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Trump and Obama Birth Certificate Add Up to National Embarrassment
Tweet Share on Facebook April 28, 2011 Comment (58)Politics often presents us with strange ironies, and the absurd birther conspiracy meant to discredit President Obama gives us a doozy. It was the existence of literacy tests for voters that kept African-Americans effectively disenfranchised in southern states until the 1960s. And yet, the persistent lie that the nation’s first (half) African-American president was not really born in the United States is a pretty solid argument for some kind of test—perhaps just one of simple common sense—for voters.
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Medicare Fights at Town Halls Are Healthcare Fight Replay
Tweet Share on Facebook April 27, 2011 Comment (7)The Medicare fight is looking like the healthcare overhaul battles all over again, with angry people (constituents, maybe, but who knows?) screaming at members of Congress who have been holding town hall meetings to discuss the future of the program.
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Republicans Can't Beat Obama in 2012 Running on Hate
Tweet Share on Facebook April 26, 2011 Comment (21)Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s decision to skip a run for the presidency next year appears, on its face, to be a huge psychological boost to the Democrats. Barbour, while carrying some political baggage that could complicate a run for the White House, is nonetheless a smart politician—an attribute, it could be argued, which led him to sit this one out. Further, Barbour’s decision comes as so many potential GOP candidates in a crowded field are waiting to get in the race.
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Bankrupt Borders Books's Bonus Boondoggle
Tweet Share on Facebook April 25, 2011 Comment (12)In our competitive capitalist economy, one which is still struggling out of a recession and where pay and benefits are being cut in both the public and private sectors, there is still a financially secure vocation out there: failed corporate executive.
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People, Not Facebook, Twitter, Are Heroes of Revolutions
Tweet Share on Facebook April 21, 2011 CommentI sort of understand why people like Facebook and other so-called social networking sites. They offer a convenient way to keep up with people who live far away, or whom one doesn’t make time to see very often. Perhaps best of all, the sites offer a way to find long-lost friends or connect with people with similar interests. And while the sites encourage a self-centeredness--witness those whose "updates" include utterly inconsequential play-by-plays of getting off a plane and collecting luggage at baggage claim--it’s still a step up from having to listen to someone next to you give those reports, loudly, on a cell phone.
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Women Don't Yearn for Kate Middleton's Royal Wedding
Tweet Share on Facebook April 20, 2011 Comment (5)News flash: The overwhelming majority of British women do not envy Kate Middleton, the fiancée of Prince William.
The fact that 86 percent of British women polled by YouGov are not reduced to teary masses of jealous spite over a man most of them have never met is not at all surprising. The fact that someone spent the time and money to conduct such a ludicrous survey is startling and deeply insulting.
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Donald Trump 2012 and the American Idol-ization of Politics
Tweet Share on Facebook April 19, 2011 Comment (21)We cannot blame Donald Trump for his own absurdity. His behavior and visage have been consistently preposterous for his entire, self-centered public life. The fact that he has been rewarded for that by the media and the public absolves him of some responsibility for his continuing clownish behavior.
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To Fix Budget Reform Tax Entitlement Before Gutting Medicare
Tweet Share on Facebook April 18, 2011 Comment (15)For long-term fiscal health, the nation needs to do entitlement reform. But first, there has to be sense-of-entitlement reform.
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Maine Gov. Paul LePage's Artless Political Purge
Tweet Share on Facebook April 14, 2011 Comment (5)At first look, Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s order to dismantle a series of painted panels chronicling the advances of the labor movement seems almost comical, akin to former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s to cover the bare breasts of the Spirit of Justice statue in the Great Hall of the Department of Justice. There are surely similarities there; literally covering up Justice has given way to packing up organized labor and putting it out of the way of impressionable citizens.
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The Myths and 2012 Politics of Immigration Reform
Tweet Share on Facebook April 13, 2011 Comment (35)With all the (legitimate) worry about the deficit and debt, the anxiety about the steady but still excruciatingly slow improvement in what was sky-high unemployment, and the embarrassing obsession with the debunked idea that President Obama was not born in the United States, immigration reform seems to be a back-burner issue. It shouldn’t be.
Susan Milligan
Susan Milligan is a political and foreign affairs writer and contributed to a biography of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, "Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy."
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