Amy Davidson on Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony: 

…by the end she looked like a woman who thought that she was stooping to appear in this venue. The question now is whether that approach suits a 2016 candidate well, or badly.

Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/Xyo6wJ

(video via ABCnews)

(Source: newyorker.com)

Where, in the midst of a disastrous political farce, does a politician thinking about running for President want to position himself? At the center of the action, as the foil or the fixer, or as a comic-opera hero who enters shouting? There are times when it might also be better to stay offstage. In the final hours of the fiscal-cliff crisis, different potential candidates came up with different answers…

Rubio, Paul, Biden, Christie: Amy Davidson on how 2016 Presidential contenders play the fiscal cliff: http://nyr.kr/Uldd1g

Is Chris Christie a viable Presidential candidate for the G.O.P.? John Cassidy looks at the issues he would need to resolve before 2016: http://nyr.kr/SrRMfx

Photograph by Ida Mae Astute/ABC/Getty.

…she threw off the cloak of domesticity that she has been wearing for the past three and a half years and emerged as a major figure in her own right.

John Cassidy on First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention last night: http://nyr.kr/Oa5m9d

(Source: newyorker.com)

Anticolonial Dreams: Kelefa Sanneh on Dinesh D’Souza’s documentary “2016: Obama’s America” http://nyr.kr/POJ63g