Politics

Rush Limbaugh referred to him as “the next Ronald Reagan.” Newt Gingrich called him “far and away” the best possible running mate for John McCain. And Michelle Malkin has gone so far as to label him the “future of the GOP.”   Republicans are now desperately seeking their own Barack Obama—someone bold and transformative to re-energize…

The GOP has a problem. Well, two. One of them has just been inaugurated with an approval rating near 70 percent—but the other is going to be just as hard to fight. You see, as former Bush speechwriter David Frum put it on NPR, the Republican Party is the “party of white America.” And in…

The harsh sun was setting on the city of Aswan, an ancient trading hub in southern Egypt last week, but the city’s bazaar along the Nile still bustled with life. My wife and I strolled past old Nubian men sipping mint tea in brightly painted cafés. European tourists haggled over prices for straw baskets and…

I’ve tried to avoid the hype. I don’t wear Che T-shirts, and there are no pictures of Che Guevara on my walls. Although I spent 10 years researching the Argentine doctor-turned revolutionary, I don’t know if I’ll go see Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour biopic, Che, based on the real-life adventures of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. I know…

As the most visible and influential people in America right now, Michelle and Barack Obama have the unique opportunity to set the tone for our nation and remake our country’s landscape. That includes not just the nation’s wealth, but also Americans’ health. Of course, the Obamas are a successful, professional couple with young children. But they also face…

Read the washingtonpost.com Live Online discussion on THE NEW BLACK MANHOOD with The Root’s Marjorie Valbrun. Many Americans have undoubtedly had an Obama Meltdown Moment by now. It’s that instance when the unimaginable hugeness of the past year, the past few months and the past few days suddenly hits you and you say to yourself,…

My head aches. My legs throb. I want to sleep but can’t. I’m not hungry and don’t want to drink. But, boy, am I happy.  I’m no doctor, but I believe I’m suffering from one doozy of an emotional breakdown.  Even now, exactly seven days after the Obama family spent their first night in the…

In the four years since the “skinny kid with a funny name” vaulted to national prominence, President Barack Obama’s face has been subject to countless artistic riffs and interpretations—many of them for sale. Kitschy knickknacks inspired by Obama, from “rednecks for Obama” T-shirts to “the audacity of soap” cleaning products, are a boom industry. None…

David Paterson has spoken, and the junior senator from New York is… Kirsten Gillibrand. Wait, Kirsten who? “I recognize, for many New Yorkers, this is the first time you’ve heard my name,” Gillibrand said, after Paterson introduced her at a midday press conference. But, we’ll come back to that. But first, a word in defense…

Politics is full of rich oxymorons: peacekeeping missiles, business ethics and Gov. Rod Blagojevich, just to name a few. Add to those one that is being used ever more frequently these days: clean coal. In America’s industrial history, coal has been both dirty and deadly, but it has been anything but clean. The use of…