While the GOP has been searching behind bowling alleys and between couch cushions for a new mascot, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has managed to refocus political debate on one of the most basic and important questions: Who should hold the reins of political power in America?

Despite all...

Watching the GOP rock-show pyrotechnics shoot up at the prospect of Chris Christie running for president, keen observers may have noticed a remarkable transformation taking place in American politics.

Republicans have injected so much ginned-up lab-tested indignation into their campaigns that their nomination contest looks more like a professional...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Democrats and Republicans agreed on what constituted a real problem, and so they worked together to forge "big deal" legislation -- because deep down they understood that a meaningful future could only be reached by serious people standing shoulder to...

Over the past few decades this country has developed a pathetic empty ritual. Every so often -- when gas prices are high, when a gazillion gallons of oil sludge are pouring into the sea, or while a nuclear plant lies smoldering in Chernobyl mode -- the sitting president stands before...

Despite all the hooplah about prom night at the joint session or which party is being true to the Constitution -- the big story last night was the contrast between views of the future articulated by the speech givers. Forget Republicans and Democrats and simply ask: Which attitude towards the...

The most presidential phrase President Obama dropped during his "tax deal" press conference yesterday was the sonorous "North Star" line:

My job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there. What is helping the American people live out their lives? What is giving them more...

Despite all the excuses and political flim-flam masquerading as "explanations" for the Great Shellacking of 2010, I want to offer a very straightforward theory for the outcome: Democrats have become a party that "lists" when they should be a party that "tips." Listing, bad -- tipping, good.

By "listing"...

Question: When election rhetoric has been overrun by John Birch quacks, right-wing conspiracy burlesque, and xenophobic mobs -- how can a governing party craft a closing message sharp enough to cut through the miasmic mess and motivate the liberal base?

Should Democrats print more pie charts and bar graphs...

With all the chatter over a so-called enthusiasm gap "enthusiasm gap," most pundits have overlooked a far simpler reason why the Democratic vote seems lethargic to the point of needing a nap as we head into the Midterm election home stretch: After two years of Democrats in power,...

Lately, American politics is neither blue nor red, but yellow. 

Like the "yellow journalism" that plagued the turn of the last century, this new era of Gilded Age politics has been overrun by obscene exaggerations and outright falsehoods, all whipped into national hysteria by newsrooms that long-ago swapped research...

Leave it to right-wing pundits to lie about Auschwitz to fuel the anti-Muslim hysteria taking over the Republican Party.

When Republican media elites like Charles Krauthammer compare the Park51 cultural center to the 1988 Carmelite controversy at Auschwitz, they not only spread a lie, but also lend false moral...

By now, the right-wing political chop-shop has convinced an embarrassingly large chunk of the country that a "YMCA"-type project planned for lower Manhattan is the equivalent of Osama bin Laden landing on the shores of the Potomac.

Mayor Bloomberg, to his credit, scoffed at this right-wing idiocy in an eloquent...

I had a strange experience the other day when I passed by a BP gas station: as I caught glimpse of the BP logo, an anger so visceral welled up in my stomach that it actually made me question my commitment to a lawful society.

That cheery little green...

The New York Times reports, today, that health insurance companies have already started to rattle their legalistic sabres against the newly signed reform law -- claiming that they are under no obligation to provide coverage for children with pre-existing conditions.

Most human beings with a pulse will...

Words matter -- and they matter even more when they are violent words. Apparently, GOP leadership agrees.

Despite the unwillingness of mainstream media to connect the dots, the base and leadership of the GOP are matching their rhetoric to the disturbing rise of violent talk at Tea Party rallies and...

If President Obama's health care summit revealed anything in the long hours of partisan whining, it was a fundamental difference in the crisis that each side believes is on the table for Congress to solve. Democrats spoke to a national humanitarian crisis caused by an industry run amok, while Republicans...

"Oh, the vision thing."

That was the reaction of George H. W. Bush when he was urged to speak to a bigger picture beyond the small pieces of his legislative agenda. They may be strange succor for a Democratic President, but those words hold a crucial lesson and a grim...

With working families across America in an uproar over the endless nightmare of job losses -- with key voting blocks in once Democratic strongholds clamoring after any scrap of decisiveness in recent elections -- with the Twittering classes crying out for boldness from the man elected on the promise of...

Political observers surprised by the Democratic Party loss in the Massachusetts Senate election last night should take a second look at the trouble Barack Obama had attracting so-called "lunch-bucket" voters in the 2008 presidential primaries. The problem that once plagued the campaign of candidate Obama has now metastasized to the...

As frustrated as the base of the Democratic Party may be in this late stage of the health care reform battle, few have reflected on the force behind every legislative battle this year: Rahm Emanuel.

In a blunt remark to the Wall Street Journal, the White House...