Blog

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…

VA, NJ Races Tighten Up

09.25.2009

Even as Republicans crow about perceptions of the Obama administration running aground, and look forward with growing conviction to big, 1994-style gains in 2010, an interesting thing is happening in the two big statewide races that are actually being conducted right now, in VA and NJ. After months in which Republican gubernatorial candidates Bob McDonnell…

Obama Courts World Opinion

09.24.2009

After a detour into arrogant unilateralism, a more humble America is returning to the path of global cooperation. This was the gist of the message President Obama delivered to the world in his speech yesterday at the United Nations. Predictably, the speech incensed conservatives, who saw it as the latest example of Obama’s alleged compulsion…

Energy Efficiency Spurs Economic Growth

09.23.2009

A new study from Environment Northeast (ENE), an environmental research organization, offers a rebuke to the notion that energy efficiency can only be achieved at the expense of economic growth. Studying the macroeconomic impact of efficiency policies in the Northeast, ENE finds that efficiency provides not just savings for consumers and a decrease in emissions…

Unreconciled: The Dangers of the Growing Demand for Using Reconciliation To Enact Health Reform

09.21.2009

The long-running campaign to make inclusion of a “public option” a progressive litmus test for Democrats on health care reform has entered a new and potentially dangerous phase: growing demands that congressional Democrats use the budget “reconciliation” procedure to avoid a Senate filibuster and lower the effective threshold for enactment of a bill to 50…

Building a Clean Economy on an Old Tobacco Plant

09.17.2009

It’s hard to imagine many new uses for a shuttered tobacco factory. Thirty-foot tall cranes designed for moving bales, a paper factory, heavy equipment including backhoes, fork-lifts and tractors, and old cement floors stained by tobacco juice made sense for tobacco. But the odds that this plant, situated on 140 acres of land and given…