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"If you’re operating at Louie Gohmert’s level, try harder."
— Alex Koppelman on the White House’s need to step up their gamesmanship in the sequester fight: http://nyr.kr/YdBZ40(Source: newyorker.com)
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Political Scene Podcast: How Far Can Obama Move Republicans?→
What do you remember most from the night of the State of the Union? Are you mentally replaying President Obama’s passionate appeal for gun control? Or maybe you can’t get Marco Rubio’s lunge for water out of your head? Either way, both speeches revealed a lot about the policy and political battles on the horizon. On this week’s Political Scene podcast, John Cassidy, Ryan Lizza, and Hendrik Hertzberg join the host Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the Democratic and Republican agendas for the next couple years: http://nyr.kr/11JsKkc
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This is the way that we deal with such incidents in the U.S.—we acknowledge them; we are, briefly, shocked by them; then we term it impolite to discuss their implications, and to argue about them. At some point, we will have to stop putting it off, stop pretending that doing so is the proper, respectful thing. It’s not either. It’s cowardice.
Alex Koppelman on the school shooting in Newtown, CT, and the right day to talk about gun control: http://nyr.kr/TZgCVM
Photograph by Michelle McLoughlin/Reuters.
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The Party Next Time
In this week’s issue, Ryan Lizza examines the Republican Party’s problem attracting minority voters, specifically Hispanics, through the efforts and concerns of the G.O.P. in Texas, “the largest and most important state in the Republican firmament.” Lizza talks to Ted Cruz, the Hispanic senator-elect from Texas, about the future of his party in the state, and, ultimately, the nation. “If Republicans do not do better in the Hispanic community, in a few short years Republicans will no longer be the majority party in our state,” Cruz tells Lizza. And, “in not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat. If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House … If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist.”
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"I swear I could hear liberals and Democrats all across the city—make that all across the country—leaping to their feet and shouting, “You go, Barack!” This was the Obama they had been looking for in Denver a couple of weeks ago."
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Super-Rich Irony
“The growing antagonism of the super-wealthy toward Obama can seem mystifying, since Obama has served the rich quite well…”
In this week’s issue, Chrystia Freeland explores why so may of Wall Street’s super-rich feel victimized by President Obama: http://nyr.kr/Oqo64E
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Ian Crouch on the power of Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” as a pedagogical political tool: http://nyr.kr/OJvfNc
(Source: newyorker.com)
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Both conservatives and liberals warn against the other’s threat to our country. Can they both be right? In today’s Daily Comment, Kelefa Sanneh considers democracy’s enemies: the lucky duckies, or the fat cats? http://nyr.kr/QpMqiP
Photograph by Charles Dharapak/AP Photo.
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For Heaven’s Sake
Where does God fit in on the 2012 campaign trail? In Comment this week, Hendrik Hertzberg considers the reaction provoked by the omission—and subsequent insertion—of the word “God” in the Democratic platform:
[B]y the time the Democrats were streaming out of Charlotte the Fox folks had mentioned the aforementioned non-mention eighty-four times. “I think it’s rather peculiar,” Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential nominee, said in one segment. “There sure is a lot of mention of government, and so I guess I would just put the onus of the burden on them to answer why they did all of these purges of God.” Ryan’s running mate, for his part, had previously judged it unwise to cast aspersions on other people’s religious beliefs. A few days later, though, having experienced a post-Conventions dip in the polls, Mitt Romney decided what the hell.
Did Romney’s subsequent attack on the Democrats establish him as the candidate of faith? And what does this incident say about the role of religion in American politics today? Click-through to read the full Comment.
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This week in Comment, Steve Coll looks at the history of political conventions, and contrasts this year’s D.N.C. and R.N.C.: http://nyr.kr/P2o51l
