Politics

It wasn’t enough for Republican primary voters in Virginia’s 7th District that their congressman, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, helped the GOP regroup after President Barack Obama took office; that Cantor played bad cop to House Speaker John Boehner’s good cop during the 2011 debt-ceiling standoff; or that over his career, Cantor voted with his…

Pundits, prognosticators and backseat-driving know-it-alls are chatting up everything you need to know about House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) karma-driven primary loss Tuesday night, with politicos scrambling to understand David Brat: a once-puckish Tea Party upstart and Cantor twin with only $200,000 in the bank who managed to unseat the second most powerful cat in…

There is victory in perseverance. It is the fable about the tortoise’s slow pace being just the pace he needs. It is the religious doctrine that heralds, what comes doesn’t always come when you want it but when you need it. James Clyburn knows this well, having been a child in school during the slow…

Voter-ID laws must not be all that bad if black folks like them, right? That’s the new political wolf ticket that the Republican rank and file want you to buy. Conservative activists, as jumpy as So You Think You Can Dance contestants, have hit the media trail with their latest talking point: Black folks heart…

According to his critics, President Barack Obama can’t seem to do anything right. But the latest example of Obama-hate syndrome is truly bizarre, since it was triggered by the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American prisoner of war in Afghanistan, something that would normally elicit bipartisan cheers. But with Obama as commander in…

Let me be clear. I agree with President Barack Obama’s statement on Tuesday that “regardless of circumstances … we still get an American prisoner back”—emphasizing that the principle of leaving no man behind applies, “Period, full stop.” And I agree with the Wall Street Journal that, any other issues aside, making the deal to get…

President Barack Obama might be the only black person on the planet who cares about climate change. Well, not really, but close—the ill-fated climate-change debate is as white as late-night talk shows. It’s that way for a number of reasons: from who funds either side of the heated climate conversation to allegations that environmentalists routinely…

Ever since President Barack Obama took office, a pretty reliable pattern has emerged: On a regular basis someone will say, write or tweet something racist about the president and the media will cover it—including yours truly. Someone apologizes for the remark (or doesn’t), and someone else distances himself or his organization from the offender in…

“No matter who you are, or where you came from—or the circumstances into which you are born—if you work hard, if you take responsibility, then you can make it in this country.” President Barack Obama spoke those words in February when he announced his My Brother’s Keeper initiative, focused on empowering and improving the lives…

As President Barack Obama dropped foreign policy science on graduating West Point cadets, a fresh battle re-emerged over whether or not he actually has a foreign policy, rekindling fresh rounds of debate over the existence of an “Obama doctrine.” Hating conservatives are as convinced of its nonexistence as they are in doubt about his birthplace.…