As The Hill reports, Mitt Romney is pledging to bring the unemployment rate below six percent by the end of his first term — and of course in so pledging is once more sinking back to his default position of smearing President Obama: “I can tell you that over a period of four years, by virtue of the policies that we’d put in place, we’d get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent, and perhaps a little lower,” Romney says in a Time magazine interview… “This is...

Guest post by Richard K. Barry Richard K. Barry, a New Yorker now living in Toronto, is the Associate Editor of The Reaction. You can also find him at Lippmann’s Ghost. Both amateurs and professionals who write about politics struggle every day with what to write next. I have to say that an article yesterday at Politico was both an exercise in the obvious and a little kowtowing to political spin from the right. But material is material. In a piece with the title “GOP Discovers That Mitt Romney...

By Ali Ezzatyar (For part 1, see here.) Iran and the international community (read: U.S.) are set to retake their seats at the negotiation table next week in Baghdad. If these were real chairs, one would hope they were made of a durable mahogany, as they have been frequented for ten years by fidgety, tough-talking diplomats on both sides, and there is still no likelihood that they will be retired soon. The talks are seen by both sets of negotiators as a zero-sum game, where no confidence-inspiring...

Guest Post By Richard K. Barry Richard K. Barry, a New Yorker now living in Toronto, is the Associate Editor of The Reaction. You can also find him at Lippmann’s Ghost. A couple of conservative commentators are very excited about a recent poll (published May 11) by Rasmussen Reports that finds Mitt Romney ahead of President Obama by a seven-point margin, 50% to 43%, which is actually based on what they call a “rolling three day average.” They randomly survey 500 voters each night. To...

Mitt Romney tried hard to avoid the same-sex marriage issue after President Obama announced his support for it, not surprising given that the president had the upper hand, but, when pushed, he decided to keep sucking up to his party’s right-wing mainstream, reiterating his opposition to it despite a record, once upon a time in Massachusetts, of being not a bigot. (When you’re trying to suck up to the right — and indeed to the Republican Party generally — being an anti-gay...

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar The Arab Awakening has a common denominator: the people want the downfall of the regime. It is a pretty good one, too. While it ensures nothing, it is the first, and perhaps the most difficult, of many steps before democracy. It goes without saying that each Arab country, with all of its distinctions, will see its individual route meet special hurdles and circumstances. An unfortunate reality is that many of these obstacles have nothing to do with domestic considerations...

Hi y’all! Stuffed with cheesy grits and NASCAR fumes, my team and I are live-blogging the results from the Alabama and Mississippi primaries (and Hawaii caucuses) this evening. C’mon over and have a look. ***** Here’s my quick take: With Gingrich and Santorum splitting the conservative and otherwise anti-Mitt vote, Romney could very well pull off the double tonight, as astonishing as that would seem to anyone who’s been paying attention. Why astonishing? Because Romney is...

By Ali Ezzatyar Ali Ezzatyar, a contributor at The Reaction, is a lawyer and writer based in Paris and San Francisco. He is also the director of the steering committee to establish the Berkeley Program on Entrepreneurship and Democracy in the Middle East. The question of whether Israel or America will attack Iran has had a shelf life that is unheard of in international affairs, and the factors that weigh on a yes or no answer to the question have changed surprisingly little over the last ten years....

If you’re interested, we’re live-blogging Super Tuesday over at my place, with our post updated frequently as we follow the returns coming in and try to make a bit of sense of this senseless Republican race. My short take: Super Tuesday 2012 is Romney Day. I firmly predict that he will win Ohio and do well enough across the board to wrap up the nomination — well, all but wrap it up. He won’t have the delegates to declare victory — that won’t come for some time...

Despite the current Romney-Santorum tie in Ohio (according to the polls) and the media’s attempt, as is their wont, to manufacture drama, there really isn’t any uncertainly as to the eventual outcome of the race. Romney will win. This has been clear for some time now, but his big wins last Tuesday, particularly in Michigan, where his margin of victory was just enough to indicate he’s the solid frontrunner overall, made it certain. There’s no “white knight” —...

(Oh, by the way, check out this faux post by Kathryn Rogers, Rush’s fourth wife. My most recent thoughts on Rush — a “fat, gutless, pill-popping loser,” according to Don Imus — are here.) George Will expressed it well on This Week the other day to George Stephanopoulos: Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has been inundated with criticism after calling Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University student who testified before a House committee about contraception, a “slut”...

Guest post by Rabia Chaudry Rabia Chaudry is an associate fellow of the Truman National Security Project and the president of the Safe Nation Collaborative. A few years ago I joined about twenty other Muslim community leaders gathered to meet a regional outreach officer from a law enforcement agency. Many present had been living in the area for decades and were pillars of their communities. The officer introduced himself, noting that he had been in the region for over 15 years. He then mentioned...

If you’re interested, I’m live-blogging the Michigan and Arizona primary results over at my place, updating frequently with loads of commentary and analysis. I predicted a 3-point Romney win and it looks like he’ll take it, winning what was seen as a toss-up. And he’ll win Arizona by a wide margin — the networks have already called it. So what now? Is the story that Romney withstood Santorum’s challenge and will now cruise to the nomination? Does this now take...

For those of you who might be interested, we’re live-blogging the Oscars over at my place. Why? Well, it’s something to do. And against my better judgement I do actually care about this celebrity-worshipping, Hollywood-aggrandizing madness. So for some predictions, analysis, commentary, and outrage, go here.

Guest Post By Richard K. Barry Richard K. Barry, a New Yorker now living in Toronto, is the Associate Editor of The Reaction. You can also find him at Lippmann’s Ghost. As we liberals watch Rick Santorum’s perhaps unexpected rise in national polls among Republican voters, we are in many ways thrilled that this is happening. His ridiculous ideas, which we politely call “social conservatism,” would surely make him a sitting duck in the general election against President Obama....

Ever so slowly, and ever so reluctantly, Republicans are lining up in typical jackbooted fashion behind Mitt Romney. The still-feisty Gingrich is an exception, of course, and he’s been hammering Romney for some time now as a “Massachusetts moderate,” but so too is Santorum, who is hoping for a comeback, post-Iowa, with strong showings in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri today, strong enough perhaps to let him blow past Newt into second place, and, with Newt apparently on the decline...

If you’re interested, I’m live-blogging tonight’s results from Florida (just as I did for Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina) over at my place. (And just for some fun I’ve got some Rush for you as well. “Big Money,” of course.) We all knew who was going to win, and it may very well be that we’re witnessing the beginning of the end of this mostly embarrassing race for the Republican nomination for president. I just don’t see how Newt comes back...

If you’re interested in my liberal take on Obama’s speech, see here. Suffice it to say that while I generally agree with most of his various policy proposals, I think it’s by far the worst State of the Union address he’s given. There’s no vision, no philosophy, nothing. Expect possibly for populist economic nationalism. And that’s just delusional, a clear refusal to see how the world really works and what America needs to do to get back on its feet. Of course I’m...

Guest post by Rob Miller Rob Miller is a US Marine Corps combat veteran who served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. A Charleston native and a graduate of the University of South Carolina, Rob and his family currently reside in Beaufort, South Carolina. Having served over thirteen years in the United States Marine Corps, from enlisted infantry Marine to Company Commander, serving twice in Iraq to include the Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, I know leadership is the one quality every military service...

As you’ve surely heard by now, Jon Huntsman — Huntsman the Formidable, I once called him — has pulled out of the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. His withdrawal at this stage was hardly a surprise. Though he finished a fairly strong third in New Hampshire, where he campaigned relentlessly and into which basket he put pretty much every egg he had, he has never been a viable contender for the nomination. The latest Gallup national poll has him at just two percent,...