In early 2007, The Nation published an extraordinary speech by Bill Moyers. In "A New Story for America," America's media conscience wrote of how "voters have provided a a respite from a right-wing radicalism predicated on the philosophy that extremism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice." Newt...

My colleague at The Nation, Ari Berman, has done more than any journalist to shine some light on how pollster-strategist Mark Penn, head honcho at PR giant Burson-Marsteller, and perhaps the most important figure in Hillary Clinton's campaign, poses a real dilemma for the candidate. Penn heads a firm...

This week marks the fifth anniversary of Congress's vote to authorize the Bush Administration to overthrow the government of Iraq by military force. The Nation opposed the war authorization. In "An Open Letter to Congress," which we published on the magazine's cover on the eve of the vote, we...

To bomb or not to bomb Iran, that's the question the Bush administration appears to be debating these days, once again revealing the extraordinary disconnect between the White House and the American people. With a catastrophic occupation of Iraq and polls showing the American public so skeptical about the use...

He's Back.

Having apparently spent sufficient time with his family since being sacked, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is battling to rebuild his disgraced image. In Phase One, he sought to set the terrain with a folksy article in GQ about life on his ranch outside of Taos.

As President Bush asks the nation this week for more time in Iraq, the brutal truth about his failed occupation continues to unfold. This week the Nation magazine published a 15,000 word, year-long investigation into the impact of the war on Iraqi civilians. Based on interviews with fifty soldiers,...

Pity the poor Democrats. They never get any respect. Even after their historic return from twelve years in the minority desert, no one wants to throw them a presidential party.

While the Twin Cities are more than happy to serve as the stomping grounds for the fat cats of...

"The pace of life feels morally dangerous to me," Richard Ford, novelist
"Time is on my side," The Rolling Stones

As the New Year approaches, I keep reflecting on Time. It runs through all of our lives - at work, at home, at play - in the...

Can Al Gore ever escape him? No, I don't mean Bill Clinton; I'm talking about Ralph Nader. In 2000, the Nader vote was the margin of victory in Florida, and thus, a Gore presidency, and therefore an alternative reality much less grim than the one we now face. But that...

Even by dysfunctional family reunion standards, last week's UN Summit was a blowout. There were the Presidents of Iran and the United States avoiding each other like estranged cousins, the President of Venezuela calling Bush the devil, and the President of Thailand discovering he had been deposed back home.

It is clear that the American Constitution is in grave danger. It is time to make the defense of the Constitution a national theme for all candidates in this year's electoral contests.

The threat to the Constitution from President Bush, his administration, and an accomplice Republican Congress is all too...

As Robert Borosage, co-Director of the Campaign for America's Future, argues in The Nation's current issue, "the current rage in center-right Democratic circles is to resuscitate Harry Truman, substitute bin Laden for Stalin and jihadism for Communism, and summon America to a new global struggle."

Peter Beinart, for...

When the former chief spokesman for Attorney General John Ashcroft says that Alberto Gonzales' subpoenaing of reporters is "... the most reckless abuse of power I have seen in years," it should make us all snap to attention.

This isn't exactly coming from a standard-bearer for the civil libertarians.

Having lost all positive reasons for the Iraq War, the Bush administration and its allies have fallen back on the last argument of a failing policy: We can't afford to lose in Iraq. But as the stories about U.S. troops executing innocent Iraqi children emerge other questions come to mind:...

Much ado was made of McCain's Light on the Road to Damascus moment regarding Jerry Falwell, formerly known as an agent of intolerance, last week. But the story of unlikely bedfellows that fell through the cracks was Rudy Giuliani's snuggle with Ralph Reed, the ex-leader of the Christian Coalition...

Six months ago, The Nation published The Dictionary of Republicanisms, a guide to the Orwellian phrases the Republicans have introduced into American politics. And it seems like every week since then they keep adding new ones. This week's winner is The Terrorist Surveillance Act. Last week's was trolling.

"The Culture of Corruption" is a clever alliteration, a catchy political phrase, but without a vivid image to bring it to life, it amounts to a series of statistics: the increase in earmarks, the number of no-bid contracts, etc. But a rather vivid picture has started to emerge of a...

Here's an idea.... instead of appointing the chief architect of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, Gen. Michael Hayden, as the new CIA Director--how about the chief architect of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), 27-year CIA veteran Ray McGovern?

VIPS is a group of around 35 retired...

Apparently when Republicans were urging Americans to get tough on crime they were doing it to protect us from themselves. Just last week, Karl Rove went back to testify to the grand jury for the fifth time; we learned that the FBI is investigating the possible bribing by...