As commentators seem ready to over-interpret tomorrow's election results in three jurisdictions, they should instead consider how four long-term trends show the GOP engaged in political slow-motion suicide. The party that politically prospered over the decades because of flags and faith is now increasingly becoming the extreme and the Democrats...

However biased Fox "News" has been to the Obama administration, there's a near left-right unanimity that it was foolish for them to attack the network, in part because it elevated Fox's ratings and, stretching the metaphor, you don't fight with folks who "buy ink by the barrel."

The CW is...

Complaining about executive pay and perks has the feel of King Canute shouting at the tides. But is the reported, imminent slapdown by "pay czar' Ken Feinberg of the pay packages at seven bailed out firms the breakthrough critics have been waiting for?

Until this year's populist...

If you have an election where the winner gets four percent of the eligible electorate, is that a functioning democracy? Having just lost such a runoff contest in New York City,
I congratulated the winner for running a skillful campaign according to the rules. But are there better...

A last word on how Obama didn't "earn" his Nobel Prize.

Reading the near unanimous commentary about how Obama didn't really deserve this reward -- including the president himself in his typically apt comments -- reminded me of something...something...ah yes: it was identical to those who doubted...

Today good government groups agree that it's bad government for two powerful officials to punitively gut the office that is a watchdog over them and the voice of kids, seniors and all hurting New Yorkers in the bureaucracy.

Why? Bloomberg and Quinn did this has, I think, an obvious answer.

My friend and Air America colleague, Scott Elberg, often says to me that he "can't imagine running for office and subjecting myself and my family to the abuse." Another friend asks, "why jump back in the meat grinder?"

The simple answer, as family and colleagues will confirm, is that...

It's wrong to try to destroy a charter-mandated 178 year old City office by budget strangulation rather than by charter change. And it's absurd that an office intended to be a watchdog over City Hall is being gutted by City Hall. Since when do we allow speeders to bar radar...

Sen.-elect Al Franken hasn't spoken to the national media since November, until now.

Here he talks about his suspended animation as an almost-senator, about a career arc uniquely going from satire to senate, and about how 42% plurality -- almost exactly what Lincoln, Wilson, Nixon & Clinton got -- means...

She's called it her "baptism by fire" -- literally one day a little known upstate congresswomen, the next a national celebrity after her appointment by Gov. Paterson to succeed mentor Hillary Clinton. Her friends call her brilliant -- her critics expedient. 7 Days found a person thoroughly substantive and adaptable.

Dear Friends,

New York has been the greatest city in the world in the 20th century. Our challenge is to make sure that it's the greatest for the 21st.

When tested by hard times, New York City has shown a capacity for coming together to emerge stronger, like steel hardened...

Mark Green is president of Air America Media and co-editor this month of Change for America.

We're the dog that caught the car.

Now that a progressive, urban, black constitutional law professor is the president, what should be the relationship of progressive advocates who supported him? That was...

In his first interview since his resignation in March 2008, on this week's 7 Days Eliot Spitzer has more sharp criticism of Wall Street, ideas for the new president, and waves a cautionary flag for his successor. Paterson picked a new senator this week because Spitzer picked him over two...

Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer shares the parallels between one lanky Illinois legislator / president-elect and another. Think about it: without Lincoln, no emancipation proclamation, no Obama... and no United States of America.

Interview with Harold Holzer, author of Lincoln President Elect, January 17, 2009

MARK GREEN: Congratulations on your masterful...

Based on his 2008 campaign and 2009 exigencies, President Obama's mandate includes two huge and imminent priorities -- an unprecedented "stimulus" to revive the economy and a plan that gets us out of Iraq.

And then?

Eighteen months ago, John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress...

Does Caroline Kennedy have the right DNA and experience to replace Hillary? Is Obama's choice of Rick Warren another example of the president-elect giving conservatives the visual while later giving progressives the policy?

Interview with Bracken Hendricks of Center for American Progress, Dec. 20, 2008.

GREEN: You and your co-author...

How soon before the headline, "GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead?" While Republicans throw $700 billion to Wall Street but complain about a $14 billion loan for blue collar workers, Bob Kuttner explains why this should be a transforming economic and political moment for Obama.

Interview of Bob Kuttner, author of...

45 days and counting... So while we have two presidents -- or none, in Barney Frank's joke -- Berger, Huffington and Conason discuss the Clinton/Gates appointments, what they mean for actual policy, as well as whether the Big Three might become the Big One and whether Rove can tarnish Obama's...

Two Democrats succeed two conservative Republicans during economic crises. How parallel actually are Roosevelt's and now Obama's transitions?

7 Days Interview with Jonathan Alter, author of The Defining Moment, Nov. 16, 2008

GREEN: Do you think Obama is being held to an impossible standard or is there a valid comparison...

President Bill Clinton once confided to an aide, "I'm a progressive president in a conservative era." Will Barack Obama be a progressive president in a progressive era, the first since 1965 and 1933?

Several Republicans leaders and media commentaries -- including a recent Newsweek cover story on "America the...