Joshua Green is a former writer and editor at The Atlantic.
I just returned from Capitol Hill, where the new health care law is still the preoccupying issue, and the Republican talking point du jour, which seems to have been issued with stage directions instructing that it be delivered in a tone of gravest concern, is that Democrats and President Obama have perpetrated a breathtaking assault on the body politic by passing a law that did not have widespread public support. I agree that Democrats have taken a political risk,… More »
Journalism's code holds that if you're going to re-report someone else's story, you're supposed to mention the source More »
Watching the David Frum saga unfold, culminating with his being fired from the American Enterprise Institute yesterday and essentially purged from the respectable conservative movement, I'm reminded more and more of my old boss, Charlie Peters. Charlie founded The Washington Monthly magazine in 1969, and undertook to reorient a liberal movement that he felt had become hopelessly lost and inward looking. Charlie believed in a liberal vision for society--just not the… More »
In the wake of any new law, predictions come fast and furious--see Megan, Ezra, Megan, etc. Many are interesting and serve as useful devices for thinking about the new law's effects. I myself lack the powers of foresight to proclaim, as Megan does, an 80 percent chance of there being pharmaceutical price controls twenty years hence (if I had such powers they'd be directed toward sports betting). I'm just as curious about what happens, but I'm instinctively… More »
Last night's Democratic triumph may have saved Barack Obama's presidency, but it's Nancy Pelosi's moment right now. Glowing profiles of her appeared in The New York Times and Politico, even before the vote. History will remember her as the Speaker who ushered in this era's landmark social reform, and did so against great odds. And yet for all that, she's an enigmatic figure. The excitement that suffused Democratic Washington a few days ago came on so suddenly, I… More »
An interview with Clinton strategist Chris Lehane about what Tiger needs to do More »
Former shipmates say their lieutenant commander groped subordinates More »
Congress members accuse Timothy Geithner of coddling Wall Street. Wall Street accuses him of abetting socialism. Yet when the history books are written, Geithner will be recognized as Barack Obama’s key lieutenant in the struggle to right the economy and fix the finance system. Economically, Geithner’s plan has worked better and more cheaply than anyone could have imagined a year ago. Politically, it threatens to undermine Obama’s presidency. Is Geithner a courageous public servant doing the right thing? Or have his years as a player in global finance made him loath to change an industry that needs fundamental reform?
The Grateful Dead Archive, scheduled to open soon at the University of California at Santa Cruz, will be a mecca for academics of all stripes: from ethnomusicologists to philosophers, sociologists to historians. But the biggest beneficiaries may prove to be business scholars and management theorists, who are discovering that the Dead were visionary geniuses in the way they created “customer value,” promoted social networking, and did strategic business planning.
New administrations always overlearn the lessons of their predecessors and Obama's is no different. The Bush White House was famously overpoliticized, so much so that it never got around to governing. Obviously, last night's drubbing in Massachusetts shows that this White House isn't political enough, because evidently nobody saw this coming. Say what you will about Karl Rove--and I've said plenty about him in the pages of The Atlantic--but it's impossible to… More »
Democrats took another blow Friday evening when Rep. Vic Snyder of Arkansas announced his retirement. Snyder was an oddity--a liberal in Arkansas' 2nd District who'd held office since 1996. A few minutes ago, my colleagues down at The Cook Report issued a special update on the race and declared Synder's Republican opponent, Tim Griffin, the favorite to win the seat. Griffin is a familiar name to Beltway types, a protégé of Karl Rove and the former head of the… More »
A theory on why the slugger's immunity request was denied More »
Somebody blocked the baseball slugger from getting an immunity deal
Is a skiing vs. bowling class divide building for the GOP in 2012? More »
Pre-election prognostications are pointless, while there are more important political trends to analyze More »
As the Chamber gets pranked, a fictitious McCain staffer releases a book More »
Although Congress is in recess, many members of the Senate will, of course, be attending Ted Kennedy's funeral in Boston. When they reconvene in Washington after Labor Day, Kennedy's passing will have a number of important practical ramifications in addition to the symbolic ones so much in discussion today. These will impact many of the big policy decisions coming this fall. While nothing is formal yet, Senate insiders expect something like the following scenario… More »
Today's arrest of major Democratic fundraiser Hassan Nemazee on fraud charges is big, big news--few people loomed larger in the world of political money. Nemazee was a major fundraiser for the Clintons and, to a lesser extent, Barack Obama, and put large sums into Democratic efforts to win back Congress. So it's interesting to note (although the Times story does not), that the guy who busted Nemazee, Preet Bharara, the recently arrived United States attorney for… More »
From the moment Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech electrified the Republican convention, she…
Bob Vander Plaats offers GOP candidates a choice: join his crusade against gay marriage or lose the…
The former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza wants to upend the race for the 2012 Republican…
