March 16th, 2012
The slaughter of civilians in Sudan goes on with too little attention.
But when George Clooney gets involved, the world takes notice. And that’s at least a step in the right direction.
Clooney brought the media spotlight with him Friday, as he protested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington and was arrested alongside his father, longtime newsman Nick Clooney.
On Wednesday morning there were crowds lining the hallways of the Russell Senate Building, a reception more suited to a movie star than a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Read More…
March 15th, 2012
It’s not your imagination: Our dysfunctional divided Congress is the least productive and least popular in recent history.
Some congressmen walk the halls like members of rival gangs. The simple job of reasoning together seems out of reach. A few good men and women — like Sens. Joe Lieberman and Olympia Snowe — have decided to retire rather than subject themselves to this disheartening Kabuki theater. The system is broken. But what can we do to fix it?
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. In the past, divided government presided over ambitious accomplishments like the Marshall Plan and the creation of the interstate highway system. Read More…
March 9th, 2012
The message of Super Tuesday was clear: Mitt Romney still cannot seal the deal with the conservative base, despite winning six states and outspending his rivals 4-to-1. And while Romney is far ahead of his rivals with 404 delegates collected to date, he needs 740 more to clinch, a process that could take at least until May and possibly go all the way to the convention.
Rick Santorum’s impressive 9-point win in Tennessee — along with victories in North Dakota and Oklahoma — further solidified his status as the conservative alternative to Romney.
Newt Gingrich scored a strong 20-point win in his home state of Georgia, but he came in third or fourth in all the other contests. There will be growing pressure on him to drop out of the race, which would allow a majority of his supporters to coalesce around Rick Santorum. But thanks to super PACs, Newt will have more than enough money to stay in the race and keep making his case. Read More…
March 3rd, 2012
The Vital Center is under siege on Capital Hill. “Congress is now more polarized than at any time since the late 19th century,” attests the data-driven blog Vote View.
It has gotten so bad that Sen. Olympia Snowe is throwing in the towel on her three-term career in disgust: “I do find it frustrating,” she said, “that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.”
What’s worse, she doesn’t think it’s going to get better any time soon: “I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term.”
Read More…
February 22nd, 2012
The debates this presidential primary season have been less like Lincoln-Douglas than former heavyweight champ Buster Douglas — punch-drunk pugilism, providing entertainment and some great upsets along the way.
But for all the excitement of the fights, there is a civic cost to the radioactive rhetoric that gets thrown out to excite the conservative crowds.
It’s not just that the most irresponsible candidates can play to the base and get a boost in the polls, while more sober-minded candidates like Jon Huntsman fail to get attention. The real damage is to the process of running for president itself. Because when low blows get rewarded, the incentive to try to emulate Lincoln — holding yourself to a higher standard — is diminished. And one barometer of this atmospheric shift is in the increasingly overheated rhetoric by candidates attacking the current president. This serial disrespect ends up unintentionally diminishing the office of president itself. Read More…
