the browntable

Clear signs of what is being described as impending doom for the “public option” on the various health care bills pending in Congress  can best be found in the subtle switch of White House language on the health care debate.  What was once known as healthcare reform is now “health insurance reform.”  Peep White House…

A few thoughts about Latoya Peterson’s take on Mad Men from Double X last week: She’s right that to the extent that the show is about the social dynamic of the late ‘50s/early ‘60s, there’s been relatively little attention paid to racial issues on the show’s first two seasons—and the black characters have been fairly…

President Obama has held seven town halls this summer and one lengthy primetime press conference in service of his plan to bring affordable health care coverage to every American. The charm offensive doesn’t seem to be going the president’s way—and may even have watered down his brand—but the White House seems to think their strategy…

In a recent article for NEW YORK, Jennifer Senior discusses new media rock star, President Barack Obama, and the sheer volume of information that the White House delivers and the media culture that facilitates our insatiable appetite for it. Writes Senior: [H]e’s the first president who has grasped the possibilities of today’s high-velocity, high-density, highly…

When I ran into Damon Weaver in the Marriott lobby, standing tall, he looked me directly in the eye and shook my hand. His composure and professionalism outshined teenagers and college students whom I know. And before he jetted back to Florida on Friday, Damon sat down with The Root for an exclusive interview. Watch.…

On the last legs of her ten-day trip to sub-Saharan Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared the US to Nigeria. Speaking generally about the need to lift the shroud of illegitimacy that often covers elections on the sub-continent—rather notably, in the disputed 2007 vote that seated current Nigeria president Umar Yar’Adua—Clinton told a town…

President Barack Obama bestowed the National Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, to a host of prominent Americans today, including actor Sidney Poitier, the Rev. Joseph Lowery, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Obama gave a particularly moving tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy, the last to be cited, and said at the start of the…

On August 4, 2009 Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus and Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins of Green For All sat in a room surrounded by a diverse group of notable national leaders: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and Department of Energy Under Secretary Kristina Johnson to announce a…

All you needed to hear was “New Hampshire” to know the White House’s game plan. If you want to stage a big political moment, to tie yourself and your message to democracy and revolution and good government—you go to New Hampshire. And so it was that President Obama mounted his retort to the GOP’s town…

In the thick of August, President Obama has a very specific challenge: to yank the health care reform conversation up out of the weeds and back into the broad, easily understandable consensus he tapped during the campaign—that the current system is a disastrous failure that grows more expensive and less effective every year we continue…