The litany of Congressional Republican nuttiness in the past 20 years is impressive. Think back on assertions that Hilary Clinton was involved in murdering Vince Foster and Whitewater, and the Mother Of All Scandals the Lewinsky/impeachment saga. Remember the more recent assertions that Obama is an Islamic Socialist born in...

Ideas matter in American politics, no matter what you hear from the pundo/cynical class. They don't necessarily have to be good ideas. Austerity hawks have won the political debate about economic policy for 30 years on a combination of fakery, ideology and repetition. They were helped by the left's inability...

Twenty-five years in politics put me in contact with every kind of saint, sinner, wacko and true believer. Included were more than my share of bigots and hate-mongers. It's not that there were large numbers of them; it's that they were memorable. And in the context of American politics, mostly...

Take a look at the NY Times op-ed page earlier this week. A piece by Bill Keller bemoans the various state ventures into controversial areas, usually social policy and specifically abortion restrictions. Keller's sympathies are NY Times liberal, but he uses the upsurge of state initiatives to muse...

In America, the Greatest Generation ages and the number of witnesses to the struggle, horror, and bravery of World War II dwindle down. Behind them they leave an untarnished legacy of the fight against Nazism, and personal bravery and sacrifice in the name of human brotherhood. Elsewhere, Nazi movements are...

There's been a refreshing change in the content of public conversation over the past year or so. For literally decades, the unchallenged truth was that taxes were too high, debt was too high and cutting of government spending and taxes were required for the nation to prosper. Austerity, austerity, austerity.

Fortunately for those of us who have served in elective office, the judgement of history goes beyond the sum of our official acts. American democracy provides perspective and often forgiveness as to our votes and pronouncements. And the wider arena of post-official public leadership can change perceptions.

No one took...

Watching the Republican Party flail around as it recovers from its 2012 collapse has elements of tragedy and comedy. After all, it is the party that gave us Abraham Lincoln and Eisenhower, and a modern take on Jefferson's vision of limited government and states rights. But it is also the...

The end of 2012 brought, for most progressives, a profound sense of relief. Imagine a last week in December as President-elect Romney finishes off his Cabinet by naming Rick Santorum Secretary of Health and Human Services. Things could have been a hell of a lot worse.

There's a whole list...

Sadly, or inevitably, avoiding the fiscal cliff will depend on negotiating strategy as much as common sense. That's the way democracy works, as the movie Lincoln points out. Obama's political skills are being tested and a lot of what may happen to you and me depends on how he...

First things first, go see Lincoln. It's a really good movie, a really good story, visually and intellectually top-notch, wonderfully acted, and it makes you think.

But it's what you think about that matters most: Lincoln is the first film I've seen about American government that has a clue about...

1. Ignoramuses -- It's not easy figuring out what to do with your idiot uncle at a family gathering. The rape-has-its-upside crowd alienated even conservatives. Mourdock/Akins et. al. were a real opportunity for Romney to show the country that he knew the difference between hard-edged politics and insulting lunacy. He...

It wasn't about a mistake-filled Romney campaign, although mistakes there were. It wasn't about the auto bailout, although it probably swung Ohio and Wisconsin. It wasn't about hostility to immigrants, although that cemented Latino voters for the Democrats. It wasn't about extreme anti-abortion politics, although Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly rode that...

For the last two years I've been involved in the creation of an organization called World Without Nazism. It's the brainchild of a Russian Senator, a smart and experienced oligarch named Boris Spiegel. It's a response to an observable outbreak in Nazi movements and rhetoric across Europe. Not...

The resurgence of Nazi and neo-Nazi movements in Europe is attracting more attention in the United States. The New York Times featured the activities of the Golden Dawn, an explicitly neo-fascist, neo-Nazi political party that has become the fifth largest party in the Greek Parliament, with every prospect...

Comes now John Bolton, the former Bush Ambassador to the UN and one of the right's more focused and more hysterical (more on this below) Obama critics. Barking as loud as he can in the right-wing echo chamber, Bolton characterized the Obama response to the murder of American...

Mitt Romney's gigantic misstep about the 47 percent of Americans he depicts as freeloaders has turned a grumble of discontent into an uproar. On the heels of Obama's mini-surge in the polls, pundits and politicians, especially right-wingers, went apoplectic. Their ultimate conclusion as expressed by Laura Ingram, "If...

The seemingly out-of-the-blue Chicago teachers strike is deeply complicated, very important, and a potential political game-changer. To the extent right or wrong matters it's almost impossible to tell. The bargaining positions of the two sides aren't clear. Are the teachers paid enough? (They average $71,000). Do they work...

It was certainly an upbeat, warm and effective first night of the Democratic Convention. If the next two are as smartly done, and if any of America's 12 undecided voters are tuning in, the Democrats are helping themselves, a lot.

The buzzwords and constituency touches were carefully and thoroughly done....

God bless American juries. As the government, press and political classes resolutely keep their eyes shut about corporate misdeeds, juries keep the faith. Not just by convicting Wall Streeters, but by acquitting them when the evidence requires, and then speaking out.

So, all praise to the Citigroup 8, the