Politics

You don’t come to Rhode Island Democratic gubernatorial candidate Frank Caprio’s state, schedule appearances with him and refuse to endorse him! Caprio made this plain when he told a local radio station early Monday that Barack Obama, who has declined to endorse anyone in the Rhode Island governor’s race, “can take his endorsement and really…

In September a New York Times/CBS News poll found that fewer than one in 10 Americans had heard about the Obama administration’s hallmark tax cuts. Though the cuts had decreased income taxes up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, virtually nobody knew about them, least of all members of the…

This is Part 1 of The Agenda: What Obama Has Done for You, a series of articles looking at President Barack Obama’s record on issues that affect blacks. On March 23 of this year, after months of heated conservative backlash at town halls and Tea Party rallies nationwide, President Obama signed into law HR 3590,…

You have to admit: Whether the spectacle is staged or genuine (I lean toward the latter), it is pretty ironic to see the Fox News Channel’s crew of media personalities gang up on National Public Radio in defense of Juan Williams, the man who regularly makes Bill Kristol reach the point of verbal explosion on…

Just when it seemed that this country’s home-foreclosure crisis couldn’t get any worse, Bank of America made a stunning announcement on Oct. 1: The nation’s largest consumer bank was halting foreclosures altogether in 23 states (later expanded to 50) after reports came out that it and other banks had “robo-signed” thousands of affidavits confirming that…

By Michael A. Fletcher For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent — a part of history, yet absent from it. When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in…

Is Juan Williams a bigot? Probably not. Should National Public Radio have fired him for his anti-Muslim comments on Fox News? Not this time. No doubt Williams’ bosses at NPR hated it when he was introduced several times each week on Fox News as “NPR’s Juan Williams” — last year they asked him to stop…

By William Saletan Shirley Sherrod, meet Juan Williams. Three months ago, right-wingers clipped a video of Sherrod to make her look like a racist. They circulated the video on the Internet, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture fired her. Now it’s happening again. This time, left-wingers have done the editing. They clipped a video of…

It was well before daybreak a few weeks ago when I got a call from the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes. “White, you need to get over here right away,” Buckwheat insisted. “I’m being stalked.” When I arrived a few minutes later, Buckwheat was hollering into his telephone. “How many times does I have to…

is a former columnist for TIME magazine and a regular contributor to The Root.