Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"It was inevitable that Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital would feature prominently in the presidential race, because both candidates need to exploit it in order to win." Here's how the issue is playing out politically
Afghanistan. America's "surge" has been a failure, but Obama has escaped punishment for it. "On no other major issue has Obama been so cynical. And on no other issue has his cynicism proved so politically shrewd"
Main topic: Losing faith in Obama. He overpromised, underdelivered. “It’s like a novelist being obsessed with Tolstoy or Proust, and then he ends up writing short stories that can barely get into some middlebrow magazine." Ouch
Scathing takedown of US president. "It isn’t simply that Obama lied. Politicians lie. But there are norms for political lying. The depth and dependability of Obama’s misrepresentation constitute a difference in kind"
"With his switch from ambivalence to advocacy, Obama is sending a signal to the courts that the country is ready for gay marriage, giving them cover to uphold it. Courts like to stay within the mainstream. Obama has just moved it"
The Obama campaign boasts that much of its funding comes from small donors. Well, up to a point. The president is also successfully hitting up a lot more rich people for donations than is generally perceived
Is it still the economy, stupid? No one would say economic conditions are unimportant in determining the outcome of elections, but how much do campaigns matter? Tomasky weighs up Romney vs Obama, 2012
Robert Caro has reached volume four of his great biography of Lyndon Johnson, and the moment when government suddenly shifted. JFK was gone and it was up to his ungainly, unethical successor to turn rhetoric into legal reality
Do you think a second-term Obama presidency, freed from re-election concerns, will tackle Netanyahu and push for Middle East peace? Here's why it won't happen (and it's not because of the Israel lobby)
Mitt Romney does not feel your pain. There again, neither does Barack Obama. But who says voters want familiarity and empathy anyway? It wasn't on offer from FDR or JFK. Truth is, Americans want to salute their leaders, not hug them
Former adviser reflects: "Too many of us treated Obama’s inauguration as some kind of finish line, when we should have seen it as just the starting line. Too many of us sat down at the very moment when we should have stood up"
US Supreme Court hears challenge to Affordable Health Care act. Not much doubt over whether it's constitutional: It is. But will the Court's conservative majority take this chance to strike it down anyway, to spite Obama?
America's dogs can't afford four more years of Obama
Andrew Sullivan, on Barack Obama
"I correctly gauged the American public's willingness to elect a biracial president. I drastically over-rated their willingness to be governed by one"
