At Wednesday night’s memorial service in Tucson, Michelle Obama cut a somber figure even as broad swaths of the crowd appeared to find catharsis through laughter or cheering. Mrs. Obama, the mother of a nine-year-old girl, seemed particularly emotional during the sections of her husband’s speech that focused on Christina Taylor Green, the nine-year-old victim [...]
Two years ago, the GOP was reeling from two brutal elections and a seeming eternity in the minority. As they gather for their annual winter meeting this year they have control of one chamber of Congress and are within striking distance of the other. That will not save, it seems, Chairman Michael Steele whose tenure [...]
The three-term Senator from Texas announced today that she won’t seek reelection after-all. From the Houston Chronicle: In an open letter to Texans, Hutchison said she wanted to live “full-time in Texas with my family” and was “forever grateful for the privilege of working for you in the United States Senate.” … “I intended to [...]
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office just announced that the chamber will take up the health care repeal effort next week. A vote on the measure, expected to pass easily but get stonewalled in the Senate, was originally scheduled for Jan. 12. Speaker John Boehner postponed it in the wake of the Tucson shooting. In [...]
There is a lot of fine writing out today by the country’s greatest stylists. David Von Drehle’s piece, which Joe alluded to below, is online now, here. David Remnick weighs in here. Of course, if you missed it, you should read the speech President Obama gave last night. But one of the most stunning works [...]
Count me among those not terribly bothered by Sarah Palin’s initial use of the historically loaded phrase “blood libel” in her video message yesterday. My sense is that in our common vernacular the phrase has become divorced from its original meaning and is merely an especially emphatic way to say “libel.” (I confess that I [...]
David von Drehle’s cover story about the Tucson tragedy was written well before the President’s speech last night, but seems to anticipate, and amplify, many of Obama’s themes. It is a gorgeously written piece of work. (Sorry I can’t link. It’s behind the pay wall, but trust me…and subscribe.) Jill Lepore’s piece about the U.S. [...]
