Now that the midterm wipeout has concluded, analysts are already sizing up the GOP challengers to a weakened Barack Obama. Not only that: some Democratic party elders are considering the once-unthinkable scenario of a debilitating challenge to Barack Obama from inside his party — most likely from a disgruntled critic on the left. But in truth, Obama has little to fear there. It's an urban myth that any inter-party challenge to a president weakens him. George Wallace challenged Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and Pete...]]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 To listen to some pundits, Barack Obama's public image began taking a serious beating when the off-year election returns came in a week ago. Or maybe it was the undeserved Nobel Prize, his approach to the war in Afghanistan, or when he revved up his pursuit of national health-care reform.

But the pundits, as usual, are wrong. In reality, Obama peaked the night he was elected.

That astonishing evening was both a blessing and a curse for our 44th president. As the first African-American elected to the Oval Office, Obama made the history books in indelible fashion, generating an uplifting sense of national pride and renewal along the way.

That alone is more than many...]]> Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Since Iceland is something of the epicenter of the global financial crisis - its government being the first to essentially go belly up - it's probably not surprising that the Icelanders have come up with the most novel and interesting theory as to what caused the meltdown. And they may be right.

It's all the fault of men. And not mankind, mind you, but the male of our species.

"The crisis is man-made," said banker Halla Tomasdottir, former general director of Iceland's chamber of commerce and one of the few figures who actually warned a meltdown was coming. "It's always the same guys," she went on to tell a German magazine. "Ninety-nine percent went to the same school, they...]]> Thu, 07 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 So, Arlen Specter is now a Democrat. That's old news. But with all the media attention focused on the short-term effects of Specter's midnight conversion - thus likely giving Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate - commentators have missed the long-range (and more significant) consequences. Specter's action emboldens the rise of an energized "middle" in American politics. That could be the catalyst, over time, for a new significant political movement - or even the formation of a new political party.

Those with short memories have undoubtedly forgotten that, several years ago, Democrat Joe Lieberman made a similar move, leaving his party so that he could retain his...]]> Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500 A tension lies at the heart of the Obama presidency. After 100 days in office, the public still seems uncertain how to interpret the historic nature of the election last November.

One camp claims President Barack Obama's inauguration marked a decisive break with the patterns of American politics over the past four decades or so, giving him a mandate to forge ahead with sweeping changes. Another believes that while voters were ultimately fed up with President George W. Bush, the financial crisis, which broke in the fall, played the decisive factor in his election. More than just a matter of opinion, the resolution of this dispute will go a long way toward defining Obama's success,...]]> Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500 While political analysts understandably regard elections and politicians as the key forces of social change, nongovernmental forces are the ones that most often actually influence and transform our culture.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1850s novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, probably did as much as any political event to help shape northern opinion in a way that made a Civil War inevitable. Martin Luther King Jr.'s decision to emulate Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence gave the civil-rights movement a broader appeal that sped the pace of change. Civil-rights' lawyers strategic litigation, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in the 1950s, did much the same.

In a similar vein, the...]]> Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500 It's not news that newspapers are in huge trouble — victims of technological change and a mini-depression. What is news is the unadorned glee that is greeting the demise of newsprint.

When auto or city workers lose their jobs, there's talk of bailouts and extra measures to cushion the trauma, and even mournful country songs written in tribute. And when newspapers close? The blogs are full of self-congratulations at the demise of the journalistic establishment.

"Seeing newspapers fall apart brings me joy," writes an anonymous essayist in a broadside reprinted on the blog  Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500 It's one of the great myths of modern American life that, no matter what travesties befall us, sports will carry on unfazed. Thus, says the hype machine, despite the poor economy, all is well in the world of athletic competition. In times of trouble, people need entertainment more than ever. And so, if there's one sector that will not be affected by the devastating downturn, it's the world of sports.

Don't believe a word of it.

The great American sports machine is crashing to Earth. And, given the intensity with which Americans love and identify with their teams, that is likely to take a good part of the national psyche -- and a hunk of confidence -- along with it.

Take NBA...]]> Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500 In the early days of the Obama administration, one politically perilous warning keeps resurfacing for the man in the Oval Office: "Don't turn into another Jimmy Carter."

By pursuing too broad an agenda, warn such Democrats as William Galston, Obama risks repeating the errors of the Carter administration. This is enough of a concern that it is recognized even by overseas journalists, such as Sarah Baxter of the Times of London, who recently filed a piece entitled, " 'Jimmy Carter' Tag Has Obama Wincing."

But it's time to set the record straight. The comparison is completely unfair -- not to Obama but to Carter.

At this point in his administration, Jimmy Carter (disclosure: I...]]> Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Barack Obama is an inspirational leader, a potential realigner, and a racial trailblazer. But he's not a populist -- and given his handling of the AIG debacle, it's clear that he'll never be one. With good reason.

Populism comes in many guises and is constantly in flux. In general, though, relying on the work of Michael Kazin, author of The Populist Persuasion, it is a powerful mass movement, somewhat out of the political mainstream, grounded in typically American language that characterizes politics as a struggle between ordinary people and a self-serving, undemocratic elite. Anyone who convincingly appropriates the jargon ("special interests") and the enemies' list (distant...]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 One of the major themes of Barack Obama's political philosophy has been that it's time for America to move beyond the Baby Boom Generation's petty partisanship. In The Audacity of Hope, he wrote that when he observed politics in his younger days, "I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby Boom Generation -- a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago -- played out on the national stage."

Once he became a presidential candidate, Obama picked up on the theme. "I think there is no doubt that we represent the kind of change that Senator Clinton can't deliver on, and part of it is generational," he said. In a...]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Barack Obama's presidential campaign was successful in part because he was able to cleverly negotiate and navigate the battles that have plagued the United States the last few years: the culture wars and constant red-state/blue-state bickering. Now, though, his leadership style is being placed at the center of a newly discovered confrontation, one whose rivalry dates back at least 100 years.

About a month ago, Noam Scheiber had a piece in the New Republic attributing many of the stylistic differences between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to the fact that the former attended Harvard Law School and the latter Yale Law School. I'm sure that, when most non-lawyers hear of this...]]> Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Barack Obama is ubiquitous. In his first six weeks in office, he's given an inaugural address, a State of the Union-like speech to a joint-session of Congress (since new presidents don't really report on the state of the union), and an hour-long press conference. He's also made several campaign trips and has been a daily fixture on magazine covers and the news shows. He's talking to us all the time.

Yes, he's an intriguing and appealing figure. But you don't have to go out on a limb to surmise that he may be risking overexposure -- which often leads to failure.

This is not an argument about the longevity of political popularity. Rather, it has to do with Obama's creating what...]]> Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Four months ago, the Republican Party seemed headed for the scrap heap. Today, things don't look quite so bad -- not because the party has done anything particularly brilliant, mind you, but because opposition parties almost always come back sooner or later -- and almost always for the same reason.

The other party screws up. Or, to paraphrase Enoch Powell, the British politician who put it far more eloquently: all political careers ultimately end in failure. That's because leaders and political parties inevitably over-promise and over-reach. Already, President Barack Obama's efforts -- from the stimulus package to welfare reform -- are coming in for some heavy criticism.

So the...]]>