Michael Grunwald
Michael Grunwald is TIME's senior national correspondent. Before coming to TIME, he spent nearly a decade at the Washington Post, where he served as a congressional correspondent, New York bureau chief, essayist and national investigative reporter. Grunwald has also written for the Boston Globe, The New Republic and Slate among many other publications, and is the recipient of the George Polk Award for national reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize for investigative reporting and the Society of Environmental Journalists award for in-depth reporting. Raised in Greenvale, N.Y., Grunwald holds a B.A. from Harvard College. He lives in Miami.
Articles from Contributor
Why I’m Glad the Recall Failed
Some pundits believe the failure of the recall in Wisconsin did not reflect a distaste for unions, or warmth towards Scott Walker, or a backlash against Barack Obama, but a general revulsion against the concept of a recall. I have no idea what it reflected. But I will say this: Recalling a politician who didn’t abuse his office is …
Mitt Romney’s Ads: Still Wrong on the Stimulus
I’ve been on leave writing a book about the stimulus, so I’ve let others judge the Pants-on-Fire ads and Four-Pinocchio attacks and Solyndra-related nonsense that Republicans have been peddling about the stimulus. It’s …
Santorum Investment Advice, Then and Now
I’m on leave writing a book about my beloved stimulus, but when I heard about Rick Santorum’s big finish in Iowa, it reminded me: Didn’t someone advise Swampland readers to invest in Santorum back in May when Intrade was giving him a 0.5% chance to win the nomination, because “that’s going to rise as the campaign starts heating up in …
Republicans Are Right to Pressure the Fed, Even If What They Want Is Wrong
Monetary policy is dull, so the Republican Party’s bizarre advocacy of job-killing tight-money policies during a jobs crisis hasn’t gotten much attention. But political food fights are exciting, so today’s letter from GOP leaders pressuring Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke not to approve more monetary stimulus is likely to get a lot …
Solyndra Hypocrisy: David Vitter Sought Energy Loans He Now Seeks to Scrutinize
Washington “scandals” have a predictable rhythm, and the Solyndra solar loan “scandal” has entered the phase where critics start exploiting the controversy to push their ideological agenda.
The Unemployed Aren’t Victims of Discrimination. They’re Victims of a Lousy Economy.
It will not surprise my loyal fans—Hey, Dad!—that I like President Obama’s jobs bill. It’s a second stimulus, and when I haven’t been flacking the first, I’ve been kvetching for more. When unemployment is 9% and federal borrowing is practically free, it’s time to pay construction workers who need jobs to fix schools that …
Don’t Be Fooled By the Solyndra Bankruptcy Circus — Solar Is Booming
I doubt the facts are going to matter much now that Republicans have latched onto the Solyndra solar “scandal,” and even if they did matter, I’d be the wrong guy to defend the Obama administration (and some of the world’s top venture capitalists) for making the same honest mistake I made. After a few dozen Solyndra hearings like …
The Sisyphean Stimulus Sell: Why Obama’s Big Job Speech Will Likely Prove Unpersuasive
Governor Rick “Galileo” Perry declared at the Reagan Library last night that President Obama and his 2009 stimulus have “proven once and for all that government spending will not create one job.” Actually, in the last …
Forget Solyndra: Obama’s Green Loan Program Is Still Worth It
Nobody’s going to notice this, because nobody’s going bankrupt, but the Obama administration just approved a conditional commitment for the largest residential solar project in history, an effort to install photovoltaic panels on up to 160,000 rooftops at 124 military bases in 33 states. With its $344 million federal loan guarantee, …
Obama’s Ozone Flip-Flop: Bad Policy and Bad Politics
My lefty friends have been asking me: If I think President Obama has been so great for the earth, and I think his enviro critics are ungrateful whiners, then how do I defend his capitulation to industry on new smog regulations? And the answer is…I don’t. He ignored the science, threw the EPA under the bus, and double-crossed green …
Big Name Investors Behind Obama’s Failed Green Tech Bet First in Line to Recoup Losses
Republicans are already dancing on the grave of Solyndra, the solar panel manufacturer that received a $535 million federal loan in 2009 and collapsed on Wednesday. Here’s more music they can dance to: Sources tell me the Obama …
Department of I’m an Idiot: A Solar Company Goes Bust
Well, I guess the reports of the solar manufacturer Solyndra’s death weren’t so exaggerated after all. Just a few months premature.
Solyndra declared bankruptcy on Wednesday and laid off its 1,100 employees. I’ll have more to say about this after I chat with the smooth-talkers who got me to report in June that Solyndra “no longer …
