POLITICS
Friday, July 03, 2009
The Lost Lincoln: Who He Really Was, And Why We Need To Rediscover Him
by Sean Wilentz
The past three generations of historians have agreed that Abraham Lincoln was probably the best president in American history and that Franklin Pierce...
TNR's Founding Fathers Spectacular: Wood On Washington! Schlesinger On Adams And Hamilton! Wilentz On Jefferson! And Much More…

Throughout its 95-year history, The New Republic has featured the work of countless renowned historians on America's founding fathers. For the Fourth ...
How The Iraq War Clouded Obama's Judgment On Iran
by Nader Mousavizadeh
In the affairs of states, lessons are often learned too late or too well. Faced with unexpected crises and unwelcome demands for prompt decision- making...
TNRtv: Afghanistan's Ambassador On His Country's Big Challenges, From A Thriving Poppy Trade To Legalized Marital Rape
by Said Jawad
In the second part of a TNRtv series on Afghanistan, Ambassador to the United States Said Tayeb Jawad addresses some of his country's most pressing challenges...
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Congress 2.0: It's 2009--Isn't It Time We Allow Senators Incapable Of Making It To Washington To Vote From Home?
by Jason Zengerle
The news that Al Franken is finally going to the Senate has prompted all sorts of musing about the Democrats' new supermajority. But, in fact, the Democrats...
Why A Half-Assed Climate Bill Is Probably Worth Supporting
by Bradford Plumer
Among people who think we need strong, rapid action to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and avoid dangerous climate change—and I'm one of them—there's been...
Resignations, Frustrations, And 180 Degree Changes Of Opinion At DC's Most Controversial Publication
by Gabriel Sherman
In the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, the magazine's media critic Michael Wolff writes a surprisingly positive 3400-word column about Politico. Not everyone...
In Praise Of The Congressmen Who Put Their Careers On The Line Last Friday
by E.J. Dionne, Jr.
WASHINGTON--Hours before the House passed its cap-and-trade bill last week, freshman Democrats Tom Perriello and Frank Kratovil were pondering the political...
TNRtv: Should We Expect Even More Adventurism From A Weaker Tehran?
by Afshin Molavi
In the second part of a TNRtv series on Iran, Afshin Molavi, fellow at The New America Foundation and author of The Soul of Iran: A Nation's Journey To...
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Getting Hosed: Is The Supreme Court Justifying Discrimination?
by Drew Westen
Suppose I were a psychologist charged with helping a city identify the best candidates to lead their fellow firefighters into burning buildings and save...
Afraid Of The Public Option? This Is What America's Health Care Will Look Like Without It.
by Jacob Hacker and Rahul Rajkumar
The issue sucking up the oxygen in Washington today is whether to have a public health insurance plan compete with private insurers for the business of...
Finding False Comfort In Numbers: The Problem With Ranking Failed States
by Richard Just
I spent some time yesterday and today trying to figure out Foreign Policy magazine's ranking of failed states. Somalia, Zimbabwe, and Sudan got first, ...
Next Month, There's Supposed To Be A Vote On America's Presence In Iraq. Good Thing It's Probably Not Going To Happen.
by Michael Crowley
The official exit of American soldiers from Iraqi cities makes this a happy day for the Iraqis, but I'd call their public jubilation--which has included...
TNRtv: Why Obama Should Back the Honduran President
by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
Alvaro Vargas Llosa, senior fellow at the Independent Institute and author of Lessons from the Poor, dishes on the latest news out of Latin America: a...
The John Roberts Method: How The Court Is Patiently Bending Law To The Right
by Tom Goldstein
It's always perilous to try and generalize about a Supreme Court Term. Roughly 80 cases on diverse topics decided by 9 different people don't collectively...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Obama's Learning Curve: When Will The Realist Start Getting Real?
by Leon Wieseltier
On a rainy day in 1993, I sat with my parents at the opening ceremonies of the Holocaust Museum and heard President Clinton, who was doing nothing to ...
Are Democrats Sacrificing Too Much In Order To Pass Health Care Reform?
by Jonathan Cohn
Bill and Hillary Clinton are off saving the world, he through his global foundation and she via the State Department. But their presence looms over the...
The 'Ricci' Ruling Undermines Affirmative Action. It's About Time.
by John McWhorter
The Supreme Court's decision in favor of the New Haven firefighters whose test results were discounted is welcome news indeed for making our discussions...
What The U.S. Could Learn From Europe About Cap-And-Trade (A Lot, Actually)
by Bradford Plumer
Of all the questions about climate-change policy, one of the biggest is whether a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases will even work. Will it actually...
TNRtv: Geithner's Latest Multi-Billion Dollar Gift To The Banks
by Simon Johnson
Simon Johnson, professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and co-founder of BaselineScenario...
Monday, June 29, 2009
'We Have No Idea What Is Going On': The Surprising Limits Of Our Iran Intelligence
by Eli Lake
About ten days after the start of Iran's insurrection, I asked a senior administration official what, if anything, the White House knew about the people...
Why Obama Needs To Step Into The Health Care Debate Now--Before It's Too Late
by E.J. Dionne, Jr.
WASHINGTON--Every general studies the mistakes of the last war, and President Obama's style has been much influenced by the difficulties of Bill Clinton...
TNRtv: Why Republicans Are Out Of Touch On Health Reform
by Ruy Teixeira
Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the Century Foundation, and fellow of the New Politics Institute, breaks down the ...
Sunday, June 28, 2009
The Public Option Is Important For Health Care Reform--But Can We Live Without It?
by Jonathan Cohn
Speaking on Thursday before thousands of activists gathered on Capitol Hill, former Governor Howard Dean made clear his litmus test for health reform: “...
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Love Actually: In Defense Of Mark Sanford
by Cristina Nehring
"I never figured Sanford for anything like this," mused one of the governor's constituents in The New York Times this week. Mark Sanford's friends are...
How The Never-Ending Dennis Ross Drama Illustrates The Turmoil In Obama's Foreign Policy Team
by Michael Crowley
Ben Smith has a piece today with still more speculation on Dennis Ross, Washington's most speculated-about bureaucrat. What's with the Ross obsession? ...
College Grads: Congrats! Just Don't Plan On Getting Sick For A While! Because The Health Care System Totally Screws You!
by Anthony Wright
In the last several weeks, in ceremonies across the country, hundreds of thousands of Americans have become uninsured. I’m not talking about plant closings...
A Forgiving Wife Is No Longer The Best Prop For A Cheating Politician. Thank Goodness.
by Michelle Cottle
After sitting through a YouTube double-header of both Governor Mark Sanford’s and Senator John Ensign’s I’m-so-terribly-sorry-I-screwed-around-on-my-wife...
Friday, June 26, 2009
Don't Be Fooled By Dropping Unemployment Rates--We Need A Second Stimulus
by John B. Judis
Our country’s unemployment rate, which has risen every month this year, now stands well above the worst case scenario of the Treasury Department’s stress...
TNRtv: How The Iranian Protests Will Change Obama's Policy Of Engagement
by Ashfin Molavi
In the first part of a TNRtv series on Iran, Ashfin Molavi, fellow at The New America Foundation, breaks down how the elections in Iran will alter Obama...
Does Maliki Have The Answer To Gridlock In Iraq?
by Elise Foley
Legal changes have been slow to come in Iraq, with legislation moving through the parliamentary system at a snail's pace--or not at all. Bills intended...
A History Of Violence: What Previous Protests And Revolutions In Iran Can Teach Us About The Current Crisis
by Steven R. Ward
On the eve of the centennial of Iran’s first modern revolution, the country is experiencing the latest in a series of popular eruptions against an oppressive...
Thursday, June 25, 2009
What Makes David Cameron So Damn Likeable?
by Alexandra Starr
To the unschooled eye, the photograph of the 1987 class of the Oxford University Bullingdon Club could be mistaken for a 100-year-old image. The ten young...
The Big Test
by Damon Linker
Within days of stepping down as governor of Massachusetts on January 4, Mitt Romney is expected to announce his candidacy for president. Shortly after...
A History of Violence: What Previous Protests And Revolutions In Iran Can Teach Us About The Current Crisis.
by Steven R. Ward
On the eve of the centennial of Iran’s first modern revolution, the country is experiencing the latest in a series of popular eruptions against an oppressive...
Politics Very Much Influence Supreme Court Decisions--And To Pretend Otherwise Is Dangerous
by E.J. Dionne, Jr.
WASHINGTON--The United States Supreme Court claims to be above politics, and it sometimes even achieves that aspiration.

The court has occasionally...
TNRtv Exclusive: Former Health Insurance Insider Wendell Potter Blows The Whistle On The Industry's 'Duplicitous' Lobbying Efforts
by Wendell Potter
TNRtv Exclusive: Former Health Insurance Insider Wendell Potter Blows The Whistle On The Industry's 'Duplicitous' Lobbying Efforts
'Our Young Brave People': TNR's Guide To Iran's Most Prominent Dissidents

Since Iran's presidential elections, Iranian officials say at least 17 demonstrators have been killed, over 200 people jailed, and many more exiled from...
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Moussavi The Architect: What We Can Learn About The Iranian Opposition Leader From His Other Career
by James Gardner
Over the past century, not a few powerful men, among them Churchill, Eisenhower, and even Hitler, have fancied themselves painters and have displayed ...
Don't Let Seven Senators Decide What Health Care Reform Looks Like!
by Harold Pollack
Among those who favor health reform, commentators seem divided between those who see promise or peril in the search for bipartisan health reform. I am...
A Field Guide To How The Iranian Military Can Be Flipped
by Amanda Silverman
As the protests in Iran continue and reports of violence in the streets proliferate, we started to wonder what could make members of the Basij and other...
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Obama Method: His Rhetoric May Be Conciliatory, But His Strategy Is Ruthless
by Jonathan Chait
The thing that people haven't figured out about President Obama's conduct of foreign policy is that it's the same as his conduct of domestic policy. Obama...
What The Arab World Is--And Isn’t--Saying About The Protests In Iran
by Josie Delap and Robert Lane Greene
What the Arab world is--and isn't--saying about the protests in Iran.
A History Lesson For Obama's Critics: How U.S. Support Has Undermined Reform Movements
by Dylan Matthews
Over the past few days, many of Obama's critics have argued that he should be speaking out more forcefully in favor of the Iranian opposition. Paul Wolfowitz...
Afghan Ambassador Said Jawad On Why It's Worth Engaging the Taliban

In the first part of a TNRtv exclusive, Afghan Ambassador to the United States Said Tayeb Jawad defends President Hamid Karzai's response to the Iranian...
Monday, June 22, 2009
Zeke’s Anatomy: Meet The Nice Emanuel Brother. Well, The Nicest.
by Noam Scheiber
In 1995, John Gallin, the head of the clinical center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), decided the nation's premier medical research facility...
Ahmedinejad’s Next Big Threat: Egypt?
by Michael Crowley
Before Barack Obama spoke to the Muslim world from Cairo in June, the president did some sightseeing. His first stop was the Sultan Hassan mosque, a 700...
Obama's Progressive Path On Iran Is Fraught With Peril
by E.J. Dionne, Jr.
WASHINGTON--Protesters hit the streets demanding freedom and fair elections. A repressive government strikes back and denounces the dissidents as unpatriotic...
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Not Just A Photo-Op: How The Sight Of Millions Of People On The Street Can Change A Nation’s Psyche
by Jack DuVall
The panoramic view on Thursday of more than a million Iranians filling the streets of Tehran, on the sixth straight day of swelling popular demonstrations...
TNRtv: Paul Krugman Is Wrong On Financial Regulations
by Noam Scheiber
TNRtv: Paul Krugman Is Wrong On Financial Regulations
Friday, June 19, 2009
After Super Friday, Iran has a Super Saturday
by Andrew Apostolou
Khamenei’s speech
Dealing With The Devil: Why Is The Most Powerful Health Care Lobbyist Playing Nice?
by Jonathan Cohn
The first time I remember speaking with Karen Ignagni was via a TV satellite, for a debate about health care policy on CNN. It was the summer of 2007, ...
Europe's Disturbing New Trend Of Celebrating Its Military Deserters
by Michael B. Oren
About 400,000 people, many of them children, annually tour the battlegrounds of Ypres, near the French border in Western Belgium, the scene of some of...
TNRtv Exclusive: Union Leader Andy Stern Slams Grassley's Health Plan
by Jonathan Cohn
TNR senior editor Jonathan Cohn and SEIU president Andy Stern break down the latest on health reform: Should the Grassley and Conrad plans be taken seriously...
Did Bank Lobbyists Write Obama's Reform Proposal?
by Simon Johnson
What is the essence of the problem with our financial system--what brought us into deep crisis, what scared us most in September/October of last year, ...
Are The New Polls On Obama As Troubling As They First Appear?
by Jonathan Chait and Linda Hirshman
First off, I do think math is hard. So I am reluctant to question the suits--pollster Peter Hart, the guys at NBC, much less people whose institution ...
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Governments Have No Business Getting Involved In Iran’s Ideological Struggle. But We Do.
by Michael Walzer
I am a statist in many ways and in many areas. I believe that government has an important role to play in the economy, in health care, in protecting the...
Argument Of The Day: Americans Should Spend FEWER Years In School
by John McWhorter
In this commencement season, I myself gave the commencement address for a bunch of high school dropouts. Mind you, the school was Bard College at Simon...
Can Anyone Defend The GOP’s Health Care Policies? Senator Charles Grassley Certainly Tries In This Exclusive TNRtv Interview
by Suzy Khimm
TNR's Suzy Khimm presses Senator Charles Grassley on some of the most controversial questions surrounding comprehensive health care reform.
Why Has Russia Been So Cool Toward The Iranian Opposition?
by Julia Ioffe
As we continue to pick apart the dubious Iranian election returns, it's worth considering their very different treatment in Russia, which has long sought...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Learning From Clinton: Why Health Care Reform Could Fail--Again
by Stanley B. Greenberg
Nothing brings on a headache quite like health care reform. My head has throbbed lately, as Congress has begun to consider a serious overhaul--a debate...
Ayatollah Khamenei's Massive Miscalculation About The Extent Of His Power
by Abbas Milani
The Iranian regime is currently facing one of the greatest challenges of its 30-year history. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei--whose rule has been absolute...
The Hottest Month Of The Year Is About To Become The Hottest Quarter Of The Year
by Bradford Plumer
Earlier this afternoon, the White House held a press conference to talk up a major new NOAA report on likely climate-change impacts in the United States...
Why Is Obama Ditching Obamaism On One Of The Most Vital Issues Of His Presidency?
by Noam Scheiber
One of the early hallmarks of the administration's governing style is to make Congress a partner (sometimes even the senior partner) in policy development...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Three Things That We KNOW About The Iranian Election
by Bernard-Henri Levy
Massive cheating or not? A new kind of coup d’etat or not? How do we interpret this strange election whose results were announced by the press affiliated...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
A Time For Idealism: Debating The Appropriate Response To The Crisis In Iran
by Richard Just and John B. Judis
The past few years haven't been kind to foreign policy idealism--the belief that when authoritarian states mistreat their own people, it is a matter of...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Can Ukraine's Orange Revolution Teach Us Anything About Today's Protests In Iran?
by Joshua A. Tucker
As I watched events in Iran unfold at the end of last week, I couldn’t help but note the similarities to the “Colored Revolutions” that swept through ...
TNRtv: Why Ahmadinejad's Days Are Numbered
by John B. Judis
TNR senior editor John B. Judis breaks down the post-election analysis of the Iranian regime, arguing that Obama should just sit back and watch it self...
How Is Steven Chu Doing At Revamping The Energy Department?
by Bradford Plumer
In this month's Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell has a terrific profile of Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Sadly, it's not online, but Charlie Petit managed to...
The Single Most Important Housing Market Reform
by Noam Scheiber
The Single Most Important Housing Market Reform ...is this, which Tim Geithner and Larry Summers propose in their Washington Post op-ed today: ...
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sotto Voce: The Sonia Sotomayor You Don't Know
by Jeffrey Rosen
A tip from an informant led Detective Amando Rodriguez and Sergeant Diane Contreras to the stash house--actually a New York City apartment--which they...
Why Business Leaders Should Scare Obama More Than The Republican Party
by E.J. Dionne, Jr.
WASHINGTON--Business has been on the ropes since last fall's financial collapse, but the first glimmerings of recovery are calling forth a capitalist ...