In this era of paper-thin politicians, this was a substantial and complicated character. Murtha was a political grunt in an age of flyboys. He was known for the ugly and the good. And it's why his death, Monday at age 77, tells a story of not only his life but also a fading era of American...]]> Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0600 I logged onto Facebook to read Sarah Palin's latest posts. Thursday morning she had 1,260,892 fans. Facebook randomly features six fans or friends on someone's page. One of the six fans featured that morning was, by chance, my 7th grade girlfriend.

Palin has gotten some heat for headlining the National Tea Party Convention, underway this weekend in Nashville. The convention costs $549 to attend or $349 for only the lobster-and-steak banquet. Palin will give the keynote address at the banquet. Her speaking fee: $100,000. Critics, including some conservatives, saw the costs as unbefitting a people's movement.

Palin wrote that the "compensation for my appearance will go right...]]> Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Election Day 1988 was only days away. Ronald Reagan was headlining a rally in Nevada. He said the options were the same as "when I stood before you." Reagan framed the Democratic "choice" as one for "liberal policies of tax and spend, economic stagnation, international weakness, accommodation, and always, always blame America first."

Reagan-era framing is regaining its relevance. Fair or not, liberalism's worst stereotypes have returned from the dead to haunt Democrats. "Tax and spend liberal," it's back with the charge of being soft on security threats – a claim that dogged Democrats from debates over crime to the Soviets to terrorism.

Democrats branding deteriorated...]]> Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Populism has become a pejorative. It's said to be dangerous or dismissed with palpable condescension. But Americans indictment is not only spirited; it is also merited. And that indictment has awaited an executive who will take up the people's case.

Populism has rare moments of resonance in American life. Hard-left economic populism has proved unable to win the presidency. It is surely no way to govern. But there are times when an elite games the system. There are times when most people have gotten a raw deal. And it's these times that call for a reasonable populism.

Many today view "reasonable populism" as an oxymoron. Populism is forever ascribed to its most extreme...]]> Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Barack Obama's first State of the Union address is Wednesday. The political media is already in typical form. The speech is framed as the next seismic event. It's not – not if the speech's objective is shaping the American mind.

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush's annual addresses combined, on average, changed their Gallup approval rating one point. The last five presidents combined averaged no change (polling was too infrequent to measure before Jimmy Carter).

The influence of modern State addresses is limited to the political class. The machinery of government listens for lessons learned and future goals. The oration is rated. But it is primarily political theater....]]> Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 In a painful conclusion for many progressives, top Democratic strategists said in interviews Thursday evening that their party must now give up on comprehensive health care reform and press for a limited bill that can be quickly passed.

"I don't think that the comprehensive health care reform that passed the House and Senate can be signed into law this year," said Tad Devine, who has advised congressional and presidential campaigns. "The sooner we recognize the reality that a super majority was necessary to achieve this, the sooner we'll be able to win back voters."

"We can all dream but the reality is that they couldn't do it when we had 60 votes and we are not going to do...]]> Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Edward Kennedy's most iconic moment was in defeat. It was at the 1980 Democratic convention that Kennedy said: "For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Once more, that dream is now deferred.

On the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama's presidency, the Kennedy seat is lost to a Republican. Democrats' Senate super majority falls with it. And the most shocking congressional victory of our time is now a metaphor for Obama's presidency. This Democratic nightmare, only one year after liberals believed their dream had...]]> Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Barack Obama's first year anniversary is this week. Obama will cross that threshold with his public standing ranking in the lower third of the eleven presidents in the post-World War II era. The most striking fact, looking back at Obama's first year approval rating, is the rate of his decline. In the post-war era, only Gerald Ford's public standing plummeted more than Obama's. Below is Obama's approval rating in historical context, as well as a sense of what his persona evokes in the American mind today.

The new book "Game Change" reports that Harry Reid once privately said, "the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect.'"

President Obama immediately absolved Reid because, as he said in a television interview, the...]]> Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 The philosophical casualty of the Great Recession was supposed to be libertarianism. But signs to the contrary are thriving.

Americans are increasingly opposed to activist government programs. The most significant social movement of 2009, the Tea Party protests, grew out of that opposition. Libertarian heroine Ayn Rand is as popular today as ever. Rand's brilliant and radical laissez faire novel "Atlas Shrugged," sold roughly 300,000 copies last year, according to BookScan, twice its sales in 2008 and roughly triple annual sales in recent decades.

We are witnessing a conservative libertarian comeback. It's an oppositional advance, a response to all manners of active-state...]]> Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Barack Obama has long compared himself to a Rorschach test. Liberals saw a progressive savior. Moderates saw a practical change agent. Americans saw promise of a post-partisan, post-racially divisive era. The projection was notably always considered positive.

But Rorschach tests were meant to measure a negative condition. And after nearly one year in office, the Rorschach politician is, as president, facing the whirlwind of his ambiguity.

We still don't know this president's core. His guiding maxims are elusive. He has refused to draw principled redlines on the big fights or invest himself deeply in those fights. We have yet to see the grit in the man.

As liberal New...]]> Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 We are told Barack Obama has problems with his base. The New York Times headlined: "Liberal Revolt on Health Care Stings White House." Politico headlined: "Left rebels against health reform" and "Under Obama, the Left feels left out." At The Washington Post, a David Broder column carried the headline: "The president, abandoned by his party." And that's only in the past week.

It's hype. Obama's current Democratic approval rating, 84 percent, is above Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter at the close of their first year in office. More Democrats approve of Obama than Republicans approved of Ronald Reagan (81 percent) at the close of Reagan's first year, according to Gallup...]]> Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 This month, the Obama administration renewed its push for stimulus dollars to be directed to minority groups and women. But government data paints a Great Recession that has not discriminated in its casualties, at least not in the modern liberal sense. It's blue collar workingmen who bear the greatest burden of this crisis—black, white and brown alike.

Three-quarters of the recession's total job losses have fallen on blue collar workers. Two-thirds of all Americans who have lost jobs are blue collar men. And more than 4-in-10 of the total job losses are blue collar white men.

The blue collar backbone of the American economy has finally broken. This is the central...]]> Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 RealClearPolitics obtained the following fake transcript of an utterly fictitous conference call between Barack Obama, Kim Jong-Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chávez. 

[Begin Transcript]

Barack Obama: Good morning. We have on the phone the Supreme Leader of the DPRK—

Kim Jong-Il: Mr. President, Dear Leader is fine. And I received your letter last week. Thank you for including the Obama "change the world" t-shirt. I'm going to wear it in my latest film. It's about my epic life. I've kidnapped all the best talent in Asia for supporting cast. Did you know that a double rainbow and a bright star appeared over the mountaintop when I was born? I'm the...]]> Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 It was a year for the political jackass. Headlines were filled with politicians' private improprieties exposed. The infidelities, most oddly with Mark Sanford. The corruption, most infamously with Rod Blagojevich. But politicians' privately behaving badly, while news, is not new. It was politicians' public behavior in 2009 that is notable for reaching such new lows. Worse still is that, unlike in years past, hyper-partisan rancor is increasingly rewarded.

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson capped the indecorous year, yelling "you lie!" at President Obama during a September address to Congress. Republican leadership urged mea culpa. Wilson immediately called the White House and apologized....]]> Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Over the years, newsrooms have come to view Rupert Murdoch as the embodiment of what's wrong with modern media. Tabloidization. Growth of ideological news. Blurring lines between business and editorial interests. The prostitution of news, thy name is Murdoch.

"If Murdoch was bad for journalism," the New Yorker's Ken Auletta wrote in a 2007 profile, "he was clearly good for business."

But today, increasingly, what is good for the journalism business is good for journalism.

Existential fears have taken hold of publishing. The high-minded debates — what should be news, the profit motive's influence over news — have been sidelined by the hunt for profit...]]> Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Democrats lived down the Great Society's excesses for decades. Yet today's Democrats appear unable to even get basic liberalism right. A historic progressive moment has passed. The cost is millions of jobs and over the long term, the perception of liberalism's efficacy.

Barack Obama inherited a progressive moment unseen since Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt before him. In this crisis, liberals had a chance to prove Ronald Reagan wrong.

"This was a great turning point in history, the end of the conservative era. Conservatism imploded just as it imploded during the Hoover years," said Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. "That opened up an...]]> Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Barack Obama has to show his heart is in the fight. Tonight's Afghan address must explain but also inspire. The professor-in-chief must now preach to the public about why Afghanistan is still the "good war." Why it is still worth the cost. Why the long war must be longer. Why we can win - and what exactly is to be won. The public will be listening to Obama's explanations but, perhaps more importantly, it will also be searching for the passion beneath his prose. Spock must find his inner Kirk.

"Once more unto the breach" is a difficult sell after so much deliberation. This three-month public review comes less than a half-year after his last policy review. Obama first told the...]]> Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Liberals have long sought the professorial president. But Barack Obama is starting to betray some of the vices of that virtue.

This president appears too much brain and too little gut. Prof-in-chief has his drawbacks. The decision to send the confessed Sept. 11 mastermind to the civilian criminal court system was defensible in the academy. But it should have failed any seasoned pol's gut check. This crime was, after all, taken as an act of war.

Originally, thoughtfulness on the Afghan-war was welcomed and justified. But there have been nine major meetings of Obama's war-council. It's been nearly three months. Even as the decision nears, the deliberation has begun to feel...]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Barack Obama has fallen below 50 percent in the Gallup Poll, an expected but no less significant historical marker.

The public's view of this president ranks him in the lower third of modern American politics. He has fallen below the majority threshold at the fourth fastest rate, of the twelve presidents since World War II.

Obama was nearly number three. But he escaped Ronald Reagan's fall-point by about a week. That Reagan has been here as well, and languished below 50 for two years in his first term, illustrates that Obama's new reality is notable but not determinative. Still, it is indeed bad news.

In legislative terms, a president is only as powerful as he is...]]> Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 This week, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, told reporters the GOP offers a "back-of-the-hand treatment to women." Later she said two conservative female representatives only serve to further "repulse women." You see, Schultz said on MSNBC, Republicans "don't really get very many women when it comes to elections."

The week before, in Virginia, the Republican gubernatorial candidate won women. And in blue New Jersey, the Republican lost women but won white women by 18 percentage points.

Last year, John McCain won a majority of the white female vote. They sum to more than 25 million women. Democrats, so many forget, have not won a majority of white women...]]> Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 It's been a long time since Republicans savored the day after.

"This certainly was a much needed shot in the arm for Republicans. And should be a dire warning sign for Democrats," said Tony Fabrizio, a veteran GOP strategist.

But Fabrizio's long term view differed. "The smart Republicans are looking at it and saying ok, we're not dead yet," he continued. "But we can't assume that the election of these two Republicans means that the voters think we are right and are embracing Republican principles."

Tuesday's gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey have, in typical fashion, led to some exaggerated public comments. Republican National Committee Chairman...]]> Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Ronald Reagan's 1980 landslide was a year old. By November 1981, eyes were on the off-year elections. Reagan and George H.W. Bush campaigned heavily for the GOP candidates. Republicans scratched out the narrowest of victories in New Jersey. But Democrats won the Virginia governorship for the first time in more than a decade. The New York Times headline on November 5, 1981: "A Warning for the GOP."

Political observers framed 1981 as a referendum on Reagan. And in the next year's midterms, as is almost always the case, the president's party did fare poorly. The GOP lost 26 seats in the House, among other contests. But Reagan went on to win his 49-state landslide in...]]> Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Hillary Clinton did not need another man stealing her thunder. Last week, John Kerry earned headlines for convincing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to agree to a run-off election. The Senate's top man on foreign affairs looked more like the secretary of state. And naturally, political observers wondered where was the secretary of state?

Kerry took pains to convey that he did not upstage Clinton on the world stage. Rather, he said, she facilitated the shuttle diplomacy. But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs did not help matters. "Secretary Kerry," Gibbs gaffed to reporters.

Clinton's quiet role has not gone unnoticed. Many Clinton watchers raised their eyebrows when...]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 The chief issue of the day was whether to escalate the war further or de-escalate. There were economic concerns. And there was a president "too intent on a search for consensus," as historian Robert Dallek wrote in his biography of Lyndon Johnson.

It was early May 1966. The first time Johnson's public approval rating fell below 50 percent in the Gallup Poll. A month later, on June 9, Press Secretary Bill Moyers informed Johnson that, "Conversations with Gallup, Harris, and other professionals in the poll business confirm only one thing: Our standing is down and likely to drop further."

It will not, of course, take this president an entire month to digest the same bad news....]]> Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Something's amiss when Michael Moore and Larry Kudlow see the same problem.

Last Thursday, Kudlow headlined his CNBC show: "Capitalism in Peril?" He spoke of the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. It's "the tale of two Americas," Kudlow said. For a moment, Kudlow seemed to be channeling John Edwards. Hell had frozen over.

On the other end of the spectrum is Moore. "Capitalism, a love story," is a disjointed documentary about capitalism's casualties and corruptions. Moore confuses capitalism with its perversion. But when the devout anti-capitalist and the uber-capitalist are highlighting many of the same perversions, it's time we pay attention.

Kudlow's...]]> Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Barack Obama's fan club has endured deserved criticism. The Nobel Peace Prize made the joke almost too easy. Love is indeed blind, for liberals globally. But lest we forget, conservatives too have known blind love.

Before Obamaites there were Reaganites. "People can be accused of being unreasonably ga-ga over Obama," said Fred Greenstein, a Princeton University presidential historian. "One forgets, there was a similar response to leaders on the right; and Reagan was perhaps the best example."

Ronald Reagan won an historic tax cut during his first year in office. But the next year, amid a deep recession, he backed a $100 billion tax hike. Reagan was a fiscal conservative who...]]> Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Most presidents become a joke at some point. It's a matter of when and how. Both points should concern this president. In Winston Churchill's words, "a joke is a very serious thing." Or it can be, when the joke is about a very serious thing.

"Saturday Night Live" has long been a comedic benchmark. Last weekend, SNL took its first hard hit at President Obama. Fred Armisen, who plays the president, gave an Oval Office address questioning why some critics were distraught with him transforming the country: "When you look at my record it's very clear what I've done so far and that is nothing. Nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it."

Political satire matters when it is...]]> Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 There was a startling poll on Iran last week. Many top Iranian analysts have long believed Tehran's nuclear ambitions will, more likely than not, lead to a military confrontation. What's new, Americans now agree. Cynicism is taking hold.

Americans were asked in a Fox News poll whether: "Iran can be stopped from working on a nuclear weapons program without the use of military force, or will the U.S. eventually need to take military action to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons?"

Six in 10 Americans believe "military action will be necessary." They were not stating this view as passive observers. The same portion of Americans said they "support" the U.S. taking military...]]> Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Imagine a world where the famous live by separate laws. People are so captivated by fame that they argue for the absolution of, say, a child rapist--so long as that rapist is famous.

Seriously, I'm not kidding. What if a famous film director repeatedly raped a 13-year-old girl? Here's one storyline:

The director flees the United States for a life of European luxury. His fame becomes a shield. He goes on directing major films. He appears on red carpets. Everyone knows where he lives. His name is on his doorbell.

Three decades later, he's arrested. Powerful filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, David Lynch and Harvey Weinstein demand his release.

Even a...]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 It's to the shame of the Democratic Party that humorist Will Rogers' famous political line remains salient: "I am not a member of any organized party--I am a Democrat."

Democrats are mired in division over the issue of the day. They disagree on how to pay for health care reform, whether companies should be compelled to pay for employee's insurance, and the proposed government insurance option.

And there is no end to the internecine battles in sight. President Obama faces a huge decision on Afghanistan. All in or begin the road out, his top generals apparently advise. But Democrats are already splitting over the war, and comparisons to Vietnam are common. This president's...]]> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 President Obama's five Sunday television interviews included a telling thread. "The media encourages some of the outliers in behavior, because, let's face it, the easiest way to get on television right now is to be really rude," Obama said on ABC's "This Week," repeating himself on other networks.

Obama was correct, but only in part. It's not only media that "encourages" the "outliers."

The Partisan Industrial Complex is overwhelming American politics. From the partisan media to the modern campaign, an entire industry flourishes on polarization. Partisanship earns and spends billions annually.

As Ronald Brownstein wrote in "The Second Civil War," the "country has...]]> Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 He is of a diaspora. Has often been compared to Star Trek's Vulcans. His pedigree is that of the overachieving Ivy Leaguer. A lawyer who married a lawyer. He emerged in Chicago activism as a disciple of Jewish urban organizer Saul Alinsky. He is Hyde Park liberal--urbane with a preference for arugula. An intellectual's intellectual, in virtue and in vice.

This is a man famous for his Talmudic-like mind. He deconstructs, deduces, feels compelled to cover all sides of a debate. His humor leans heavily on self-deprecation. He even held the first Passover Seder inside the White House.

Two of his closest advisers are Jewish men--David Axelrod, cast as the archetypal sophist, and...]]> Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Tuesday marks one year since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers brought the American economy, and by extension the world, to near financial collapse.

By year's end the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than in any year since 1931. Americans' lost a fifth of their household wealth, by far the largest annual decline since the Second World War. A record $11 trillion in U.S. personal savings was erased.

Yet the Great Recession has only mildly impacted the American mind.

One year after a recession turned to crisis, Washington has yet to institute any major economic reforms. The financial industry has reportedly returned to some of the same risky behavior that brought...]]> Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Barack Obama has long avoided progressives' existential causes. Not long after the 2008 campaign Obama's top strategist David Axelrod said that he was "not trying to rebuild the Democratic Party."

A couple months later Obama stood before Congress for his State of the Union address. There he outlined a vision tied to Democrats' enduring philosophical fight. Where Ronald Reagan said that "government is the problem" in his first inaugural address, Obama spoke of government as the means to solve Americans' most serious problems. But he dared not say so overtly.

Not until Wednesday night did Obama explicitly take up the deeper fight, though the fight was already his own. From...]]> Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 The nation's top Democratic strategists are anxious. By Gallup's measure, Democrats' advantage in party identity has narrowed from 17 percentage points in January to 5 points in August. President Obama's approval rating now bobs in the low 50s. He has lost Americans' favor at a larger and faster rate than most presidents since World War II.

It's not Republicans who concern Democrats. It's the return of old questions surrounding Democrats' competence.

Democratic political veterans believe Obama must, in a matter of months, begin to show the big reform to match his campaign's big promise. It explains why Democratic strategists almost uniformly subscribe to the prevailing view...]]> Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Americans are of two distinct minds on health care reform.

Most Americans continue to support major reform. But multiple polls show they are also overwhelmingly satisfied with the quality of their personal medical care, as well as their insurance coverage.

In Depth: 9 Ways Cities Are Coping with the Recession

In Depth: States with Highest and Lowest Unemployment Benefits

This health care reform paradox is the core reason why Democrats are finding it increasingly difficult to rally the public behind their dramatic effort to overhaul the nation's medical system.

About three-in-four Americans believe the nation's health care system requires major reform....]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Fully 35 percent of Democrats believe George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fully 28 percent of Republicans believe Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States.

Meet the fanatical third.

The tale of two conspiracy theories is the tale of the most polarized among us. The two statistics are based on a poll apiece. Neither is an exact measure. Yet, lots of liberals say take the "birther" poll on face value. Lots of conservatives say take the "truther" poll on face value. So let's listen to both sides.

The unsurprising conclusion: you can't reason with arch partisans.

On Friday, I published a post wondering why the mainstream media...]]> Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 There is a need to correct some of the media misanalysis regarding Barack Obama's standing in public opinion polls.

First, let's clarify where Obama stands in the public's mind. Obama's approval rating has declined to the low 50s, according to several recent polls. The rate of that decline is larger and faster than many presidents, such as George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, as I detailed here. Obama's approval rating was average over his first half-year in office, and he stood eighth out of the 11 modern presidents on the date of his six-month anniversary in office, as I detailed here.

The problem arises from how respected reporters are digesting these numbers. One example from...]]> Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Am I the only one who finds it odd that the media is paying exponentially more attention to the "birther" issue today than during the campaign? There was reason to ignore conspiracy theories during the campaign. There were a great deal of lies flying around about Barack Obama in 2007 and 2008 (there were a few flying around about John McCain and Sarah Palin as well).

But the treatment of the "birthers" is peculiar. I went on Nexis and did a search of the broad "news" category of the phrase: "birth certificate" and Obama. In the past month there were 564 pieces on the subject (302 in the past week alone!). That is more than half of all the pieces on the subject written before...]]> Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 RealClearPolitics obtained a prepared White House script for this evening's happy hour diplomacy between President Obama, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley. The script was apparently prepared to brief Obama on the likely conversation. Teleprompters were set up around the picnic table. But Obama thought the press would have a field day and the Teleprompters were removed. Below is the text:

President Barack Obama: Welcome to my backyard. Not bad, huh? This is the actual picnic table where Hillary and I recently met. The press loved it. By the way, I'm sorry that we only have Bud Light at the table, Henry.

Henry Louis Gates Jr:...]]> Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Barack Obama's public approval rating has fallen faster than presidents from George W. Bush to Jimmy Carter, based on a RealClearPolitics review of historical Gallup polling.

Until Obama, Carter was the last president to begin his term in the high 60s. Carter first polled at a 66 percent approval rating. He did not reach Obama's present territory until mid September, when he hit 54 percent.  Carter fell lower in late October--51 percent. And that fall occurred after the Carter administration was branded with scandal, following the Bert Lance affair.

Gallup reports today that Obama has a 52 percent public approval rating, a new low. Yesterday's three-day Gallup average...]]> Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Barack Obama did not herald in a "post-racial America." In fact, the trope betrayed how we confine race to superficial terms. It's the same reason Stephen Colbert has made a standing joke of not being able to "see color." Color is with us. And we cannot get past race by not directly looking at it.

Obama's presence has empowered us to take that look. Obama has not changed how we experience race. But he is changing how we see and talk about it.

In Depth: 8 Things Americans Believe in 2009

In Pictures: 8 Handshakes That Changed History

We are beginning to value sincerity more than sensitivity. Though not without friction, race seems to be leaving the politically...]]> Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Barack Obama is a long way from his honeymoon.

This week Obama crossed the six-month mark with a public approval rating in the lower half of modern presidents, compared to the 11 presidents regularly polled by Gallup in the post-War World II era.

In Depth: 10 of History's Boldest Presidential Promises

In Depth: Top Earners in Obama's Administration

Obama's final approval rating after his first half year in office, based on a three-day average as of Tuesday, is 57 percent--ranking eighth of the 11 modern presidents.

In statistical terms, Obama is tied with George W. Bush (whom Obama technically falls a point above) and Richard Nixon (whom Obama...]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Americans were consumed through the 1920s with debates over prohibition, the role of women, evolution and immigration. The Great Depression brought that era to a close. And in the rhyme of history, this Great Recession has eclipsed the culture wars of our time--for now.

Wars don't always end when one side hopes. Liberals have generally won the liberalization of our culture. Social conservatives now champion a working mother, Sarah Palin.

In Depth: 8 Things Americans Believe in 2009

In Pictures: 8 Handshakes That Changed History

But the counter to the counter culture was the more powerful force in politics. And from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, top Democrats...]]>