Politics

In the wake of large Republican gains in this week’s election, many in the media are relating a familiar and predictable storyline to explain them: that in the two years since Democrats claimed the White House and large majorities in both houses of Congress, they have overreached, moving too far to the left and alienating…

From Selma to the Ivy League to Oxford to Wall Street to Congress — that is the improbable but impressive arc of Terri Sewell’s life. On Tuesday, Nov. 2, she became the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama. Bull Connor must be writhing in the afterlife, and his nemesis Martin Luther King Jr.…

Acccording to Keli Goff, if the 1992 election was the Year of the Woman, then 2010 may well be dubbed the Year of the Mama Grizzly. But a look at the nationwide results from the 2010 midterms show a much more complex picture. There were Mama Grizzlies who roared, and others who got bit and…

In the immortal words of the great New York Yankee pundit Yogi Berra, “It was like déjà vu all over again.” Under a blinding media glare, yet another prominent American politician squirmed to sweep aside a damaging extramarital affair. This time it was Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., deflecting questions about a two-year-old indiscretion with…

President Obama conceded Wednesday that the voters had handed him a “shellacking” in the midterm elections and said the “humbling” losses by Democratic officeholders made him “feel bad.” But the president refused to concede that his policies were to blame for the shift in public sentiment that flipped control of the House of Representatives to…

By Alexandra Petri I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low.”— Excerpt from George W. Bush’s…

According to Rhe Washington Post, President Barack Obama signaled a willingness to compromise with Republicans on tax cuts and energy policy Wednesday, one day after his party lost control of the House and suffered deep Senate losses in the midterm elections. Obama called the Republican victories “a shellacking.” At a White House news conference, the…

The headlines tell us of big Republican gains in these midterm elections, including the retaking of control of the U.S. House of Representatives. They also point to a number of victories for candidates from the far-right Tea Party movement. True enough. And this is news. But I am not depressed or alarmed by these election…