Obama Has Aura but Doesn't Know How To Legislate By Michael Barone
Aura dazzles, but argument gets things done. Consider the debate on the Democrats' health care bill and the increasingly negative response to Barack Obama's performance.
Commentary by Michael Barone
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July 30, 2009
July 27, 2009
Stumbling Governors Signal Trouble for Dems By Michael Barone
With polls showing a drop in Barack Obama's job rating and sinking support for the Democrats' health care plans, there is evidence of collateral damage where you might not expect to find it: in the standing of Democratic governors. Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell suddenly is getting negative job ratings in both the Quinnipiac University and the Franklin & Marshall College polls -- his lowest marks in seven years as governor.
July 23, 2009
A Month of Gloomy Thursdays for Health Care Plan By Michael Barone
Thursday is the day things tend to come to a boil on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress have been in town for three or four days; they're planning their exits on Friday to meet other commitments; they've had a chance to talk and meet with one another and sample the moods of their colleagues.
July 20, 2009
Britain and United States Go in Different Directions By Michael Barone
Once upon a time, British and American politics seemed to operate in tandem. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came to office, both supposedly little experienced and out of the mainstream, at about the same time.
July 17, 2009
The Price of Leaving the Details to Congress By Michael Barone
"Never let a crisis go to waste," Barack Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said last November. The crisis he referred to was economic: the financial collapse and the rapidly deepening recession. The opportunity it presented, for Obama and Emanuel, was to vastly expand the size and scope of the federal government through cap-and-trade and health-care legislation.
July 13, 2009
Chaos on Capitol Hill: All Politics Is Loco By Michael Barone
Disarray. That's one word to describe the status of the Obama administration's legislative program as Congress heads into its final four weeks of work before the August recess. A watered-down cap-and-trade bill passed the House narrowly last month, but Sen. Barbara Boxer has decided not to bring up her version in the upper chamber until September.
July 9, 2009
Getting Cold Feet Over Democratic Proposals By Michael Barone
The financial system collapsed. Housing prices cratered. Unemployment is at a record high for the last quarter-century. The Democratic president has a solidly positive job rating.
July 6, 2009
We Need a Systemic Risk Advisor, Not a Regulator By Michael Barone
One policy of the Obama administration that has understandably attracted little public attention is its proposal to make the Federal Reserve a "systemic risk regulator."
July 2, 2009
Firefighter Case Shows Seamy Side of Racial Politics By Michael Barone
The Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the case of the New Haven firefighters, was a ringing endorsement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964's ban on racial discrimination and a repudiation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's decision in the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
June 29, 2009
No Excuse for Dems' Sticker Shock on Health Care By Michael Barone
Democrats' plans to pass major health care legislation have been stymied, at least for the moment, by the Congressional Budget Office's cost estimates. To the consternation and apparent surprise of leading Democrats, the CBO scored Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus' latest offering at $1.6 trillion over 10 years, while it scored the completed sections of Sen. Christopher Dodd's bill at $1 trillion. Presumably, the incomplete sections would cost more.
June 25, 2009
The Adolescent Angst of Barack Obama By Michael Barone
There is a tendency for newly installed presidents, like adolescents suddenly liberated from adult supervision, to do the exact opposite of what their predecessors did. Presidents of both parties indulge in this behavior, though Democrats who campaign as candidates of hope and change are more likely to do so.
June 18, 2009
All Politics Is Turnout -- and Enthusiasm Is Key By Michael Barone
Many psephologists -- derived from the word for pebbles, which the ancient Greeks used as ballots -- study who wins and loses elections. Lately, I've been looking more closely at turnout. For we live, though most psephologists haven't stopped to notice it lately, in a decade of vastly increased voter turnout.
June 16, 2009
When Detainees Get Rights They Don't Deserve By Michael Barone
It shouldn't come as a complete surprise that, as Stephen Hayes reported in The Weekly Standard, detainees in Afghanistan are now being advised of their Miranda rights by American interrogators -- that they have a right to be silent, a right to a lawyer, a right to have that lawyer paid for, etc.
June 11, 2009
Qualms and Questions About Obama's Health Plan By Michael Barone
Barack Obama has said he wants to pass a national health care bill this year, with a government insurance policy option. Democratic congressional leaders have called for passage of such a bill before the beginning of the August congressional recess.
June 8, 2009
Obama Needs to Brush up on Middle East History By Michael Barone
For a man of his impressive educational credentials, Barack Obama has sometimes shown a surprising ignorance of history.
June 5, 2009
Advancing Civil Rights By Overturning Old Laws By Michael Barone
Two cases likely to be decided this month by the Supreme Court -- one of them an appeal in a Connecticut case decided by a panel including Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor -- could result in significant changes in our civil rights laws.
June 1, 2009
GOP Should Run Against the Power of the Center By Michael Barone
Move to the center. That's the advice Republicans are getting from quarters friendly and otherwise. It seems to make a certain amount of sense. If opinion is arrayed along a single-dimension, left-to-right spectrum and clustered in the middle in a bell-curve pattern, then a party on the right needs only to move a few steps toward the center or just beyond to convert itself from minority to majority status.
May 29, 2009
Will Sotomayor's Style Blunt Her Liberal Views? By Michael Barone
Barack Obama has named his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. What's the likely fallout, politically and judicially?
May 27, 2009
No Time for Tea-and-Crumpet Interrogations By Michael Barone
When former Vice President Dan Quayle scheduled a big speech, President Bill Clinton didn't hop in and schedule one for the hour before.
May 21, 2009
Why the U.S. Should Listen to India's Voters By Michael Barone
Last November, 131 million Americans voted, and the whole world took notice. Over the last month, about 700 million Indians voted, and most Americans, like most of the world, didn't much notice.
