Nation Topics - Political Figures | The Nation

A democratic Middle East makes America more safe, says Nation contributor Melissa Harris-Perry.

Obama's inauguration broke racial barriers, but today most black Americans are worse off than before.

Princeton Professor Cornel West says the president has failed to deliver to the constituencies that voted him into office, The Nation's Melissa Hariss-Perry says that criticism is too vague.

To launch his reelection bid, the president took up a longstanding American tradition: extrajudicial political assassinations.

As a black man, Obama's confident knowledge of his lineage is precisely the thing that makes his American identity dubious.

Why indeed is Bradley Manning the one behind bars and not the government officials who kept hidden unpleasant truths about this nation’s policies?

Will he risk multiple military quagmires or campaign on a pledge to pull troops out of Afghanistan and Pakistan and drones out of Pakistan and Libya?

If the GOP has their way in the budget battles, they'll force a childish and unproductive government shutdown.

If Obama's campaign manager has a bad history with the very constituents that elected the president, how will that shape 2012?

The president's re-election campaign manager has alienated grassroots constituencies.