The heart that struggles with disappointment and sadness believes too easily that hope is a lie, a fraud, another hustler's pitch to the next sucker walking down the street. Disillusionment with Obama and the Democrats can turn dark in just this way. The audacity of hope is really the asperity...

I read with interest Mike Elk's assertion that "liberal elitism will make Sarah Palin President," as well as Oliver Willis' response that "some people are, sadly, stupid." But if Democrats and progressives are really concerned about middle-class votes - and they should be - it's statements like this...

People who label Nidal Malik Hasan a "terrorist," like Joe Lieberman just did, literally don't understand the meaning of the word. And how can they keep us safe from terrorism if they don't even know what it is?

Here's what Sen. Lieberman said: ""There are very, very strong warning...

Who's to blame when situations degenerate?
Disgusting things you'd never anticipate.
People get sick, they play the wrong games
Ya know, it can ruin your name!
- The B-52s, "Party Out of Bounds"

Would I have voted for the House health reform bill? Probably, although I'm...

As Year One of the Obama Era draws to a close, the recent Arianna Huffington/David Plouffe exchange illustrates a structural defect in the coalition Obama's seeking to build. And make no mistake: Some might call it The Year of Living Non-Dangerously, but it looks more like a deliberate...

The other day I wrote that the final Democratic bill was probably going to be worthy of support, however compromised it may be in certain ways. It should be understood that progressives won't get everything they want, or anything close to it, in the first go-round.

But, while...

I'm hearing a lot of ambiguity about health reform today from people who support its objectives unequivocally. Providing coverage for those who can't afford it, allowing portability of insurance, ensuring that nobody can be denied coverage for preexisting conditions -- these are inspiring goals.

Still, there's an underlying sense...

The public option is dead: Long live the public option.

Wait. Maybe it is dead. The rocky road to health reform is likely to induce severe mood swings, considering the elation after Harry Reid's announcement yesterday and the gloom after Joe Lieberman's threatened defection today. Maybe the health reform...

Democrats on the left and right are expressing interest in a new compromise that would provide a public option in the health bill but allow individual states to opt out of it. People may well be right when they say this is a deft way to pass a bill...

Why would Sarah Palin - or anyone, for that matter - write a book about themselves and call it "Going Rogue"? Granted, she's not exactly going to write it, but that begs the question: Why that name? Consider the Free Dictionary's definitions of the word "rogue":

1. An unprincipled, deceitful,...

Why, oh why, do they never listen? I've been warning the Democrats since 2005 (not that I'm anybody special) that an individual mandate without meaningful out-of-pockets limits would be a hardship for working Americans -- and that eventually Republicans would figure out how to call it a tax hike and...

By now you've probably heard about the draft bill submitted by Sen. Max Baucus. You may even have heard it's not a very good bill -- for the American public, anyway. But it's a complex topic, and a complex bill (even though it has been written in relatively plain...

Recently Larry Summers was quoted as saying that unemployment levels in the US are "unacceptably high." He then went on to say that unemployment "will on all forecasts remain unacceptably high for a number of, for a number of years."

Wait. If Larry Summers -- and presumably the...

The President gave a speech last night that was exciting, stirring, and unapologetic in its defense of government activism. He singled insurance companies out for special criticism, gave a convincing argument in favor of the public plan option, and forcefully stated that a health reform bill can and will be...

There's no point just blaming Max Baucus, Rahm Emanuel, or Barack Obama for the current unpleasant state of health reform - although they've each earned their share of criticism. The Left bears some responsibility, too, for failing to set the stage for meaningful change. By granting too much authority to...

I didn't write or talk much about the death of Ted Kennedy for a couple of days. I didn't even watch any TV coverage. When I finally did watch the testimonials, I remembered seeing Allen Ginsberg on the Tonight Show many years ago. It was either in early 1969 -...

A verb is conjugated according to its context. Healthcare proposals change according to their context, too. Health insurance co-ops have worked very well in certain parts of the country. But when they're used to kill meaningful nationwide reform, "co-ops" become a "co-opting" of the political process by special interests.

I've...

I was walking down the street in Berkeley many years ago when I saw a man with a knife holding a woman by her hair. He would release her, hit her, then grab her again, using the knife to make sure she didn't run. A small crowd was gathering around...

It's hard to analyze the compromises coming from Blue Dog Democrats without concluding that, intentionally or not, they add up to a financial assault on working families. Every concession rings with the sound of middle-class Americans being dinged financially.

Ding! That's the sound of lower-income working Americans losing...

Now we're being told that "health care cooperatives" are emerging as a "centrist alternative" to the public health plan in the Senate. Ezra Klein reminds us that a public plan option wasn't in any of the other plans Democrats championed. We're hearing that the idea is gaining...