On the Today Show this morning, Tom Brokaw insisted that President Obama needs to show the American people “leadership” in his jobs speech tomorrow night. Obama needs to show us that he’s “confident.” This is a common trope throughout the pundit class right now. The President needs to be a leader! He needs to be … Continue reading
The next news cycle is pretty much locked on 2008 media obsession Sarah Palin’s new bus tour. Want to save some time? Here, I’ll help. This is how it will go, rendered here in full-on media blitz incoherence: She’s on a bus! She has a movie out! Is she running for president? She’s polling at … Continue reading
• I don’t have time for a long post, but…the New York Times is reporting that Michelle Rhee’s hired George Packer, the former Washington Teachers’ Union head she worked with while in DC, as a “senior fellow” at Students First. Say whatever else you want about her, but this is a canny move as far … Continue reading
It’s been fascinating to watch the blogosphere react to the last few rounds of GOP presidential candidate shuffling. Above all, it’s driving home the vast differences in perception across the American political spectrum. See, to a guy like me, here’s how our current political moment seems: The GOP’s field of presidential candidates looks downright hilarious. … Continue reading
I’ve been living on the East Coast for almost exactly a decade now. I’m still finding my footing in this strange place, which is why I often think about this passage from Kurt Vonnegut (From A Man Without a Country): I am one of America’s Great Lakes people, her freshwater people, not an oceanic but … Continue reading
Matt Miller, from his Tyranny of Dead Ideas (emphasis added): “If Abraham Lincoln had made the elimination of slavery the centerpiece of his campaign, there would be no Lincoln Memorial in Washington today, because he never would have gotten out of Illinois. If Franklin Roosevelt had shocked conventional sensibilities by pledging to run big deficits … Continue reading
Was reading the Washington Post‘s coverage for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War recently, and saw this excerpt from the Charleston Mercury’s April 26th editorial [emphasis added]: The blockade of the ports of the Confederate States, proclaimed by President LINCOLN in his late Proclamation, will certainly be followed by a recommendation, by the President … Continue reading
Over the weekend I posted some “provisional thoughts” on progressivism’s foundations. Since the post garnered a good deal of interest, I’m posting a piece that I wrote about six months after President Obama’s inauguration (substantial pieces of this essay later became essays at Front Porch Republic and at Dissent). Since the piece is pre-midterms, a … Continue reading
Last night the old “Party of Lincoln” reinvoked Illinois’ favorite son in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) response to the president’s State of the Union address [emphasis added]: Some people will back away from this challenge. But I see this challenge as an opportunity to rebuild what Lincoln called the “central ideas” of the Republic. We … Continue reading
My most recent column in the Washington Post: Lincoln understood that democracy thrives on effective laws and equal treatment. Facing men who would sacrifice the Union over deep differences, he asked Americans to believe in the worth of democratic institutions. We know the rest of the story: Thousands of Americans gave their lives so “that … Continue reading
