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Nation Topics - Executive Branch

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If it really is time for accountability, we should start by holding banks and financial institutions responsible for their actions and not allow them to rob us again with TARP II.

Obama's escalation threatens to make Bush's war his own. There's still time to change direction.

As the GOP chooses to be the party of No, Obama takes his case to a largely supportive nation. It's up to him to claim his mandate.

Is the watered-down stimulus bill a signal of a more ambitious agenda for Obama or a harbinger of reduced expectations?

The president has shown a troubling unwillingness to acknowledge the wrongs the Bush administration committed.

Don't exhaust the Treasury to keep insolvent financial giants alive. The government should liquidate failed banks, sell off their assets and let shareholders eat the dust.

Geithner was condescending, vague and infuriating as he lectured us on the troubled financial system, feeding a suspicion that he's still working for the other side.

If you still get those chatty e-mails from the Obama campaign, remind them that we voted for a community organizer from Chicago, not some hack carrying water for Wall Street.

Bipartisanship promises to be even harder to achieve on human rights than it is on a stimulus package. Two pending decisions at the United Nations will reveal the depth of the administration's commitment.

Labor secretary-designee Hilda Solis is not a toxic asset in the Obama personnel portfolio. The GOP is wrong to equate her husband's tax dispute with the infractions of high rollers like Geithner and Daschle.

Blogs

It was a pleasure to listen to a State of the Union address, especially after eight years of his predecessor's alarmist warnings and warlike thundering, in which war, terrorism, and "rogue states" went almost unmentioned.

January 28, 2010

Say what you will about Barack Obama. But don't accuse the president of veering from the course he charted at a point when his term was new, his popularity ratings were high and Americans took seriously all that talk of "hope" and "change."

January 27, 2010

Those of us paid to observe Congress have spent the last two weeks watching, with mouth agape, as congressional Democrats slowly raised a loaded gun to their collective mouths and volubly considered pulling the trigger. But sanity has, tentatively, provisionally prevailed.

January 27, 2010

A new president gets a full year to prepare his initial State of the Union address. That is a blessing and a curse.

January 27, 2010

Whoever scheduled the special election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Edward Kennedy on January 19 did Barack Obama no favors.

January 19, 2010

A suddenly populist Barack Obama tore into the Republicans for siding with banks rather than consumers and taxpayers Sunday in Boston, hoping that his fiery rhetoric would revive the candidacy of embattled Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley.

January 17, 2010

Barack Obama has responded to the devastating earthquake in Haiti with precisely the combination of dignity and determination that Americans--who were so frustrated by the disengagement of former President George Bush after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2006--expected when they elected him.

January 17, 2010

The Obama speech was about what I expected: on the one hand/on the other hand, I reject false choices, needle-threading "pragmatism." I have to say I find this rhetorical approach increasingly wearying. There always seems to be the implication, hidden between the lines, that only the author of the speech truly understands how complicated the world is. During the race speech, that was appropriate and affecting: there are few people who've experienced race in as much of its full complexity as Barack Obama. But I don't think the same thing holds for war and peace.

December 10, 2009

It's pretty clear to me that Wilson's outburst wasn't calculated grandstanding but a genuine moment of rage and frustration. Just look at the photo. That's a genuinely pissed off dude.

September 10, 2009

Ok, so there's been a lot of misinformation about proposals to reform the health insurance industry and provide (near) universal coverage. Understandable! It's complicated stuff. Herewith, I'll try to answer some questions.

August 11, 2009
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