Admittedly, attention spans in Washington, as anywhere else, are limited, and there’s only so much room in the in-box. But usually the capital’s politico-journalistic complex is able to walk and chew gum and do three or four other things at the...]]> Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0500 Rice and Power are both confidants of the president; that they should be moving up in his second term comes as no surprise. After Hillary Clinton formally announced her departure as secretary of state, the White House hinted that Rice was Obama’s first choice for the job. But Republicans pitched a preemptive fit over Rice: They denounced her for her Sunday-show description of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on U.S. diplomatic posts in Benghazi, Libya, as a protest over an anti-Islam movie trailer that got out of hand. Rice's confirmability in doubt, Obama passed over her in favor of the current incumbent, then-Senator John Kerry. Or so the story goes.

The calls to date come from two distinct groups: One consists of Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500 Cass R. Sunstein has thought deeply about the regulatory state both as a theorist and as a practitioner, and he also knows a thing or two about practical politics. Now, in response to the successful opposition to Senate legislation expanding background checks for gun buyers, he hasproffered an interesting critique of the “slippery slope” style of argument notably on display in defeating the measure.

Sunstein wants to add the “slippery slope” argument to the three types of argument the late economist Albert O. Hirschman identified as characteristic...]]> Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500 Political opponents are wont to describe Barack Obama as a polarizing figure in American politics. In fact, they angrily note, the most polarizing of all presidents. They decry this in the context of his 2008 campaign, during which he presented himself as a figure almost above partisanship, or at least capable of transcending it for the common good. Of course his critics, as a general rule, never really believed Obama was actually some sort of fusionist post-partisan; they...]]> Sat, 06 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500 No one is more preoccupied these days with Hillary Clinton's 2016 plans than the Beltway political class—not even the former presidential candidate herself. To hear some tell it, her decision will be dispositive for all other Democrats thinking of entering the race. And  Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500 One of the most interesting features of President Obama’s second-term policy agenda is that he doesn’t seem to think he needs one.

OK, he got some of his increase in the top tax rate for high earners even before his second term started. He campaigned on it; it’s policy; that counts. And immigration policy reform seems to be a possibility not too far down the line. And of course there’s gun control, even if it looks doubtful that anything of substance will come of it.

But about gun control: Where did that come from? The tragic answer is Newtown—no more, no less. In the absence of the mass murder of little children, gun control would be no more...]]> Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600 If you can take Romney down, you take him down; you can make it up to the capitalists later.

What was noteworthy about Tim Pawlenty's brief excursion into the GOP field was his inability to pull the trigger against Romney: One day last June, Pawlenty called Romney's Massachusetts health care reform legislation "Obamneycare," elevating himself above the rest of the field by slapping a target directly on the frontrunner; the day after at a GOP debate, Pawlenty couldn't quite bring himself to get in Romney's face with the charge. He backed down. He just didn't want to be president that much. Although he might be kicking himself for dropping out so early, given that most everyone else...]]> Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500 In the debt-limit debate, we’ve been hearing a lot about how a “grand bargain”-style solution with tax increases can’t pass the GOP-controlled House. That’s true. But here’s the issue that’s being neglected: Can a tax increase pass the Democratic majority Senate? Without a realistic possibility of Senate support for tax hikes, the whole revenue side of the discussion ceaselessly promoted by the White House dissolves into meaninglessness.

The problem is electoral politics. Democrats have 23 Senate seats up in 2012, counting the two independents who caucus with them. The GOP has 10. Of the 23, as of now six are retiring. That leaves 17 who will be facing the...]]> Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Increase Font Size

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Since there is so little of it, let's start with the good news about the release from prison and triumphant return to Libya of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the terrorist who was supposedly serving a life sentence in a Scottish prison for his role in blowing Pan Am 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie in 1988, killing 270 people.

The good news is that many Scots, including members of parliament, were genuinely outraged by the decision of Scotland's cabinet secretary for justice, Kenny MacAskill, to grant "compassionate release" to Megrahi, who has cancer. The...]]> Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500