AP American Government

Unprincipled Hucksterism

The controversy kicked up by Mitt Romney's sleazy and duplicitous ad, taking Obama's words out of context, continues.

See this op-ed piece by Frank Bruni in the New York Times, this piece by Brian McGrory in the Boston Globe, and this piece, also from the Boston Globe, by Scott Lehigh.

Getting Serious About Governing

See Peggy Noonan's column in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal.

Partisanship Set Path to Failure

See this column by Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal on the partisanship that set the congressional deficit-reduction panel on the path to failure.  

According to this column by David Brooks of the New York Times, part of the problem is that we have two minority parties, and indecisive voters alternately empower them, which simply hardens their intransigent positions.  His conclusion -- that the problem can be solved only by the emergence of a strong third party or by a severe fiscal crisis -- is sobering.

Kennedy: Faithless and Ruthless

John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy were aggressive, ruthless politicians (as well as notorious adulterers).  Chris Matthews, the journalist, has written a new biography of John Kennedy.  It apparently does a good job of depicting the callous, cold-blooded side of the Kennedys, which biographers, typically caught up in a hagiographic haze, usually miss.  See this piece from today's Washington Post.

A Moderate's Views of Congress's Problems

Please read this column by Joe Nocera from this morning's New York Times.  Nocera reports on a conversation he had with Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee, who is one of the very few political moderates left in the House of Representatives.  That is, he's not a rabid conservative or a rabid liberal; his views are middle-pf-the-road. (That's Jim Cooper in the photo, at left.) Cooper's views about what is wrong with the contemporary Congress are the sort of thing we'll be talking about in a couple of weeks, when our attention turns to Congress. 

 

Partisan Conflict in Washington

Please read this article by John Harwood from today's New York Times about the stakes involved in the partisan conflict that pervades Washington these days. 

Republicans' Hopes Rise for Senate Control

This morning's Wall Street Journal carries a front-page article showing that the Republican party's chances of winning a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate in the 2012 elections are looking good.  Read the article to understand why.  Here's the graphic accompanying the article:

Political Storm over Aid

As this news article describes, a political storm is brewing in Washington over whether disaster relief for Hurricane Irene's victims must be offset by spending cuts elsewhere, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (pictured in photo at left) insists.  Read the article.

Then read this column in this morning's New York Times by Paul Krugman (a liberal, Nobel Prize-winning economist), criticizing Rep. Cantor for his position. 

A Conservative Country

The United States is a conservative country -- and increasingly so.  See this interesting article (with data) by Richard Florida at The Atlantic's website. 

A teaser:

Poisonous Political Environment

I urge you to read Tom Friedman's op-ed piece in this morning's New York Times.