Category Archives: Partisanship

SOTU: With Malice Toward Some

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President Obama used his last State of the Union address to decry divisiveness he helped instigate. [Credit: CNN]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma used his last State of the Union address to decry divi­sive­ness he helped insti­gate. [Cred­it: CNN]

Com­plet­ing his sev­enth year as the world’s most pow­er­ful politi­cian, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma used his final State of the Union address to tell us what is wrong with pol­i­tics: his polit­i­cal oppo­nents. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The President, His Critics And the Politics of Impatience

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What do these two men have in common? More than you might think. [Credit: Politico]

What do these two men have in com­mon? More than you might think. [Cred­it: Politico]

“But what I’m not going to do is just wait.  I think it’s fair to say that I’ve shown a lot of patience…But what we can’t do is just keep on wait­ing.”  Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Novem­ber 5, 2014

The Con­sti­tu­tion offers no rem­e­dy for pres­i­den­tial impa­tience. Pres­i­dents, Mem­bers of Con­gress and judges are some­times con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required to “just keep on wait­ing.”  And that is some­thing office­hold­ers of both polit­i­cal par­ties seem increas­ing­ly unwill­ing to do.  When it comes to cir­cum­vent­ing the rules to achieve the polit­i­cal objec­tives of the moment, the Pres­i­dent and some of his most stri­dent con­ser­v­a­tive foes are soulmates.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

War on Women: Dispatches From The Front

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The latest skirmish in the "war on women" took place this past week in the Senate. [Credit: ACLU]

The Sen­ate was the scene last week of the lat­est skir­mish in the war on women, one of sev­er­al con­trived con­tro­ver­sies man­u­fac­tured by the polit­i­cal class. [Cred­it: ACLU]

Resolv­ing con­flicts is a core func­tion of gov­ern­ment.  Incit­ing them is a core com­pe­ten­cy of our polit­i­cal class.

The habit of inflam­ing pas­sions for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es was on dis­play again this week in the US Sen­ate. Wednes­day’s show vote osten­si­bly con­cerned the right of women to receive “free” birth con­trol from their employ­ers.  But the leg­is­la­tion, as its authors sure­ly knew, would not become law.  If it did, it would result, not in employ­ers buy­ing more con­tra­cep­tives for their employ­ees, but in more work­ers los­ing employ­ment-based health insurance.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Is Congress Still Relevant?

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All 100 Senators gathered last year for this photo. They have done little since. Have they become irrelevant? [Credit: senate.gov]

All 100 Sen­a­tors gath­ered last year for this pho­to. Under Har­ry Rei­d’s lead­er­ship, they have done lit­tle since. Have they become irrel­e­vant? [Cred­it: senate.gov]

Here is all you need to know about the decline of the Unit­ed States Con­gress: a US Sen­a­tor recent­ly asked a fed­er­al judge to block the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion from unlaw­ful­ly sub­si­diz­ing his own health insur­ance coverage.

The law­suit illus­trates how Con­gress has become a sub­servient branch of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.  Sub­ject to the whim of the Exec­u­tive Branch, one of its Mem­bers must now appeal to the Judi­cial Branch for relief.  Actu­al­ly leg­is­lat­ing seems out of the ques­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare Bipartisanship: You Probably Can’t Keep Your Coverage

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President Obama had another stressful week. But not nearly as stressful as millions will experience when they find that they still can't keep their health coverage. [Credit: Dr. Lillian Glass Body Language Blog]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma had anoth­er week of stress.  But not near­ly as much stress as mil­lions will expe­ri­ence when they find that they still can’t keep their health cov­er­age. [Cred­it: Dr. Lil­lian Glass Body Lan­guage Blog]

Wash­ing­ton has at last arrived at a bipar­ti­san con­sen­sus on what to do about the mil­lions of peo­ple whose insur­ance poli­cies are being can­celed because of Oba­macare: not near­ly enough. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

How Washington Changed Obama

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Washington has changed the President's hair color, as it has with his predecessors. But the changes run deeper. [Credit: Post Chronicle]

Wash­ing­ton has changed the Pres­i­den­t’s hair col­or, as it did his pre­de­ces­sors’. But the changes it has made in him run deep­er. [Cred­it: Post Chronicle]

“So eight years ago, I came here to deliv­er the com­mence­ment address for the class of 2005. Things were a lit­tle dif­fer­ent back then. For exam­ple, I had no gray hair. Or a motor­cade. Didn’t even have a prompter.”

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Knox Col­lege, Gales­burg (IL), July 24, 2013

Many things have changed in the eight years that elapsed between Pres­i­dent Obama’s two Gales­burg address­es. But per­haps none of those things has changed as pro­found­ly as he. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A Congress United … on Obamacare

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A famously fractious Congress has at last found common cause: getting out from under the Obamacare provision that would take away their health insurance subsidies. [Credit: sightsonpennsylvania.blogspot.com]
A famous­ly frac­tious Con­gress has at last found com­mon cause: get­ting out from under the Oba­macare pro­vi­sion that would take away their health insur­ance sub­si­dies. [Cred­it: sightsonpennsylvania.blogspot.com]

[NOTE: This post has been updat­ed to reflect recent devel­op­ments.]

Con­gress hasn’t been this unit­ed since the Ger­mans bombed Pearl Harbor.

Its 535 Mem­bers — com­pris­ing dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal par­ties, ide­olo­gies, races, gen­ders and geo­graph­ic inter­ests — and its thou­sands of aides are fix­at­ed on a sin­gle thing.

Immi­gra­tion reform? Unrest in Egypt? The loom­ing debt ceil­ing expi­ra­tion with its prospect of US gov­ern­ment default? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Italian Lesson: What the President and Speaker Can Learn about Power from Giulio Andreotti

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Giulio Andreotti (credit: Corriere della Sera)

Giulio Andreot­ti (cred­it: Cor­riere del­la Sera)

“Pow­er only bur­dens those who don’t pos­sess it.”

– Giulio Andreot­ti, for­mer Ital­ian Prime Minister

What would Giulio Andreot­ti make of John Boehn­er and Barack Oba­ma? Con­tin­ue read­ing →