Politics

It’s a safe bet that when Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” during President Barack Obama’s address to Congress, he had no intention of being the lone angry voice cutting through the silence of Obama’s pregnant rhetorical pause. Wilson got sandbagged by his Republican colleagues who suddenly fell silent—he thought he’d be part of a…

Joe Lies: Rules for Heckling the President Rowdy joint session of Congress? Just follow these guidelines. David Swerdlick 11 September 2009 It’s a pretty safe bet that when Rep. Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie!” during President Barack Obama’s address to congress, Wilson had no intention of being the lone angry voice cutting through the silence…

[Editor’s note, Sept. 11, 2010: Though this essay first appeared on The Root one year ago, we believe it’s still as relevant today as it was then.] Sept. 11, 2001, was, of course, one of those Technicolor days, with beyond-perfect temperatures, azure skies — the better to see the column of smoke towering from lower…

Nobody ever said the man can’t talk. And if President Barack Obama’s words alone could breathe vigor into Democrats’ effort to rebuild the health care system, we’d be on our way. If only it were so. Obama opened and closed his speech by finally departing from the fiscal case to make the moral one, invoking…

Excerpts from the President’s address to Congress: I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has…

If the days leading up to President Barack Obama’s address to American schoolchildren Tuesday were retold on stage, the title would be a no-brainer: “Much Ado About Nothing.” Not since the rampant Y2K panic 1999, has frantic, reflexive public reaction so outweighed the actual harm of the potential problem.To anyone with an iota of sense, the…

Like many others in the hip-hop generation, as I dissect all these rants and essays, it appears that much of the discussion regarding health care reform and its potential effects—as told by the media and various legislators—is shrouded in that brand of policy legalese unique to the vernacular of Washington insiders. As a result, certain…

After an August recess filled with hair-pulling, chart-waving and town hall recriminations, the national debate on health care reform has come back to Washington. President Barack Obama’s joint address to Congress this evening has three audiences: lawmakers, pundits and a skittish public worried about what the contentious legislation means to them. But as plan A…

Conceding nothing to Glenn Beck, the resignation of Van Jones as White House special adviser on green jobs, enterprise and innovation may actually turn out to be the best and greenest decision of all. Never mind that Beck and other right-wing blowhards such as Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh will continue to go head-hunting for…

As Congress returns from summer recess and President Obama prepares to address the nation on health care, it’s worth remembering that it’s been barely two weeks since the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy. We’d known that Sen. Kennedy was terminally ill since 2008, when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. But his death still…