Blog

Blocking Out the Nobel Noise

10.13.2009

According to Gallup’s daily tracking poll, President Obama’s job approval rating has seen a nice little bounce in the wake of the Nobel Peace Prize announcement last Friday. From a term-low 50% approval rating a week ago, Obama’s rating now sits at 56%. That uptick certainly seems to defy the conventional wisdom among the chattering classes…

Why Obama’s Nobel Win Is a Good Thing

10.09.2009

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s decision to bestow this year’s award on President Obama is both an endorsement and a challenge. The prize is an endorsement of Obama’s idea of what America should be. We may be the world’s strongest power, but America should have the strength to listen and lead, not order and ignore.…

Are the States Ready To Undertake Health Care Reform?

10.08.2009

As the U.S. Senate prepares for floor action on health care reform, there’s a sudden profusion of schemes that seek a compromise on the key “public option” question by giving states a lot of leeway. Tom Carper is floating a state “opt-in” approach. Others are talking about a state “opt-out” system. The Finance Committee has already adopted Maria…

Code Pink Reconsiders Stance on Afghanistan

10.08.2009

Code Pink: warmongers? Hardly, but don’t automatically assume you know this anti-war women’s group position on Afghanistan. You may remember the Pink-sters disrupting Hill hearings on Iraq War funding and on campus at Berkeley protesting a Marine Corps recruiting station. But when it comes to Kabul, you may be surprised. The Christian Science Monitor is reporting…

They Like Us! They Really Like Us!

10.07.2009

After Barack Obama’s victory last November, there were stories about how the election shifted international perceptions of America. It turns out we weren’t just imagining it. Coming on the heels of the Olympic disappointment — which conservatives have tried to spin as a referendum on Obama’s global appeal — a new poll from GfK Roper Public Affairs…

The Debates We Are Not Having on Iran

10.06.2009

Michael Crowley expresses shock over a new Pew poll finding that 61% of Americans would favor military action to prevent Iranian development of nuclear weapons if other options fail. I’m less shocked.  In the run-up to the Iraq War, the belief that Saddam Hussein had developed or was rapidly developing WMD, including nuclear weapons, was…

A Way Forward on Immigration

10.06.2009

Since November 2008, I have been participating in roundtable discussions on immigration policy with a group of academics, policy analysts, community leaders, and former government officials brought together by the Brookings Institution and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. The participants ranged across the political spectrum and had different perspectives on immigration. But…

Fighting Terrorism With Cooler Heads: The Zazi Case

10.06.2009

Perhaps you’ve heard something about the case of Najibullah Zazi, the 24-year-old Afghan immigrant arrested in Colorado under suspicion of nearing the “execution phase” of a terrorist plot, purportedly against a target in New York City. Then again, maybe you haven’t. And that, my friends, isn’t a terrible thing. Zazi’s case illustrates the Obama administration’s…

GOP’s Great White Hopes — Now or Later

10.05.2009

Like a lot of folks, I’ve expressed worries about the likelihood that older white voters will represent a disproportionate share of the electorate in the 2010 midterm elections, creating an unearned GOP advantage. In his latest column, Ron Brownstein meditates on that possibility, but also points out that a Republican message tailored to older white…

Polls: National Security at Stake in Afghanistan

10.02.2009

It’s no secret that Democrats are uneasy with sending more troops to Afghanistan. But here’s something I found rather interesting – with or without troops, all Americans – Dems included – understand why we’re there, and their preference is to keep the country safe from another terrorist attack. Here are some numbers: A late September…

A Republican Starts Making Sense

10.01.2009

Maybe Bobby Jindal is a new kind of Republican after all. Republicans had high hopes for the Louisiana Governor, whose brains, youth and conspicuous ethnicity (his family is from India) marked him as conservatives’ answer to Barack Obama. That’s why they chose Jindal to gave his party’s response to Obama’s first address to Congress last…

Some Revolution

09.28.2009

In political circles, Republicans and Democrats alike have begun comparing the 2010 election with the “revolution” that handed both the House and the Senate to the GOP in 1994. But how applicable is that analogy, really? On the surface, the comparison is plausible. In 1994, as now, a charismatic outsider took office amid general unhappiness…