Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Barack Obama Archive
July 07, 2008
Out in Sixteen Months -- Another Take
How Barack Obama should navigate the politics of Iraq, allowing him to become president and then execute a superior policy to that of either John McCain or George W. Bush, that actually might succeed in getting troops out of Iraq,
July 04, 2008
Obama and FISA's Mother
How Obama can dig himself out of his FISA hole.
July 01, 2008
Obama and Faith: Old Wine, New Bottle
Obama's speech today has gotten excellent reviews, and justifiably so. But looking at it, it's not really anything new. Consider this report from Beliefnet (h/t Sullivan): Obama's announcement today about wanting to expand President Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives into what he's calling a President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships . . . is so significant. Not...
June 27, 2008
Obama's grace
A couple of graceful gestures say something about Obama's character.
June 24, 2008
Filibustering FISA: Obama in a Box
Now that Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold have announced that they will attempt to filibuster the FISA faux "compromise" sent over from the House, Barack Obama has another very difficult choice to make with really no good answer. Presumably, he will vote for Harry Reid's amendment stripping retroactive telecom immunity from the bill. The Republicans will filibuster it. Then Reid,...
June 22, 2008
Minority report
Foreigners have privacy rights too.
June 15, 2008
The game of Presidents
Obama, Bush and Nixon as poker players.
June 08, 2008
National Security Policy and Politics
Two articles in the June 12th New York Review of Books remind of us of the gulf between our politics and the reality of what is needed to manage the threat of terrorism. Is it hopelessly naive to think about what the Obama campaign could do to overcome this gulf? Or should it concentrate on beating McCain on the established terrain and transforming it once in office?
May 25, 2008
Some advice to Barack Obama from Lao-tse
"Know the white,
yet keep the black:
be an example to the world."
May 23, 2008
Webb for VP
Over the last few weeks, there appears to have been something of a boomlet of support for naming Senator Jim Webb of Virginia the Democratic nominee for Vice-President. For what it’s worth, I think this is a potentially brilliant move, although I do have a few reservations. There are nine reasons I can think of why Webb would make a...
Baruch Obama?
Note to wingnuts: Knowing the meaning of your own name is not "elitist." Not even if the meaning is "blessed."
May 16, 2008
Striking back
Obama and a united Democratic Party hammer Bush and McCain on foreign policy.
May 08, 2008
Milwaukee's worst
The hermeneutics of cheap beer.
May 04, 2008
Time to vote
Obama needs 12,000 more donors to get to the goal of 1.5 million by Tuesday. Will you be one of them?
May 02, 2008
Bill Moyers on Jeremiah Wright
Wright says crazy stuff. White preachers say crazier stuff, and it doesn't rub off on the Republican politicians who seek their support.
May 01, 2008
Obama's Naivete
A month or so ago, my very smart and shrewd colleague at Maryland, Peter Levine and I, wrote the following op-ed, which we couldn't find an appropriate outlet for. It doesn't deal with exactly what's on the front pages today, but I think it speaks to some of the continuing--and reasonable--concerns about Barack Obama. Presented for your approval... Steven Teles...
Dinde Clinton et dindon Obama à la sauce Krugman
Contra Krugman, there's a good campaign parallel between health care and climate change.
April 30, 2008
Shorter Ross Douthat
If you really want to show Jeremiah Wright what a jerk you think he is, you should vote for Barack Obama.
April 25, 2008
The Leviathan speaks
Thomas Hobbes on races and prizes, including primaries.
April 23, 2008
"Weakness"? I don't think so
Barack Obama, in losing, got nearly twice as many votes in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary as anyone had ever gotten before.
April 22, 2008
Note to Barack Obama
What are you doing spreading the lunacy about a link between vaccination and autism?
April 19, 2008
Obama's silence echoes in Tbilisi
Obama is silent on Russian aggression.
April 17, 2008
Obama, masculinity, blackness, and hoops
It's going to be hard to feminize a black candidate who plays a fine game of basketball.
What Obama Should Have Said
Since he's going to keep getting the question: Q: Does Jeremiah Wright love America as much as you do? A: Well, Jeremiah Wright served his country as a United States Marine, and Dick Cheney made sure that he got out of serving in the military. So, I don't know whether he loves America as much as me, but he certainly...
Lemonade dep't
What Barack Obama said today and what he might have said last night. He's entitled to be proud of himself for not accepting the questioner's invitation to beat up on Clinton over dodging sniper fire.
April 13, 2008
Counter-punching
Barack Obama hits back at Hillary Clinton on the "bitter" flap.
April 08, 2008
Just an empty suit, without expertise in foreign policy
Barack Obama, three years ago, demolishes Condi Rice on the shifting justifications for the War in Iraq and the links between tyranny and terrorism.
Punk Baracker
Is Barack Obama a closet Bad Brains fan?
April 05, 2008
The Lisbon primary
The taxi-driver primary in Lisbon goes overwhelmingly for Obama.
April 01, 2008
Perfect pitch
Barack Obama speaks to Central Pennsylvania.
March 27, 2008
Barack Obama, historian and Hamiltonian
He thinks historically rather than legally, and he identifies with Hamilton rather than Jefferson. Those are two fairly unusual features to find in a Democratic office-seeker.
March 25, 2008
"First, be not afraid"
What if the Democrats stopped basing their foreign policy positions on fear what Republicans might say? What if America offered hope and dignity to the oppressed rather than making deals with their oppressors? The Obama foreign policy team proposes answers to both of those questions.
March 24, 2008
"A place of moral leadership"
Jonathan Alter thinks that Barack Obama could help the nation "rearrange our mental furniture."
"Voices carry"
Bill Parent: "There’s no reason to believe that Rev. Wright’s indignation is central to Obama’s politics or that it would guide his policies in a profound way. But Obama is, after all, African American. Historical anger is part of the intellectual, religious and political waters he learned to swim in, and it is a part of the American story that has never been directly represented in the White House before."
March 23, 2008
A conservative embraces Obama
As any actual conservative (as opposed to a right-wing radical) must be tempted to do. What is more conservative than defending the Constitutional order against usurpation?
March 22, 2008
Did Obama throw grandma under the bus? Not so much.
Glenn Loury, a Clinton supporter, is also a good listener.
March 21, 2008
Priceless
Life doesn't get any more delicious moments than this. It's not evidence, it's not a poll, it's not substantive, but it's a big, gushy, well-deserved pie in the Clinton campaign's face and completely immune to quibbling, argument, you're-anothering, and spinning. [Hat tip: Greg Sargent/TPM] [Afterthought: is this the sort of thing that goes in an actress' or model's resumé -...
March 19, 2008
Obama and the right
If Ross Douthat can figure it out, why can't Paul Krugman?
"It is time, once again, for America to lead. "
Obama today:
"The central front in the war against terror is not Iraq, and it never was. What more could America’s enemies ask for than an endless war where they recruit new followers and try out new tactics on a battlefield so far from their base of operations? That is why my presidency will shift our focus. Rather than fight a war that does not need to be fought, we need to start fighting the battles that need to be won on the central front of the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
March 18, 2008
"That is where the perfection begins"
Barack Obama had to say something about Jeremiah Wright, and came up with a superb meditation on race and reconciliation. I think he hit this one out of the park.
Will Jeremiah Wright sink Barack Obama?
Glenn Loury thinks the Jeremiah Wright incident reveals an insoluble contradiction at the root of the Obama campaign. Unsurprisingly, I disagree. And I think there's a perfectly good extra-political explanation for Obama's refusal to leave his church in the face of the pastor's occasional "crazy uncle" behavior.
March 17, 2008
It's a floor wax and a dessert topping
I thought Bush was going to ban human hybridization.
March 16, 2008
A good Mayor of Birmingham
Hillary Clinton is like Neville Chamberlain - not the way you'd think
March 13, 2008
Whiz grandkids
Obama has his own whiz kids.
March 10, 2008
"The okey-doke"
Barack Obama isn't running for *vice* president of anything.
March 08, 2008
Wyoming results
An 18-point win for Obama, on a turnout 10x that of four years ago.
Opportunity knocks
Looking forward to Obama's anti-torture speech.
March 07, 2008
Question for Hillary Clinton
Does Hillary Clinton think that someone who believes that the CIA should employ torture is fit to be Commander-in-Chief?
The Math
If Obama wins by 10-point margins in Mississippi, Wyoming, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, Oregon, and Guam, splits Indiana and Michigan, and loses by 20-point margins in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, and Puerto Rico, and HRC picks up all the Edwards delegates, Obama would still need less than one-quarter of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to deny him the nomination. Seem hard to you? Me neither.
Will to Power
Samantha Power resigns.
March 06, 2008
"All in" for my good friend Barack
Obama's fundraising totals for February: $55m, 385,000 new donors.
Now they're asking those who have given in the past to "go all in." Seems like a good time.
March 02, 2008
Teaching
Obama seems to be able to get people to cheer for news they might not like hearing from someone else.
February 29, 2008
Classy
Obama co-sponsors legislation to remove any doubt about McCain's eligibility to be President.
February 28, 2008
Anatomy of a smear: Obama and NAFTA
No, a senior member of the Obama campaign did not call the Canadian Ambassador to say "never mind" about Obama's call to renegotiate NAFTA. Even CTV's original source has now backed away from that claim: "perhaps a miscommunication." To cover its journalistic butt, CTV is now hinting darkly about a phone call from Austan Goolsbee, not a staffer but an academic adviser to Obama, not to the Ambassador but to someone in the Canadian Consulate-General in Chicago. John McCain, having frankly said he had no idea whether the original story was true, now pretends to believe it, and uses it to question Obama's integrity. Taylor Marsh and Larry Johnson side with McCain. Feh.
This may cause a little discomfort
Obama is right to propose federal spending on electronic medical records.
February 26, 2008
Obama as the Democrats' Reagan
Conservative Steven Hayes gets it right: Barack Obama is to liberalism as Ronald Reagan was to conservatism. He's not campaigning as a moderate; he's campaigning as a uniter. He's not diluting the liberal message; he's presenting liberalism as the common sense around which the country can come together.
February 25, 2008
985,360
Obama's donor count so far.
Raising money this way IS campaign finance reform.
February 24, 2008
Is Barack Obama black?
Obama is not an African-American, but an African American: what this means.
February 22, 2008
February 21, 2008
Very afraid
I'll see your Giuliani and raise you an Edwards.