watching President Obama's interview on Al-Arabiya this week was striking in multiple respects, not the least of which, of course, was that an American president actually did an interview with an Arab network with a largely Muslim viewing audience -- and did it in the first week of his presidency....

For thirty years, Americans have absorbed the well-branded mantra of Ronald Reagan: Government is the problem, not the solution. They have absorbed it so well that it has literally become part of the fabric of their--and our--brains. "Government" is unconsciously associated with bureaucracy, failed programs, inefficiency, waste, socialism, and all...

The U.S.-Al Qaeda conflict appears to be showing some signs of slowing down, at least temporarily, as Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden agreed on terms for a cease-fire, putting a momentary halt to years of struggle between the two enemies that have left tens of thousands of innocent...

I couldn't help but smile watching President-elect Obama last weekend on This Week. He will clearly restore many things to the White House, not the least of which is a badly-needed third digit to the presidential IQ. Obama never seemed all that comfortable in venues like the Sunday...

As the dust settles from the remarkable election of 2008 and the Obama transition is in full tilt, it is worth taking stock of lessons learned so they can inform not only campaigns that follow but the way Democrats and progressives pursue their legislative agendas.

From the standpoint of...

After a sweeping electoral victory, Democrats today have much to rejoice. So do middle class Americans, who made clear with their votes that they could not afford another four years of a government asleep at the wheel that cost them a fifth of the equity in their homes...