Guest post by Gen. Donald Edwards (Ret.) General Edwards served in the U.S. Army for 37 years, including two tours with eight campaigns in Vietnam. He served as a congressional staffer from 1997-99. He is a resident of Maine and Ashburn, Virginia. This piece first appeared at Progressive Fix, a project of the Progressive Policy Institute. ********** Just last week, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair...

Lobbyists Retreat but Never Surrender by Michael Winship With George Washington’s birthday comes the attendant mythology, hatchet and cherry tree, wooden teeth, throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River – or the Rappahannock. Of course, as the old joke goes, a dollar went a lot further then. Today, if you tried to hurl a silver dollar across the Potomac, chances are some member...

Should the tea party movement be seen as a phenomenon as large and consequential as another Great Awakening? Glenn Reynolds thinks so: I attended this past weekend’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and I came away feeling that I had seen something important. The Tea Party movement is part of something bigger: America’s Third Great Awakening. America’s prior Great Awakenings, in...

My Two Cents Raging Moderate, by Will Durst I’m only guessing, but a major problem with being president has to be people around you being more likely to stick their face in a cast iron oscillating fan than tell you the truth. Let’s say you slip and fall and rip a hole in your pants down to your ankle while spilling hot coffee on a little blind girl in a wheelchair in front of a nationally televised audience....

The Blame Thing by David Goodloe Back around the time of the Watergate scandal, a comedian named David Frye — who was pretty good at impressions of many famous people — was fairly successful with albums that focused on the presidency of Richard Nixon. I particularly remember a recording called “Richard Nixon: A Fantasy,” which turned out to be a dream that Nixon had about the Watergate break–in,...

It should be clear to all of us by now that the single driving factor in this economic downturn was the meltdown in home values. All the talk about how the big banks screwed us over is relevant only as it relates to the massive devaluation of our largest personal asset; our homes. If home values had stayed relatively stable, or come down at a reasonable rate, the bank crisis may have been manageable. It may...

Guest post by Rob Diamond Rob Diamond, a Truman National Security Fellow, is a Senior Vice President at Realty Capital International LLC, a global real estate investment banking and advisory firm. He was previously a Vice President at Bear Stearns & Co. Prior to his career in finance, he served as an officer in the United States Navy, completing deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation...

This is a fascinating analysis by Daniel Larison, comparing a poll in 2006 that showed a fierce, anti-Bush feeling among voters, and a similar poll taken earlier this week that showed a sizable, but less widespread anti-Obama feeling. The NBC/WSJ poll that came out earlier this week has some interesting results. The midterms are just over nine months away, so it seemed worth checking the questions related to...

Guest post by Peter Henne Peter S. Henne is a Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project and a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. In his State of the Union address, President Obama reiterated his support for the increasingly contentious U.S. presence in Afghanistan, even in the face of simmering domestic issues like health-care reform and the economy. Beneath this official show of support,...

Hello there, Dr. E. here. The following is a Guest Contributor opinion column by Will Marshall, who is the founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute, which describes its blog as “…Lively political commentary informed by rigorous analysis and evidence. Inspired wonkery — a constant stream of bold ideas for solving big public problems. And a distinctly progressive point of view...

There was a time I feared for human civilization because of the rise in cell phone usage. The ubiquitousness of these gadgets – their effect on the manners of ordinary folk who thought nothing of bringing these infernal machines wherever they went, endlessly talking gibberish while impolitely ignoring the rest of the world – caused me a lot of angst until about 5 years ago. It was then I realized...

The Barack H Obama 2010 State of the Union Drinking Game Raging Moderate, by Will Durst What You Need to Play: • Four taxpayers: One rich white guy banker type wearing a suit (Bank Boy). Two ordinary folks wearing jeans, one in a blue work shirt, the other in a white shirt, no tie, sleeves rolled up (the Jeans), and one person wearing clothes that look like they were involved in some sort of sewage treatment...

Guest post by Jared Stancombe Jared Stancombe, a 2009 graduate of Indiana University, is currently an analyst for a U.S. government agency responsible for national security. He is also in the officer selection process for the U.S. Marine Corps. He lives in Washington, D.C. With the turn of the decade into 2010, many Americans are hopeful with respect to what the new decade will bring. However, those within...

Haiti: A Country in Need of Our Help by Michael Reagan As you have no doubt heard, a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti near her capital of Port-Au-Prince on Tuesday afternoon. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Haiti since 1770, and two of its aftershocks were nearly as intense. The damage is horrific, and has only worsened in the wake of the aftershocks. Haiti’s centers of government,...

This is the second and final part of my effort to explain why much of conservatism has lost touch with reality. Part I is here. When I was a younger man, living and working in the early years of Reagan’s Washington, I fell in with a group of guys who mixed penny ante poker nights with discussions of politics and political philosophy. We were not the Algonquin Round Table, that’s for sure. But in...

Another in my series of puny attempts to dissect what’s wrong with modern conservatism. Part II will appear tomorrow. I debated whether or not to make this a piece about “some conservatives” eschewing reality for an alternate universe or if I should make it about much of modern conservatism’s disconnect from the reality of 21st century America. In the end, I think it is more important...

2010 Predictions Raging Moderate, by Will Durst All right, it was a hecka-long holiday season. I’m tired and you’re tired. And neither of us has the energy to go through the whole post-modern deconstructionist explanation as to why you’re reading a predictions column here. Yes, I’m doing a predictions column. What’s the matter with you people? It’s the beginning of a new year. Hell, it’s the beginning...

I don’t know who’s advising her at this point, but Sarah Palin is making some shrewd political moves lately that are likely to vault her into a very favorable position as leader of the only real “reform” faction in the Republican party. Since the publication of Going Rogue, Palin has demonstrated an understanding not only her core constituency, but has slightly redefined her public image...

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar and Bryan A. Tollin Ali Ezzatyar is a U.S.-trained corporate lawyer currently practising in Paris. He has taught courses in Political Economy in the International and Area Studies Department of the University of California at Berkeley and has previously published articles about Iran in the L.A. Times. Bryan A. Tollin is a corporate lawyer currently practising in New York City. He...

Hello, Dr. E. here. What follows below is Part Two of an earlier Guest Voice interview on Veganism, conducted by Mr. Elijah Sweete. In the follow-up interview, Mr. Sweete took previous commenters’ thoughts posted to the earlier interview ….back to the interviewee to gather additional commentary… Modern discourse about animals and humans and their relationships with each other, is an ancient exploration...

Good and Evil in a Troubled World by Craig Barnes Nobody seems happy. Not the democrats who want to get out of Afghanistan; not the Republicans who want to bomb devils and wipe out evil. Not the prophets of non-violence and not the advocates of strength. Obama’s autumn strategy is a collage of contradictions. On the one hand, he is for peace; on the other hand he is engaged in the escalation of war. On the...

Guest post by Jared Stancombe Jared Stancombe, a 2009 graduate of Indiana University, is currently an analyst for a U.S. government agency responsible for national security. He is also in the officer selection process for the U.S. Marine Corps. He lives in Washington, D.C. Republicans are chomping at the bit to blame the latest terrorist incident on President Obama. They claim he let it happen because he has...

Oh, we’re meetin’ at the courthouse at eight o’clock tonight You just walk in the door and take the first turn to the right Be careful when you get there, we hate to be bereft But we’re taking down the names of everybody turning left Oh, we’re the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society Here to save our country from a communistic plot Join the John Birch Society, help us fill...

Jonathan Chait at The New Republic: In reality, both parties have plenty of ideas that they would like to implement if given the political power to do so. Republicans’ policy ideas primarily involve cutting marginal tax rates and regulations. The question isn’t whether the Republican Party has any ideas. The question is whether the party has any relevant ideas. In the days following the 2008 election, some...

I suppose it is too much to expect that either party could deal effectively with the health care crisis. In fact, I would argue that our system was not set up to make such massive changes in American life so quickly, that the very nature of the legislative process prevents prudent lawmakers from overreaching and trying to do too much, too soon. Part of that is the dance that occurs between the majority and minority....