You’ve got to love the thinking here. Obama proposes a hefty $450 billion jobs bill, containing many items that Republicans used to favor. The tab is to be paid by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to their pre-Bush tax cut levels. The Republicans (surprise) oppose asking the rich to pay for the jobs the [...]

The president, freed, at least temporarily, from the limit hostage crisis, has turned his attention, finally,  to jobs. His problem, and the nation’s, is that there’s almost nothing he can do to create more jobs. Having tied himself to deficit reduction, he can’t very well call for the stimulus necessary to shake the economy out [...]

Unless things change dramatically in the next few days, the Republican party will take this country into default on its obligations for the first time in history. The fanatical freshmen members of the House, elected in the depth of the recession in 2010, are in no mood to compromise in any way, even with their [...]

The upcoming “golf summit” with President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, and late additions Paul Ryan and Joe Biden, may well produce the long-awaited agreement on deficit reduction, forestalling a default brought on by Republican (along with some Democrats) refusal to raise the debt ceiling. It will, even if it succeeds, do absolutely nothing to [...]

The economy continues to lurch along, gaining a little bit of steam, then falling back again. Unemployment stays stubbornly around 9%, homes are still being foreclosed at a ferocious rate, and  the housing industry remains in a deep funk, Meanwhile, official Washington is consumed with the debate over the debt ceiling. Will someone please explain [...]

The post-2010 Obama style is emerging. Out is the optimistic liberal standard bearer. In is the Clintonian triangler. Let the Republicans frame the agenda, stay above the fray, expend as little political capital as possible, then step in as the mediator to forge a last-minute consensus. Hey, it worked brilliantly for Clinton, and it might [...]

Unless there’s a surprise agreement, the government will shut down at the end of the day tomorrow, largely because of the intransigence of the Tea Party members of the House, who apparently see compromise of any kind as a betrayal of their core principles. This, of course, is no way to run a government. Compromise [...]

The Obama administration is helping negotiate the terms of Egyptian President Mubarak’s resignation. While we in this country might see this as advancing democracy in the Arab world, Israel is evidently under no such illusions. The Jewish State has witnessed the catastrophic result of so-called democratic elections in the Mideast with something less than joy. [...]

The Obama administration has been racing to catch up with events in Egypt for more that a week now. Cautiously non-commital at first, we then timidly asked Mubarak not to run again, and when that ploy didn’t work, we asking for a peaceful transition as soon as possible. That request  was ignored today with the [...]

I’ve always thought the official responses to the State of the Union address kind of silly. Few of the presidential speeches are substantive in any way–usually just generalities restating the philosophy and broad agenda of the president–with few if any specifics. Then the other party states its position, which inevitably (surprise!) is different than the [...]