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It's the Priests vs. the Nuns -- Again
The Census and Me -- Life in 10-Year Chunks
Michelle Obama Rejects Demonizing Twinkies In Her Anti-Obesity Crusade
Massachusetts Study: Health Care Reform Reduced Abortions
Women's Vote Will Likely Decide British Elections
Can the 'Bush Lied' Deniers Handle the Truth?
Democrats' Dilemma: Health Care Vote and the 'Enthusiasm Gap'
Pro-life Rep. Perriello Says Abortion Concerns Eased, May Back Health Bill
Chaos Theory - New Textbooks, Y'all!
Iraq War Debate: Surge Success, Intelligence Mistakes, Civilian Casualties- Huge Student Loan Overhaul Set to Be Tacked Onto Health Care Reform
Michelle Obama Takes Anti-Obesity Drive to Food Makers
Mark Twain Has Been Gone 100 Years, but His Political Wisdom Endures
By Robert Schmuhl
The words still deliver a punch as they make you smile. "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." ("Following the Equator") Mark Twain departed the world he made laugh, and think, a hundred years ago next month -- on April 21, 1910, to be exact. But his observations about politics and America's role in the world retain enduring relevance a century later. ...
Obama's So-Called Narrative Problem: There's More to That Story
By Robert Schmuhl
Before the midterm elections of 1970, then-Vice President Spiro Agnew took to the hustings to engage in one of the Nixon administration's favorite sports: bashing the news media. Speaking in San Diego, with words ghosted by William Safire, Agnew thundered: "In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club -- the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.'" Forty years later, as another midterm season of high-decibel campaigning approaches, one wonders whether the Obama White House will send Joe Biden on the ...
Evan Bayh: He'll Be Back
By Robert Schmuhl
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Call it a coincidence, if you will, but longtime observers of Indiana politics found symbolic meaning in Evan Bayh's announcement not to seek another Senate term taking place on Presidents Day. On the one day set aside each year to celebrate previous occupants of the White House, a political figure with more than a hankering for hearing "Hail to the Chief" played for him declared his separate peace from the electoral wars. Bayh's decision hit with hurricane force in his snow-covered state because most Hoosiers can't imagine him on the political sidelines. He cut his teeth ...
Is Obama's Search for 'Common Ground' Real?
By Robert Schmuhl
In the stagecraft of statecraft, Barack Obama keeps searching for his leading role. Throughout much of his first year as president, he continued to portray himself as he had in his campaign for the White House. The cool, cerebral, controlled figure of the hustings moved into the Oval Office -- but after a few months his approval ratings started to plummet and critics began to question his approach. Could a "cool" temperament appear frosty when some fire and passion seemed more appropriate? Was "cerebral" too much like an academic seminar of endless, inconclusive conversation? When Obama ...
America in 2010: Entering a New Decade with a Hangover From the Last
By Robert Schmuhl
When historians look back at America's global position during this decade, they'll confront a nation of such fluctuating fortunes that what they write will read like fiction. ...
Wait, Coaching at Notre Dame Involves Less 'Bitter Partisanship' Than Public Service? (Uh-Oh)
By Robert Schmuhl
SOUTH BEND -- The remark revealed as much about the state of American politics as it did about the speaker. "I wanted to be a public servant," the new Notre Dame football coach, Brian Kelly, says in the current Sports Illustrated, "but what drove me out was bitter partisanship." An implied question follows Kelly's statement like a forlorn dog: How representative is his opinion among other public-spirited citizens? ...
Obama and the Media: Is the Critic-in-Chief Too Thin-Skinned?
By Robert Schmuhl
Since taking office, President Obama has spoken about the media with such regularity it seems he's added "critic in chief" to his portfolio of presidential duties. With the media so much on his mind, do his recurring references reveal a thin skin, or an I-know-better attitude? His best-known comment on the topic would seem to be the former: "I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration," he said in June, referring to Fox News. Yet in the main, he assumes a detached, almost professorial stance to describe the current news climate. ...
Reform at No Cost to Rich (or Thin!) People: A 'Fan Tax' on Stuff-Your-Face Tix
By Robert Schmuhl
Every time a new tax is floated to fund health-care reform, the targeted groups and their message-minions fire back with an exclamatory three-word question: How dare you? It's as though the real "death panels" of any proposed legislation will be the congressional committees that decide how to pay for the programs. (And what about taxing health-care benefits for more affluent Americans? How dare you!) Yet a recent Associated Press dispatch offers a new constituency to consider exploiting to raise at least a portion of the needed revenue. Apparently, a mushrooming and profitable sector in ...
Barack Obama and the Little Memoirs That Could
By Robert Schmuhl
As the last presidential campaign gathered steam in 2007 and barreled full throttle through 2008, I kept saying to anyone who'd listen: Polls don't tell the whole story. Keep an eye on the best-seller list. Besides raising money, hiring a staff and divining a strategy, every serious White House candidate nowadays also has to provide an antidote to the ever-shrinking sound bite: a book. Word is out that Mitt Romney is composing another volume (following his 2004 "Turnaround") timed to hit bookshelves well before 2012 dawns. But what made 2007 and 2008 distinctive was the sustained ...
Obama's 'Common Ground': Slogan or Substance?
By Robert Schmuhl
While the Obama administration seeks without much sloganeering success to brand itself as the "New Foundation," another often-uttered two-word phrase more tellingly defines the early months of this presidency. ...
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