Politics

When a self-righteous crusader like Eliot Spitzer is caught with his pants down, a lot of onlookers might feel a tinge of glee to see such hypocrisy revealed. But the law under which he may be prosecuted, the Mann Act, is a relic that should give pause to anyone looking to hold Spitzer accountable in…

On my first night in Monrovia the rain pounds so hard on the tin roof of the house where I am staying, the sound is able to snatch me from a deep and jetlagged sleep. There is no rain like the rain in Liberia and I have heard it before, but this is February, the…

Concerned that Republicans haven’t tried hard enough to reach out to black voters, Bruce Bartlett, a former advisor to President Ronald Reagan and treasury official under President George H. W. Bush, suggests a shocker: Republicans should come out in favor of reparations for slavery. Republicans for reparations? Bartlett makes the suggestion in Wrong on Race,…

This is a dirty campaign and since Senator Barack Obama won’t say it, I will. The media has not been unfair to Senator Clinton, they have been extremely soft. There are elephants in the room that need to be addressed. Can anyone say Whitewater? How about impeachment? Let’s not forget Osama bin Laden. You can…

Somewhere between Texas and Ohio on Tuesday night the Democratic political groundhog saw his/her shadow and decreed at least another six weeks of campaigning. After crucial wins on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton said she was staying in and Barack Obama, somewhat comforted by his lead in delegates, will have to wait a while before claiming his…

Abigail Thernstrom, the conservative commentator on race in the U.S., once called me a member of the “doom and gloom” contingent among black political scholars. So, that probably makes me overqualified to make this assertion, but here goes. An Obama presidency could seriously backfire on African Americans. It is true that should Barack Obama become…

The high road is a hard road. Barack Obama is often compared to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because of his soaring rhetoric and charismatic grace. But on Tuesday I night I realized that Obama is more like King in another way: He is leading a 21st Century non-violent, political campaign. Over the past week…

I am tired of trying to explain this to my husband, so I’ll explain it to you instead. I have been an advocate for the civil rights of African Americans since back when we were called Negroes. Growing up during the 50s and 60s in Chicago, I was well aware of the fault lines of…

In a competitive primary season, the question of endorsements is always a hot topic. But this year, the jockeying for support has reached its zenith with the tightly contested race for the Democratic nominee threatening to go all the way to the Democratic National Convention and being potentially decided by “superdelegates,” a pool of elected…

Even though I live in Ohio, I don’t have a clue which Democrat will win the state’s presidential primary today. At this point, I almost don’t care. I just want it to be over.The newspaper where I work reported over the weekend that it’s “neck and neck.” It said Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York…