New York Times
Ross Douthat is a columnist for the New York Times and the co-author of Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics and Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Middle Class and Save the American Dream. He is a former senior editor for the The Atlantic.
Left, Aequum et Centrum A new Pope, new budgets, new cyber threats... the same big banks.
Republicans Regroup as the Opposition Republicans are pointing fingers at one another, but most agree on one thing: even if John McCain had not lost to Barack Obama , the GOP was in trouble. They were saddled with George Bush and the war in Iraq. They failed to control healthcare costs or monitor the economy. Now the party of Ronald Reagan has no consensus on leadership or a set or principles to hold its factions together. We ask a cross-section of Republican operatives and philosophers, what should happen next?
Should the GOP Find a New Look or Reinforce the Old One? With a week and a day until it's all over, John McCain and Barack Obama are making their closing arguments. Meantime, McCain's advisors have accused Sarah Palin of going "off message" and refusing to take advice. Palin sources say she's trying to "bust free" of political mismanagement. Divisions within a struggling campaign may be shedding light on a broader conflict over the future of the Republican Party . Does the GOP need reform to stay in touch with a changing America or is it time to recommit the Grand Old Party to undiluted conservatism?
The Biden-Palin Debate Last night's vice-presidential debate will be old news by Tuesday, when John McCain and Barack Obama face off again . In the meantime, both national campaigns are breathing sighs of relief after neither Sarah Palin nor Joe Biden made a major mistake. For both sides that's good news of a kind. We hear excerpts and compare performances with expectations.
Obama Claims Historic Victory, Clinton Holds On, McCain Takes Aim Barack Obama made history last night after the final two primaries of the season, becoming the first African American to be a major party's nominee for president. He now has more than the 2,118 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination. But his opponent Hillary Clinton showed no signs of backing down last night, prompting speculation among pundits about whether she is pushing too hard for the vice presidential slot. What is at stake for Democrats as Obama reaches out to Clinton and her eighteen million supporters? What kind of general election campaign is ahead for a young visionary senator versus more experienced war hero John McCain ?
Opposites Don't Attract: Presidential candidates appeal to the "working class" and "ordinary people" with the promise of unifying America for the "common good." But that turns out to mean different things in different places, and it's not just a matter of Red States versus Blue. Wealth and mobility have freed Americans to move wherever they want to and they end up with people just like themselves, culturally as well as politically. What might sound obvious turns out to be an index of major change over the past 30 years. Is segregation-by-lifestyle dividing cities and neighborhoods? Whatever happened to "class?" Is political unification possible any more?
Is the threat from Russia missing from the Russia meddling probe? There's much being made about the Trump administration's possible ties with Russia. But the bottom line is Russia's effort to influence American democracy. Do the President and his aides care enough to take action before voters go back to the polls?
Trump plays scolder-in-chief with NATO allies At the opening of NATO’s dramatic new headquarters in Brussels today, President Trump acknowledged that Article 5 — promising that “an attack on one nation is an attack on all” -- has only been invoked one time: in the aftermath of September 11. But the President failed to provide what 27 other Alliance members have been waiting for: a re-commitment by America’s new leader to Article 5. Instead, they got a scolding.
Replacing Obamacare: Now you see it… now you don’t As the Senate deliberates replacing Obmacare, health coverage for millions of people is at stake. There've been no public hearings, and a draft measure won't be made public. Is the House version so unpopular that that Senate is hiding a version that looks much the same?
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.