Politics

There is a lot of head shaking over Jesse Jackson Jr.’s murky involvement in the swirl of muck engulfing Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. While Jackson is clearly not a target of the federal investigation that has ensnared Blagojevich, he may the one taking the biggest political hit so far. Jackson’s chances for the Senate seat,…

It’s become something of a parlor game for the chattering class to compare President-elect Barack Obama to the pantheon of presidents. Is Obama the second coming of Abraham Lincoln? A recent Newsweek magazine cover cast Honest Abe’s long shadow behind the incoming president’s silhouette. Inside, writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe found the parallels between the…

This week Barack Obama will choose his environmental team, the group of people responsible for dealing with everything from climate change to energy policy, and concern is building in some Democratic circles about whether this is the point at which he will finally appoint a prominent liberal to his Cabinet. After a swift set of…

It has become a near mantra for the president-elect: “We have only one president at a time.” But as the last days of the Bush administration dwindle away, it looks more and more like that one president is Barack Obama. Over the weekend, while Bush was flipping a coin at the Army/Navy game, Obama was…

The day after America elected a black man president, a bundle of Washington Post newspapers were going for $400 on eBay. The L.A. Times made a cool 600K in Barack Obama merchandise. The ailing newspaper industry briefly got its swagger back when people realized that they couldn’t frame their computer. Unfortunately, that is not where…

The idea is to find the right match. Soul mates or perhaps a team of rivals? If only there were an eHarmony for presidential transitions, Thomas Jefferson might get matched with Condoleezza Rice: “Widower, nation’s first SoS, seeks SBF, preferably also former SoS, for ‘diplomatic’ liaison at country estate. Turn-ons include long trips to France;…

Barack Obama’s success, as Congressman John Lewis put it recently, is another step on the long road toward laying down the “burden of race.” But the growing use of the phrase “post-racial America” should worry us all. Consider the results of one major social science study, published in Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on…

Here’s a thought experiment: What if black America was its own country? We’d be relatively big, with a population roughly the size of the northeastern United States. We’d have an up-and-coming economy, in league with countries like South Africa and Argentina. And we’d be one of the least healthy places on Earth.   Black folks have…

Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign boosted—no, it actually created—the careers of a whole cadre of black political reporters. Barack Obama’s historic capture of Oval Office? Well, not so much. The reasons behind the white-out of the Obama campaign are varied and complex, ranging from the reduction of general political coverage by mainstream media to fewer…

Nov. 27, 2008—In this season of thanksgiving, I’m grateful for women. Not just my female friends, relatives and colleagues but women whose oft-uncelebrated sacrifices keep the world running. Women like the ones President-elect Barack Obama has lost, and the one with whom he remains. They all remind me of a beautiful, little-known song: “Roots and…