Politics

Who can blame anyone for wanting to get away from the stormy, humid clime that is the norm in the nation’s capital in August and repair to the quiet beaches, charming towns, delicious seafood and intimate parties that are mainstays of this island outpost off the Massachusetts coast? Well, anyone except for Barack Obama. The…

Written by James McGrath Morris On the morning of July 7, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the Indian Treaty Room in the Executive Office Building, where 165 members of the overwhelmingly white and male press corps were gathered. After briefly congratulating the reporters on the media’s efforts to reduce fireworks casualties during the recent…

President Barack Obama on Saturday said that Congress has stymied recovery by blocking measures he said would create jobs and help growth, according to Reuters. In remarks recorded on Wednesday on his campaign-style bus tour in Illinois and aired during his holiday in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, Obama said the stalled construction, trade and payroll tax…

During the turbulent 1960s and ’70s, segregationists like Alabama Gov. George Wallace and Boston anti-busing rabble-rouser Louise Day Hicks whipped up what was then known as “the White Backlash.” It was nothing less than an all-out effort to use mob rule to roll back the gains of the civil rights movement and drive blacks back…

Robin Givhan, in the Daily Beast, reviews early fashion nuances of the 2012 presidential race, noting that the requisite suit-and-tie have all but been vanquished to the closet. In the pursuit of the presidency, as candidates make use of every form of communication — including style and its nuanced inflections — the earnest rolling of…

There is controversy brewing over President Obama’s family vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. Some feel that he should not be on vacation at a time when the nation is in such a fragile state. Others think that it’s a slap in the face to the downtrodden and unemployed. Karen Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times is…

A few weeks ago, President Obama’s most likely scenario for re-election was facing a moderate Republican who had made few controversial remarks in his years in public life and could easily cast himself as a business-focused technocrat. But that potential opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is no longer the heavy favorite to win the…

While the major metropolitan areas in the state have tilted toward Democrats, Texas is still a solidly red state. Our governor-turned-presidential candidate Rick Perry hasn’t had to court the African-American vote, since he’s won three elections and become Texas’ longest-serving governor without it.  Perry hasn’t ignored black Texans. He’s routinely taken part in the United…