Author: Matt Wolfson

We’re nearly six months away from the 2010 midterms, and the country is in a foul mood. “Democrats’ Long-Held Seats Face GOP Threat,” reported the New York Times last Sunday. “Both parties,” the article noted, “agree that Republicans are within reach of capturing the 40 additional seats needed to win

The widespread perception of the Tea Party, both among the left and among the large swath of moderate Americans, has been an amalgamation of Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck—that is to say, of hyperbole, misinformation and uncensored rage. Last week, though, the New York Times and CBS conducted

“People are angry,” Senator John McCain told Barack Obama at last Friday’s seven-hour health care summit. “We promised them change in Washington, and what we got was a process that you and I both said we would change.” Obama replied waspishly, “John, we’re not campaigning anymore. The election is over.”

It’s been 78 years since FDR’s New Deal and 45 years since LBJ’s Great Society, the two great triumphs of liberal expansionist government. But now it’s 2010, and it’s increasingly looking like the Democrats missed the boat this time around. Health care reform is flailing. The stimulus package and the

We are one year into Barack Obama’s presidency, and the knives are out. There was never a moment of serious doubt on the right: Obama’s election equaled the triumph of socialism, which meant America’s imminent doom. But now the left is in revolt, leveling increasingly vocal—and occasionally vicious—attacks on their

Last week, two articles covering Barack Obama appeared which were startling in both content and tone. The first was from The Economist, a magazine that has been relatively supportive of the White House in the past. It talked about the disturbing “weakness” the President showed in his recent tour of

When Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, spoke at the Athenaeum two weeks ago, he said something surprising: his greatest fear for America has less to do with any of the normal trouble spots—finance or healthcare or national security or immigration—than with the utter paralysis of our political system. That

Well, who knew? The Republicans, who for the last year have been exhibiting all the emotional symptoms we normally associate with serious midlife crises (confusion, resentment, Tourette’s-like outbursts at inappropriate times), suddenly seem relevant again. In the only two gubernatorial races of the year in two relatively blue states, New

I sometimes think we underestimate the Republicans’ contribution to our political lives. Just when things were getting a little slow—you can’t give the president of the United States a Nobel Prize every Friday—up popped Rush Limbaugh wanting to buy the St. Louis Rams. A controversial move, since this is the

Last week, something unusual happened in Washington, D.C.: President Obama was at a loss for words. Actually, a lot of the D.C. establishment failed miserably in the rapid-response department, all thanks to Nobel Prize Committee Chair Thorbjoern Jagland. Jagland managed to throw everyone for a loop by thoughtfully bestowing the