Politics

  • Selling Out for a Losing Cause

    Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Could it be that as Hillary Clinton was nodding off, waiting for that fabled 3 a.m. phone call, the ghost of Dylan Thomas took possession of her soul? She rages on and on against the dying light of her…

  • Dear Gov. Dean: Are You Ready to Lead?

    Dear Gov. Dean, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are not tied. You know this. There is little chance of a gracious settlement offer from the Clinton camp. The slim margin in Indiana gives her just enough rationale to stay in it. Given that she will not voluntarily withdraw, Mr. Dean, I am asking you to…

  • Time to Fire Some Folks

    There is an image from the 1988 presidential campaign that I can no longer get out of my mind. It is a Doonesbury cartoon. In this four-frame strip there is no dialogue and no action. Each frame simply shows the unmoving figure of Michael Dukakis covered in mud. It pains me greatly that this awful…

  • The Trouble With Transcending Race

    They both have unique names and amazing life stories. They have legions of adoring fans who find them inspiring. They have sold millions of books and can fill stadiums like rock stars. Few black Americans have occupied the rarified status of Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, two “racially transcendent” blacks whom white admirers find appealing…

  • Dayo — Obama Presser

    Covers the White House and Washington for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.

  • Exactly Wright for Obama

    Here is a radical notion: this is exactly what Barack Obama needed. Clearly, he needed to stiff-arm Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but more than that he needed to show some outrage and maybe even a little bit of rage. He needed to show that he is capable of action when action is what is called for.…

  • The Wright Answer

    For a while at the National Press Club, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was going along fine. But there was a point—and you can see it with the sound muted—where he started to answer questions and flew off the rails. I know a lot of Old Black Folks doing that Wright Thing: spouting off in public…

  • Not a Chance, Scalia

    In 1994, when Marion Barry was re-elected mayor of Washington D.C. following his troubles with crack cocaine, he famously challenged the many whites in the city to “get over” the results of the election by working with him. Barry, the first chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and very successful D.C. politician, was…

  • An Open Letter to Michelle Obama

    Dear Michelle, Can Barack please have a cigarette? No, stop right there, maybe you don’t get it: the future of the free world depends on it. Barack looks tired, and he’s been awful on TV. I think he’s bitter, bitter about not being able to have a cigarette. Cigarettes got him this far…can he please…

  • Wright Prophet, Wrong Direction

    Reverend Jeremiah Wright has spent the last several days carefully placing himself within the prophetic tradition of African American religion. I attempted to place him in this same context here on The Root when I explained that he, like the biblical Jeremiah, is among the truth tellers who regularly warn the government that divine destruction…