Politics

He’s got a plan, and don’t you forget it. One of the more curious things about President Obama’s big economic speech yesterday, and this is admittedly cynical observation, is why the president decided to so dramatically change the subject of the public conversation from his handling of pirates back to his handling of the economy.…

I should have known better. At a table full of relatives for Easter dinner, I found myself actually getting into a conversation about the economy, big bad Wall Street, the evil government, and of course, clueless journalists. As a financial journalist, I get a front-row seat to see how frustrating the economy can be. I’ve…

The successful return of Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama—a small but significant overseas victory on the Obama watch—highlights some interesting contrasts in the president’s approaches to foreign policy over the past several days. In reaction to the launch of a North Korean missile, the Obama administration ardently pursued the support of other world…

The corridors of the West Wing are narrow enough that the entourages of visiting Cabinet officials cause the occasional bottleneck. On a recent afternoon, Mona Sutphen, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, ran into an eddy swirling around Kathleen Sebelius, secretary-designate of the Department of Health and Human Services, who extended her…

After his make-nice tour of Europe and the unfortunate Saudi bow, Somali pirates may have been exactly what Barack Obama needed. There is nothing like a little lethal sniper action to shut down questions about whether you’re decisive enough. It is not the basis for a broad foreign policy, but the willingness to kill bad…

Traditional proverb: Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. In Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And How There is a Better Way For Africa, former Goldman Sachs and World Bank employee Dr. Dambisa Moyo adeptly posits…

Remember Damon Weaver? The Florida fifth grader who worked tirelessly — and sadly, unsuccessfully — to get an interview with Barack Obama during the presidential race? Well, the POTUS has yet to sit down with The Root’s favorite cub reporter. Still, this 10-year-old student journalist from Canal Point Elementary in Palm Beach, Fla. has been fairing rather well on…

I recently went to the venerable old Market Theater in an increasingly populated downtown Johannesburg. It had been all but abandoned after the end of apartheid. Now the city is coming back, and white people are coming back, and they (along with a healthy number of blacks) are coming back to the Market Theater. But…

Even in politics, things are often exactly what they seem. So it should have been reasonable to dismiss as fiction recent reports that Barack Obama is the most polarizing president in recent history. There is nothing in our experience to support that; based on the president’s personal favorability rating and his high job approval numbers,…

The Obama administration’s new policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan plans to hurl a lifeline to the government of Pakistan. It outlines increased counterterrorism and counterinsurgency assistance to Pakistan’s security forces to “disrupt, dismantle and destroy” al Qaeda and its allies operating in safe havens in Pakistan. Further, the policy recognizes an urgent need to balance…