Professor Obama as Dutiful Commander in Chief By Michael Barone
Every time I visit the White House, I am struck by its military environment.
Commentary by Michael Barone
Most Recent Releases
December 7, 2009
December 4, 2009
Big Government Can't Put Young Americans to Work By Michael Barone
"What have you done for me lately?" It's a question that voters implicitly ask politicians, especially ones they have supported and who are seeking their votes again. And it's a question that young voters in particular may be asking Barack Obama, whom they supported by a 66 percent to 32 percent margin 13 months ago.
November 30, 2009
Global Warming Consensus: Garbage in, Garbage out By Michael Barone
As Air Force One heads to Copenhagen for the climate summit Dec. 9, it will presumably not make a U-turn while flying over the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia near Norwich, England. But perhaps it should.
November 27, 2009
Damn the Deficit: Full Speed Ahead on Health Care By Michael Barone
Double-digit. That hyphenated adjective has been used most often recently to describe October's 10.2 percent unemployment rate. But it can also be used to describe the federal budget deficit as a percentage of the gross domestic product. That precise number is not yet known, but it may turn out to have a more dire effect on our national life than October's unemployment rate.
November 23, 2009
Immigration Looms as the Next Test for Congress By Michael Barone
Is Congress, behind on Barack Obama's deadlines on health care and cap-and-trade legislation, and flummoxed by the failure of the stimulus package to hold unemployment below 10.2 percent, prepared to address the immigration issue next year?
November 19, 2009
Obama Bows, but the World Refuses to Bow Back By Michael Barone
On his 10-day trip to Asia and in his 10th month in office, Barack Obama is beginning to encounter limits on his ambition to change the world. Even as he bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia last April and to the emperor of Japan last week, the world refuses to bow back.
November 16, 2009
Pushing Health Reform When Job Losses Are Rising By Michael Barone
Barack Obama told the House Democratic Caucus before the roll call vote on health care on Nov. 7 that they would be better off politically if they passed the bill than if they let it fail. Bill Clinton speaking to the Senate Democrats' lunch on Nov. 10 cited his party's big losses in 1994 after Congress failed to pass his health care legislation as evidence that Democrats would suffer more from failure to pass a bill than from disaffection with a bill that was signed into law.
November 12, 2009
History Is Calling -- Will Obama Answer? By Michael Barone
Anniversaries are opportunities to reflect on the past and on what it might mean for the future. Monday saw the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, even if Barack Obama could not find time to travel once again to Berlin to attend the commemoration there. And Wednesday is the 91st anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I.
November 9, 2009
Freewheeling Young Voters Scare Both Parties By Michael Barone
In November 2008, 658,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 782,000 did so in Virginia. In November 2009, 212,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 198,000 did so in Virginia. In other words, young-voter turnout this year was down two-thirds in New Jersey and three-quarters in Virginia.
November 6, 2009
Virginia, New Jersey Races Showing Voters Changing Course By Michael Barone
As the final votes were being counted, it was possible to draw some lessons from Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in Virginia and the close, three-way governor's race in New Jersey, never mind that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has taken to saying that the elections don't mean much.
November 2, 2009
Hold the Champagne -- Happy Days Aren't Here Again By Michael Barone
The recession is over, we are told. The Commerce Department announced Thursday that the economy grew in the third quarter of 2009 by 3.5 percent. Great, huh?
October 30, 2009
Four Races Will Test the Strength of Obama's Majority By Michael Barone
Five days from now the voters of New Jersey and Virginia will elect governors. Voters in the 23rd district of New York and the 10th district of California will elect new members of the House of Representatives to replace incumbents, a Republican and a Democrat, who were appointed to positions in the Obama Defense and State departments.
October 26, 2009
Obama at Odds With His Own Vision for the World By Michael Barone
Barack Obama, who found time to go on a 24-hour jaunt to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to seek the 2016 Olympics games for Chicago, apparently cannot find the time for a 24-hour trip to Berlin on Nov. 9 for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well, we all have our priorities, and the president can't be everywhere at once, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will surely represent the United States ably in Berlin.
October 23, 2009
Obama Hits Opponents With Chicago Brass Knuckles By Michael Barone
"His father was a great friend of my father." The reference to William Ayers' father was how Mayor Richard M. Daley began his defense of Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Daley's father, of course, was Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers' father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based utility, from 1964 to 1980.
October 19, 2009
Unlike Obama, Americans reject European model By Michael Barone
An interesting paradox. Last year, America elected a president who, in attitudes and policies, is closer to the elites of Western Europe than any of his predecessors. Yet in the nine months that he has been in office, ordinary Americans have been moving away from those attitudes and policies and have increasingly embraced positions that over the years have made Americans distinctive from those in other advanced Western democracies.
October 15, 2009
The Trouble With Health Care Is Paying for It By Michael Barone
The legislative process can also be a learning process, and as Congress considers health care legislation -- the latest act being the Senate Finance Committee's vote in favor of Chairman Max Baucus' bill, or "conceptual language" -- we have been learning something useful. It's that legislators would like to provide generous, even gold-plated health insurance coverage to almost all Americans, but that no one wants to pay for it.
October 12, 2009
'Conceptual Language' Hides Health Care's Costs By Michael Barone
Some of the headlines in recent days are not worthy of belief. No, I'm not referring to the headlines that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, however odd that many seem to many (including, it seems, Obama himself). I'm referring to the headlines earlier in the week to the effect that the health care bill sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will cut the federal deficit by $81 billion over the next 10 years.
October 10, 2009
Weak Himself, Obama Draws Strength From Bush By Michael Barone
In trying to understand what is happening in the nation and world, we all employ narratives -- story lines that indicate where things are going and what is likely to happen next. We can check the validity of these narratives by observing whether events move in the indicated direction. If so, the narrative is confirmed. But if things seem to be moving in an entirely different direction, it's time to discard the narrative and look for another.
October 1, 2009
Democrats Win Lobbyists but Lose Basic Reforms By Michael Barone
As Sen. Max Baucus tries to squeeze a health care bill out of the Senate Finance Committee, and as Sens. Barbara Boxer and John Kerry race to meet their latest deadline to introduce a bill to reduce carbon dioxide, some Democrats wonder whether their congressional leaders and the president who has deferred to them have sought only limited changes rather than more fundamental reform on both health insurance and carbon emissions.
September 28, 2009
With Obama, Too Much Nuance, Not Enough Power By Michael Barone
"It is my deeply held belief," Barack Obama told the United Nations General Assembly, that "in the year 2009 -- more than at any point in human history -- the interests of nations and peoples are shared."
