Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
The annual State of the Union (SOTU) address has become little more than a formal political rally for the president of the United States. True to form, President Trump has reduced it to little more than a farce, featuring his now familiar shameful and shameless shtick, measure for measure. This is why I stopped watching… Read more.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) went viral for two things last week: For the condescending way she clapped at Trump during his State of the Union Address (SOTU). For the discerning way she characterized Trump’s habitual lies, insults, complaints, and criticisms. I am on record dismissing the SOTU as a spectacle. I refer you to… Read more.
I have listened to enough State of the Union Addresses to know that they invariably amount to a triumph of style over substance. And nothing demonstrates this quite like the most memorable thing about President Obama’s address last year being not something he said, but a congressman yelling, ‘You lie.’ (“2011 State of the Union Address,” The… Read more.
I have had cause on far too many occasions to denounce the presumptuous way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted, variously, to challenge Obama’s presidential authority or dictate how Obama should exercise it. What is most troubling, however, is that congressional Republicans have invariably enabled him. In fact, while doing all they could to… Read more.
People have been sounding alarms about the rich getting richer (and the poor getting poorer) for over 150 years. In fact, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 2, quotes no less a person than former president Andrew Jackson invoking this aphorism way back in 1832: When the laws undertake …… Read more.
Below is what I wrote after last year’s State of the Union Address. Alas, this occasion has become such a redundant and irrelevant spectacle that I’ve decided to mark it this year and henceforth by publishing an equally redundant and irrelevant commentary. It is noteworthy, though, that last night’s spectacle was compounded by Republican members of… Read more.
I have listened to enough State of the Union Addresses to know that they invariably amount to a triumph of style over substance. And nothing demonstrates this quite like the most memorable thing about President Obama’s first address last year being not something he said, but a congressman yelling, ‘You lie.’ (“2011 State of the Union Address,”… Read more.
Ever since 1934, when the modern version of State of the Union Address became an annual feature of Washington politics, every president has used it in an election year to frame the issues and rally support for his presidency. Yet to listen to Republicans carp, you’d think President Obama is the first one to do… Read more.
I have listened to enough State of the Union Addresses to know that they invariably amount to a triumph of style over substance. And nothing demonstrates this quite like the most memorable thing about President Obama’s address last year being not something he said, but a congressman yelling, “You lie.” Nevertheless, Obama can take credit for delivering… Read more.
As speeches go, it was vintage Obama: hopeful, skillfully drafted, brilliantly delivered (often with a disarming charm), and chuck full of soaring rhetoric. More importantly, though, he demonstrated why, despite his critics, he’s still America’s (and the world’s) best HOPE for leadership in this age of economic and political transformation. In fact, I’m sure the inside-Washington… Read more.
