Political Commentary

March 16, 2015

Media's Email Hysteria: Why Are Republicans Exempt? By Joe Conason

It is almost eerie how closely Hillary Clinton's current email scandal parallels the beginnings of the Whitewater fiasco that ensnared her and her husband almost 20 years ago. Both began with tendentious, inaccurate stories published by The New York Times; both relied upon highly exaggerated suspicions of wrongdoing; both were seized upon by Republican partisans whose own records were altogether worse; and both resulted in shrill explosions of outrage among reporters who couldn't be bothered to learn actual facts.

Fortunately for Secretary Clinton, she won't be subjected to investigation by less-than-independent counsel like Kenneth Starr -- and the likelihood that the email flap will damage her nascent presidential campaign seems very small, according to the latest polling data.

March 13, 2015

Obama's Policies Leave Democrats Weak Candidates in 2016, Except -- Maybe -- Hillary Clinton by Michael Barone

The controversy over Hillary Clinton's emails and her unconvincing press conference at the United Nations have gotten many Democrats and others thinking the unthinkable: Clinton may not be the Democrats' 2016 nominee for president. And it has many asking the question -- scary for Democrats -- of who else could be.

March 12, 2015

Cohabiting ... With Children By Froma Harrop

I know a woman. Works like a dog. She's a loving mother, raising a lovable boy. She's also a good businesswoman, running a successful salon.

March 11, 2015

What's Fair? By John Stossel

Donald Trump's kids and Paris Hilton's siblings were born rich. That gave them a big advantage in life. Unfair!

Inequality in wealth has grown. Today the richest 1 percent of Americans own a third of the assets. That's not fair!

But wherever people are free, that's what happens.

March 10, 2015

King v. Burwell's Very Existence Says a Lot About Obamacare By Michael Barone

On Wednesday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in King v. Burwell, the case challenging the IRS's decision to pay subsidies to lower-income health insurance buyers in states with federal insurance exchanges -- even though the Obamacare legislation authorizes subsidies only in states with exchanges "established by the state."

The Obama administration is thus in the uncomfortable position of arguing that the president's signature law says what it doesn't say. Nevertheless, initial analyses of the oral argument suggest the government might win.

March 10, 2015

The Dilemma: Angry at Obamacare, Angrier Without It by Froma Harrop

Obamacare supporters are praying that the Supreme Court won't chop down a main pillar of the Affordable Care Act -- but not so fervently, one suspects, as the politicians who've been demanding the law's demise. That's because come the next election, Republicans will have to face the voters they've made angry over Obamacare -- but who will be angrier should they lose it.

March 6, 2015

Is This a Scandal -- Or a 'Scandal'? By Joe Conason

To someone who has watched many "scandals" surrounding Hillary Rodham Clinton evaporate into the Washington mist -- even when Pulitzer Prize-winning pundits predicted that she would end up in prison! -- the current furor over her emails hardly seems earthshaking.

March 6, 2015

Most Members of Congress Share Netanyahu's View By Michael Barone

If anyone had any doubts that most members of Congress oppose the Obama administration's proposed nuclear deal with Iran, they can put them aside after viewing the response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress Tuesday.

Fifty-some Democratic members chose not to attend. Joe Biden arranged to be out of town, and Barack Obama let it be known that he didn't even have time to watch on television. But the House chamber was packed, the galleries were filled and Netanyahu was interrupted multiple times not only with applause but boisterous cheers.

March 5, 2015

Lower Fares No Substitute for Higher Wages By Froma Harrop

The idea of helping low-income people by subsidizing their fares on public transportation sounds noble. It truly does. But as a means of confronting the national problem of meager paychecks, it's rather misdirected.

March 5, 2015

Coattails and Correlation By Geoffrey Skelley

Few political observers will be surprised that the correlation between presidential and Senate results has been increasing over the last few presidential election cycles. That is, during a presidential election year, the Senate race in state A has increasingly tended to have a similar outcome to the presidential result in state A. Other analysts have noted the growing relationship between the two variables, such as National Journal, which produced a great infographic examining the 2000 to 2012 elections.

March 4, 2015

Raping Culture By John Stossel

A new documentary calls colleges like Harvard and Notre Dame "The Hunting Ground," where rapists prey on women. A bipartisan group of senators demand new rules to "curb campus sexual assaults."

Apparently, new laws are needed because at colleges, sexual assault is "epidemic." Rape is so common that there is a "rape culture."

March 4, 2015

If America Is Mars and Europe Venus, How Is Europe Doing? by Michael Barone

"Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus," wrote Robert Kagan in "Of Paradise and Power," published in 2003, just as the United States went into Iraq. Americans, he wrote, see themselves in "an anarchic Hobbesian world," where security and a liberal order depend on military might, while Europe is "moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and co-operation."

March 3, 2015

Open Internet Survives Weird Politics By Froma Harrop

Net neutrality won the day in Washington, and that wasn't supposed to happen. Republicans indignantly opposed regulating Internet service, currently dominated by a few cable giants. Texas Republican Ted Cruz called it "Obamacare for the Internet" (in his world, fightin' words).

The lobbying money and muscle of Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner no doubt stoked the lawmakers' passions. And when the Federal Communications Commission voted to prevent Internet service providers from establishing fast lanes for favored customers, its two Republican members voted against it.

February 27, 2015

Watch Out for China Winning its 100-Year Marathon By Michael Barone

In reflecting on relations between the United States and China, Henry Kissinger in his 2011 book, "On China," notes that since he and Richard Nixon ventured to Beijing more than 40 years ago, "Eight American presidents and four generations of Chinese leaders have managed this delicate relationship in an astonishingly consistent manner, considering the difference in starting points."

February 26, 2015

Politicians for Local Control, Except When They're Not By Froma Harrop

The people of Denton, Texas, recently voted to ban fracking within the city limits. They were tired of the noise, lights and fumes caused by the 277 gas wells, some placed right next to housing developments. A blowout in 2013 covered homes in clouds of benzene. Some had to be evacuated.

February 26, 2015

Religion in Politics: A Look at Data from the New American Values Atlas By Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

On Wednesday, the Public Religion Research Institute released its new American Values Atlas. It is full of information regarding the American public’s religious identity, political views on hot-button issues such as abortion and immigration, and demographic information for regions, states, and major metropolitan areas. This atlas should prove to be a highly useful resource, especially because of the incomplete state-by-state data in recent exit polls.

Using this treasure trove of new data, the Crystal Ball took a look at three major religious groups in the American public: white evangelicals, the unaffiliated, and Catholics.

February 25, 2015

Kochs and Unions by John Stossel

Lots of people sure hate the Koch brothers.

February 24, 2015

The 2016 Political Environment Has Shifted by Michael Barone

Like it or not, the 2016 presidential race is now well under way. Republican candidates are flocking to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, while Hillary Clinton, in-between $200,000 speeches at universities, is reported to be in seclusion developing her economic policies.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by minutiae, but sometimes a twist of events turns out to be important, even 12 months away from the first caucuses and primaries. And of course, always keep in mind that most minutiae turn out to be trivial.

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February 23, 2015

New Food Agency? Hold the Hysteria By Froma Harrop

As things now stand, the U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees steaks, chicken thighs and eggs out of their shells. The Food and Drug Administration keeps an eye on salmon, apples and eggs in their shells.

Fifteen government entities now supervise food safety, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (seafood).

February 20, 2015

Barack Obama's 'Reckless Disregard' of the Law by Michael Barone

Reckless disregard. It's a phrase in legal writing that means "gross negligence without concern for danger to others." And it's a phrase that characterizes much of the attitude toward law of an administration headed by a man sometimes described as a constitutional scholar.

If it's in the News, it's in our Polls. Public opinion polling since 2003.

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