Articles from Contributor
The $1 Trillion Tax Battlefield Takes Shape
President Obama didn’t offer a lot of specifics about how he intends to close the federal budget deficit in his speech at GW Wednesday, but he did make one thing clear: he intends to go head-to-head with Republicans over taxes.
That makes political sense. If he’s going to go after $2 trillion in spending, as his aides say he will …
The Martyrdom of St. Douglas
Douglas Kmiec was an unlikely supporter of Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign, but a valuable one. A devout Catholic, he briefly served as director of the office of legal counsel in Reagan’s Justice Department and held a chaired professorship at the conservative Pepperdine Law School. His backing of Obama was rewarded by the …
The Answer to Birther Claims? Dick Cheney.
UPDATED
Of course Donald Trump is just doing the birther thing to get publicity. But for those of us who find birtherism a sad and tedious spectacle rather than a cause for curiosity is there anyone who can end the idiocy once …
Wisconsin Vote Swings Back to Prosser: Cue the Conspiracy Theorists
Those of you following Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race will know by now that Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus discovered yesterday during her canvass of ballots from Tuesday’s election a misplaced computer tally that has swung the competition back to justice David Prosser by more than 7,000 votes.
As the Milwaukee Wisconsin …
Burton vs. Rice on Israel
At a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee today Indiana Republican Dan Burton got steamed at UN Amb. Susan Rice for language in her Feb. 19 statement accompanying a US veto of a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity. Burton called Rice’s statement a “slap in the face” of Israel. After vetoing the resolution Rice …
Wisconsin Recount Means Billable Hours Boost For Madison’s Lawyers
Wisconsin election officials are still in the process of certifying Tuesday’s unofficial 204-vote victory by assistant attorney general JoAnne Kloppenburg over incumbent state Supreme Court justice David Prosser, but already the state is bracing for a recount.
As I wrote for the magazine yesterday, the vote became a proxy for the …
Why Mess With Medicare?
Republican Paul Ryan’s budget mark proposes deep cuts to Medicare, the popular government program that funds health care for seniors. Polls show Americans are overwhelmingly against cuts to entitlement programs generally, and Medicare in particular, and Ryan himself admits that he is handing Democrats a potential weapon. So why would …
What Bill Burns’ Ascension at State Says About Obama’s Foreign Policy
James Steinberg announced last week that he is stepping down as Hillary Clinton’s deputy at the State Department to run the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Taking over for him is Bill Burns, a career diplomat.
The shift is natural enough on the surface. Steinberg had made it clear he wanted …
Obama’s Gitmo Climbdown Continues
Liberals have long-bemoaned Obama’s transformation from would-be demolisher of Bush’s “War On Terror” architecture to its most effective buttress. Faced with a concerted Republican onslaught on the issue from the earliest days of his presidency, Obama chose to husband his political capital for higher priorities like health care reform …
Gingrich in 2005: It Is “Critical” the World Act to Stop Mass Killings
Several have noted Gingrich’s “evolving” position on intervention in Libya over the last few days. In a bit of policy gymnastics labeled “an epic flip-flop” by Taegan Goddard, Gingrich first said on March 7:
“Exercise a no-fly zone this evening, communicate to the Libyan military that Gadhafi was gone and that the sooner they switch
…
War of Ideas (or Why We Went to War, Part II)
The U.S. is engaged in a dangerous conflict over Libya and no doubt the president decided to intervene and is prosecuting the war first and foremost in pursuit of the aims he outlined in his “casus belli” paragraph last Friday: preventing atrocities and a humanitarian crisis, averting regional destabilization, and blunting a threat …
Why the U.S. Went to War: Inside the White House Debate on Libya
President Barack Obama says he’s intervening to prevent atrocities in Libya. But details of behind-the-scenes debates at the White House show he’s going to war in part to rehabilitate an idea.
Three weeks ago, I posted an article headlined, “Will Obama Order U.S. Intervention in Libya?” It began: “It seems preposterous …