Politics

“Am I gonna be a great man, Mammy?” “You sho’ is, youse gwine be president. The book says anybody here can be president.” “Ain’t that somethin’!” —Sammy Davis Jr. and Ethel Waters in Rufus Jones for President Before anybody had even heard of Barack Obama, before anyone had even considered his presidency a possibility, it…

Here’s how bad things got in George W. Bush’s Justice Department. In August 2004, Voting Section Chief John Tanner sent an e-mail to Bradley Schlozman—more on him later—in which he asked for a cup of coffee. Schlozman asked Tanner how he takes his java and Tanner replied, “Mary Frances Berry style—black and bitter.” Yes, he…

From the book The Breakthrough by Gwen Ifill.  © 2009 by Gwen Ifill. Posted by arrangement with Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc..  chapter three  baRack obaMa   If you were to get a handbook on what’s the path to the presidency, I don’t think that the handbook would start by saying, “Be an African American…

One significant implication of the current fighting in Gaza crystallized for me a few days ago when I read the following post on my fantasy basketball message board: “Cats must think Obama is a %&$$# (rhymes with cushy).” They must—because the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the uptick in bombings in Iraq and the Gaza conflagration…

One seemed to have his destiny written for him at birth; the other methodically wrote his own. One had a cloistered upbringing that revolved around close family and powerful friends; the other lived an itinerant childhood and was a global student of life. One constantly questioned his place in the world; the other determinedly sought…

Yield: 4 to 6 servings Soundtrack: “30 Cops or More” by KRS-ONE from Edutainment and “Black and Blue” by Brand Nubian from In God We Trust Dedicated to Oscar Grant III, Adolph Grimes III, Sean Bell and countless others. Simple Stock Yield: about 1 1/2 quart Soundtrack: “Home” by The Modern Jazz Quartet from Blues…

One of the fascinating demographic tidbits of the 2008 presidential election results shows that President-elect Barack Obama won a startling 54 percent of the Catholic vote—more Catholic votes than any other Democratic presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy (who garnered around 80 percent). To understand how a pro-choice, African-American candidate generated more support from American…

Upon entering the Oval Office for the first time, the past 10 American presidents have found a towering inbox of priorities, near the top of which laid a thick, tattered file marked “Middle East.” President Barack Obama will be no exception. On Jan. 20, he will inherit the immediate consequences of the past eight years…

Congress is likely to take its first meaningful swipe at the Bush era today by passing a long-awaited expansion of the public health insurance program for poor children. We spend more than $2 trillion a year on health care and still leave 1 in 9 kids without coverage, but Bush twice found reason to veto…

With so many families converging on Washington next week, the inauguration has become as much family reunion as historic event. Writer Curtis Sittenfeld, author of American Wife, has penned “All Along, This Was What Was Supposed to Happen,” a wonderful novella for our sister site, Slate, about one such reunion. In this third installment, “Stars…