Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’
December 12, 2016
Reflections on the Obama Presidency: (3) The Price of Moderation
(This is the third of four linked reflections. The first is available herei, and the second likewiseii) When examining the gap between promise and performance in the Obama years, the bit that isn’t the Republican Party’s fault is the bit that is Obama’s. And there is one – certainly from a progressive point of view […] read more »
Posted in home, Observing Obama in Real Time, The Progressive Case Stalled, US Blog |
December 9, 2016
Reflections on the Obama Presidency: (2) The politics of gridlock
(The second of a series of four reflections observing the Obama presidency in real time; for the first, see ‘The gap between promise and performance’i) It was never going to be easy to govern America in a progressive fashion, given the scale of the economic crisis left in place by the Bush Administration and […] read more »
Posted in home, Observing Obama in Real Time, The Progressive Case Stalled, US Blog |
December 7, 2016
Reflections on the Obama Presidency: (1) The gap between promise and performance
There will no doubt be many reflective essays written on the Obama presidency in the months and years to come; and in time, as more information becomes available, some of our initial judgments on the quality of that presidency will need to be reset. But there is great value in setting down contemporary reactions […] read more »
Posted in home, Observing Obama in Real Time, The Progressive Case Stalled, US Blog |
November 5, 2015
Waiting for the TPP
Figures on US economic performance continue to disappoint. Seven years out from the greatest financial crisis since 1929, economic growth is sluggish, levels of unemployment and under-employment remain unacceptably high, and real wages for most Americans are still trapped at 1970s levels. Not that the United States is alone in any of this. Globally, important […] read more »
Posted in home, US Blog |
March 9, 2015
Weighing the Arguments on U.S. Military Action against ISIS
In an earlier posting, the case was made that what we desperately need in contemporary America is a national conversation about the appropriate direction of our foreign policy, and about the adverse impact on conditions at home of excessive military activity overseas.1 As the military campaign against ISIS builds in both Syria and Iraq, […] read more »
Posted in home, US Blog |
November 19, 2014
The Mid-Term Elections: Taking the Longer View
In the wake of an electoral setback on the scale experienced by the Democrats two weeks ago, the temptation to immediately rush to judgment is enormous. So also, if my e-mails and robo-calls are any guide, is the temptation to engage in yet more fundraising, as though money was the big thing of which […] read more »
Posted in home, US Blog |
September 12, 2014
Playing Defense and Still Losing
You don’t win football games by only playing defense. And you don’t win mid-elections that way either. Perhaps somebody should remind the Democrats that winning elections, like winning games, requires you to take the game to the opposition, and to take it to them on your terms – not on theirs. I Political parties […] read more »
Posted in home, US Blog |
January 30, 2014
The State of the Union Address – Taking the Longer View
It is presumably unreasonable to expect any modern President of the United States to use his best prime-time moment, the annual State of the Union Address, to tell Congress and the American people that on his watch the state of the union is not strong – even if that is the truth. No politician these […] read more »
Posted in US Blog |
April 9, 2013
Tomorrow’s Presidential Budget: Questions of Judgment?
The President is likely to have a bad week with his progressive base, if what we are told to expect in his budget tomorrow turns out to be true. We are told that his budget will trade “modest entitlement savings,” read more »
Posted in US Blog |
March 27, 2013
Budgets to the right of us, budgets to the left of us: budgets, budgets everywhere!
It’s been quite a month for budgets – both here and, as it happens, in the U.K. too. In London in March, the coalition government provided another round in its continuing pursuit of economic growth through fiscal austerity[1] – an economic growth which continues to elude it – while here in the U.S. […] read more »
Posted in US Blog |
