The end game of any major legislative fight such as what we're going through on health care -- when the final deals are being cut on the inside, and the rumors are flying around like starlings -- is what I call the crazy season. It's a time that's generally very...

Coming off the disturbing news on Afghanistan, the relationship between the President and his progressive base is in a very tenuous place. Not to be overly dramatic, but I think we're at a crucial moment. The deal on health care is about to get done: will progressives come out of...

I am deeply saddened on so many different levels by the President's speech last night, and his Afghanistan policy in general. Steady escalation is not the answer to this godawful complicated mess. It's all well and good to keep making the argument as to why this is not another Vietnam,...

I am surprised, delighted, but mostly humbled to report the news that Air America is reporting that I am currently 3rd on their list of nominated bloggers going into their contest's Dec 3rd deadline for deciding which five bloggers make it into their final round for being selected. I...

Digby (taking numbers and quoting from Markos) had a great post over the weekend about the single most urgent topic facing Democrats going into the 2010 elections: the lack of enthusiasm by Democratic voters about voting next year. I have cited some polling and turnout statistics in the...

I don't want to get too gooshy as we go into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend by giving you all the stuff I'm thankful for, but it does seem like an appropriate moment to be a little more reflective than usual. The thing I want to focus on today is the...

One of the biggest differences between insiders and outsiders is this question: why can't they just get it done? And both sides of the divide have a point.

The single biggest complaint I hear by non-DC insiders is the sheer dysfunction of Washington. Whether it's Jon Stewart's very funny...

Each painful step, this health care keeps moving forward. As I've written, it is destined given the nature of this issue that every single step will be difficult as hell. Somehow, though, we keep making our way toward getting a bill done.

Harry Reid deserves the lion's share of...

Being into the whole history thing enough to have written a book on it, I tend to take a long view on the big policy battles we fight today. As I wrote the other day, no piece of legislation ever gets to perfection, and on plenty of them...

If you want to stop things from happening, or slow things down to the speed of molasses, being a U.S. Senator is the world's greatest job. And if your entire political party's complete strategy is to kill every single thing proposed, it's a hell of a deal. But ever so...

In January of 1998, the news about Monica Lewinsky exploded in the Washington media world. It was 24-7, and red hot intense. Within 72 hours, Republicans were calling for Clinton's resignation or impeachment, and some Democrats -- even some liberal ones like Paul Wellstone -- were on the verge of...

One of the most fundamental truisms of politics and policy is that old saying about democracy requiring eternal vigilance. In a political system like ours dominated by big money and the lobbyists that money hires, that is especially true, even in years when Democrats control both houses of Congress and...

I thought it might be useful to summarize the big battles ahead, as well as the list of things that are good policy changes that seem likely to be in the final legislation. The battles still ahead include:

1. The shape of the public option. The House public option, while...

I was at a retreat over the weekend with musicians and managers of musicians regarding how to best involve musicians in making social change. The organizer of the event asked me to do a brief overview of what public policy advocacy actually means, so I drew some lines on four...

For some perspective on the wisdom of the Democrats who are opposing health care reform, let's go the elections last Tuesday. New polling analysis from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Women's Voices Women's Vote is pretty powerful, and I recommend it to all the Democrats who voted no on...

Health care reform was always going to be tough as hell, as difficult as any issue that could ever be tackled. As I learned from the agony of the 1993-94 Clinton attempt at health care reform, this issue is so massive, so complicated, so unwieldy that it is prone to...

I haven't yet had a chance to digest all the numbers from yesterday's election, but what is coming through loud and clear from all the analysis I have seen is that the biggest difference by far between the 2008 election results and the 2009 results is simply that the two...

Rather than being an overwhelming sweep, most elections are a mix of good and bad news for each political party and the progressive and conservative movements in our country, and the 2009 off-year elections certainly fits into that category.

In the category of the expected, both parties had easy...

This is the one year anniversary of Barack Obama's historic and incredibly exciting election as President of the United States. I was proud of our country that day, that after slavery, Jim Crow, the terrible treatment of Native Americans, and the nasty anti-immigrant laws and rhetoric of our history, that...

McClatchy is out with an incredibly important series on Goldman Sachs, the first two parts of which have gone up already, that raises questions about whether Goldman committed securities fraud at a massive level. I am guessing the next three parts of this series are going to be really...