Politics

The Rev. Al Sharpton mocked Republicans on his MSNBC show, Politics Nation, for complaining about an image showing President Obama with his foot on the desk in the Oval Office, apparently while discussing the crisis in Syria. Sharpton described it as eagerness on the part of Republican leaders to find fault with the president at…

Last Saturday, in Casper, Wyo., members of the local chapter for the NAACP met with a representative of United Klans of America, more widely known as the Ku Klux Klan. With heavy security patrolling the Parkway Plaza Hotel, the two groups met in an attempt to broker some kind of peace and understanding, at least…

(The Root) — What is so blaringly disturbing about the recent debate over whether the United States should engage militarily in Syria’s civil war — and the call for congressional debate and action — is the complete lack of acknowledgment that America has been fighting its own intellectual civil war for five years. The Republican…

On Tuesday, Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor expressed their support of President Barack Obama’s call to action against Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons against rebel forces and civilians, according to the New York Times. With two leading House Republicans on board, Obama may find it…

Saying that the U.S. has a moral responsibility to respond forcefully, President Barack Obama said on Saturday that he would give Congress a chance to vote on the use of military force in Syria for that regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons, the Washington Post reports. The announcement puts off a cruise missile strike that…

In a piece at the Daily Beast, Jamelle Bouie says that although President Barack Obama did address economic fairness during his speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, he missed an important point about racial justice. As president of the United States, Barack Obama is the highest-profile legacy of the civil-rights movement,…

In a hard-hitting piece at The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates looks at President Obama’s relationship with the black community in terms of his remarks on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. He compares Obama’s speech to “The Conservation of Races” by W.E.B. Du Bois, a speech that Du Bois is said to have come…

President Barack Obama delivered a strong performance at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, writes Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. Given the no-win situation of trying to compete with Martin Luther King Jr.’s poeticism, Robinson argues, it was wise for Obama to focus on social and economic issues despite mounting concerns about strife in…

Bill O’Reilly apologized for accusing organizers of not inviting any Republicans to the March on Washington 50th-anniversary commemoration. He admitted he was wrong on the Thursday-night airing of his show, The O’Reilly Factor, according to the Huffington Post. O’Reilly had complained that no Republicans had been invited to the event. In fact, many, including both…

(The Root) — As an exercise in further deifying Martin Luther King Jr. and further solidifying an oversimplified version of his legacy, yesterday’s 50th-anniversary celebration of the historic March on Washington was a huge success. But as a means of kindling a new and badly needed social movement that could meaningfully address the unfinished business…