Entries for January 2009

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

They may not look alike, but Rahm Emanuel and Dick Cheney have a lot in common. 

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Last night, not a single Republican in the House voted to support the President's $819 billion stimulus package. First thing this morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared on the CBS Early Show and said, "Republicans had their chance. The Republicans decided to oppose. That's their choice." The question is, was their choice a brilliant political decision or one more nail in the coffin of the GOP?

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

President Obama's new envoy to the Middle East, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, is well known in Washington for his work on the Good Friday Accord in Northern Ireland and for chairing the investigation into steroid use in Major League Baseball. There's some interesting commentary today about Mitchell's chances for success: Columnist Alex Massie writes in the New Republic about the similarities between the Irish and Middle East peace processes and holds some hope for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians; Gerry Adams, the British MP from West Belfast and leader of Sinn Fein, tells a few stories about working with Mitchell back in the day, but ends up less than optimistic about Mitchell's chances with Hamas in his column for the London Guardian.

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

President Obama is meeting this afternoon with Republican lawmakers, trying to garner support for his $825 billion stimulus plan. According to the New York Times, the plan contains $37 billion in proposed spending in three high-tech projects, $20 billion of which is for computerizing medical records. (That's right, all those alphabetized manila folders behind the receptionist will be going the way of mercury thermometers, blue jars of Vick's VapoRub, and nurses in white caps and pantyhose.)

By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

All presidents are a product of their time—and communicate using the media of their time. In the days before microphones and amplifiers, Abraham Lincoln spoke to small groups gathered on battlefields. He knew, however, that the rest of America would read his words in newspapers, and wrote his speeches not for the listening ear but for the reading eye. As a result, the power and clarity of his words survive—despite the lack of any video clips, podcasts, CDs, or DVDs of Lincoln delivering his speeches. Instead, we read them engraved in stone on monuments and courthouses.