Politics

On a recent broadcast of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” the host launched into his opening monologue with customary snark. But instead of riffing on a celebrity, he detoured and took on Johnathan Rodgers, the CEO and president of the black cable network TV One. Rodgers had recently announced that his channel planned to…

As Rick Warren’s Saddleback presidential faith forum approached last Saturday, I ran to the store before it closed to pick up a few items. At the register, the conversation quickly turned from my purchases to politics. The problem with politics, the white male cashier said with more than a hint of cynical frustration, was politicians,…

My last foray into politics was in 5th grade when I lost what I’m sure was a rigged election for class president. I’ve been writing about black political issues since I was a college freshman. But aside from voting or organizing the occasional protest, I’ve never been involved in electoral politics. That was until March,…

“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him.…

In case you missed it, earlier this month, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced their picks to moderate the three presidential debates this fall. The chosen: NBC’s Tom Brokaw, CBS’s Bob Schieffer and PBS’s Jim Lehrer. So, in an election year in which race, gender and generational change have dominated politics and public discourse, the…

“You want it to be one way. But it’s the other way.” —Marlo —Hillary Clinton hasn’t crossed the Rubicon yet, but let’s just say that her advance team is fashioning a drawbridge and the plebes are being told to take shelter behind the city walls. Next week in Denver, Sen. Clinton and former president Bill…

Who in the heck is Pastor Rick Warren, and how did he get so much clout? Where did he get the power—and gall—to dragoon Barack Obama and John McCain into his mega-church this past Saturday night and submit them to back-to-back, hour-long, televised grillings about their moral and religious beliefs? This is the kind of…

Thanks to the digging of The Atlantic Monthly’s Joshua Green, we now have a sense of what a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been like. And, Lord knows, it would not have been pretty. The most eye-catching detail to emerge from The Atlantic’s reporting, thus far, is the battle plan devised by Clinton’s chief strategist…

Now that the presidential campaign is entering the homestretch and Barack Obama’s formal nomination at the Democratic Party’s national convention is just weeks away, it’s time to issue a primer for those older “black leaders” who still can’t seem to bear Obama’s ascendance. We already have a “Greatest Generation.” We don’t need a Hater Generation—a group so…

Allow me to apologize up-front for not drinking the Obama-aid. I like the reed-thin, caramel-colored, left-handed-jump-shot-having senator from Illinois and will probably vote for him, especially given the alternative. But I have had it with the Obama minions who decry any criticism, even policy-based, of him or his campaign. I don’t buy that “anything off-message…