Obama Poll Watch -- January, 2010
After taking a look at Obama's numbers for the month, we continue our march backwards through history, this month serving up a comparison between Obama and Richard Nixon's term-and-a-half.
After taking a look at Obama's numbers for the month, we continue our march backwards through history, this month serving up a comparison between Obama and Richard Nixon's term-and-a-half.
Joseph A. Palermo | Posted 02.04.2010 | Politics
Harry Reid is getting rolled by a pugnacious Republican minority so bereft of ideas it has no choice but to filibuster every piece of legislation the Democrats put on the table.
Steven Hill | Posted 01.28.2010 | Politics
Call it the "audacity of governing." It's time for battle. If Obama cares about the country as much as he says, and believes in his ideas as much as he professes, he will pull out all the tools at his disposal.
Julian E. Zelizer | Posted 01.25.2010 | Books
Playing defense on national security can quickly turn into a huge political liability for presidents.
Kara Vallow | Posted 01.25.2010 | Politics
So much for reconciliation -- apparently, when the GOP uses it, it's a legitimate legislative tool, but the Democrats refuse to touch the one potent weapon at hand.
Ariel Gonzalez | Posted 01.03.2010 | Politics
Progressives can be as bad as teabaggers, with their chronic dissatisfaction, ideological disdain for compromise, and limited understanding of historical precedent.
HuffingtonPost.com | Ryan Grim | Posted 11.25.2009 | Politics
David Broder simply doesn't understand the way that today's Senate operates, Jim Manley concluded on Wednesday. Manley, the senior communications advi...
Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn | Posted 11.30.2009 | Style
LBJ's first state dinner was a barbecue in Texas for West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard. No politician ever used the conviviality and informality of eating outdoors better than the 36th president.
Norman Lear | Posted 11.23.2009 | World
Was the Vietnam War an act of prescience, or simply a prelude to today? You decide. The first 1000 people who respond to this blog will receive a free DVD copy of last Friday's PBS show, Bill Moyers Journal.
Posted 11.21.2009 | Politics
On Friday night, Bill Moyers played clips from the Lyndon B. Johnson tapes on his PBS television show. Moyers drew correlations between the factors f...
Chris Weigant | Posted 11.17.2009 | Politics
No matter what healthcare bill passes, it is not going to remain static. It is going to be revisited again and again over the next few decades. That's how lawmaking works.
John R. Bohrer | Posted 11.12.2009 | Politics
Over the last few months, a number of prominent political columnists have pointed to historian and social critic Richard Hofstadter to explain what is happening to the Republican Party. Here's why they shouldn't.
Joseph A. Palermo | Posted 11.09.2009 | Politics
General McChrystal's recommendation for more troops and material has a distinctly Westmorelandian flavor to it. If approved, it could create an additional $40 to$80 billion per annum in war costs.
Martin Lewis | Posted 11.10.2009 | Politics
It's March 16, 1965. We have a Democratic President. We have large Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate. It's long been part of the progressive and liberal platform...
Russ Baker | Posted 11.04.2009 | Politics
We Americans harbor a quaint belief that a new president takes charge of a government that eagerly awaits his next command. But that's not how things work at the top, especially where "national security" is concerned.
Robert Scheer | Posted 11.04.2009 | World
The most idiotic thing being said about America's involvement in Afghanistan is that the best way to protect the 68,000 U.S. troops there now is by putting an additional 40,000 in harm's way.
Steven M. Gillon | Posted 11.03.2009 | Books
Exactly when did doctors give up their efforts to save Kennedy's life? And when did Lyndon Johnson learn that JFK was dead?
Steven M. Gillon | Posted 10.30.2009 | Books
A recently declassified oral history by Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, President Kennedy's military aide on the Dallas trip, sheds new light on the critical hours after the shooting.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson | Posted 10.27.2009 | World
Matthew Hoh told Obama exactly what he needs to hear about Afghanistan: that the war is a failed, flawed, no-win war. That it's a sinkhole for billions of tax dollars and a death trap for US troops.
Leon T. Hadar | Posted 10.21.2009 | World
The ghosts of the Vietnam War seem to be hanging around the White House Situation Room as President Obama and his national security aides debate a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan.
Joseph A. Palermo | Posted 10.20.2009 | World
Whatever Obama decides to do in Afghanistan is of little consequence compared to Wall Street's ongoing "plutonomy."
Richard (RJ) Eskow | Posted 10.09.2009 | Politics
The opt-out is a hard blow to the public option, and potentially a crippling one. When a solution sounds too good to be true -- we can compromise and still get everything we want! -- it probably is.
John R. Bohrer | Posted 11.30.2009 | Politics
The GOP cannot even claim credit for bringing the bills to the middle of the road -- the Democrats are hogging all of it. And that is a good thing, despite what some may think.
Bill Maher | Posted 11.25.2009 | Comedy
If America can't get its act together, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can't get up. As long as we're pathetic, we might as well act like it's cute.
John R. Bohrer | Posted 11.24.2009 | New York
In the first year of his first elected term, Lyndon Johnson made the presidency look easy. Landmark bills on education, health care and civil rights were flying through Congress. But he stayed out of New York politics.
Chris Weigant | Posted 02.03.2010 | Politics