Is Your Privacy Worth 50 Foiled Terror Plots?
Postal Service Eyes Cuba
Tangherlini As GSA's Mr. Fix-It?
Lew Cleans Up Signature for the Nation's Currency
The Plan to Open More Military Jobs to Women
Should Leaders Ever Lie?
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
What Happened to Eric Holder?
June 10, 2013 Nineteen years ago this month, Eric Holder was having a very different spring in Washington. It wasn't cruel or grueling. Conservatives didn't want his scalp and liberals didn't think he was trampling on civil liberties. In 1994, Holder was just into his tenure as the federal prosecutor for Washington, D.C. ...
Analysis: After the Oklahoma Tornado, Obama Needs to Make FEMA Work
May 21, 2013 In the wake of the tornado which cut through Moore, Okla., on Monday, it's worth remembering, for a moment, how wrong things went after Hurricane Andrew. Over 20 years ago, the Category 5 hurricane struck Florida. It was then the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, and the federal government's botched ...
Analysis: Obama Finds His Voice and the Nation's in Boston, 'We Will Run Again'
April 18, 2013 It was a stunning moment as President Obama brought parishioners to their feet at a memorial service for those killed and wounded in the Boston Marathon bombing and vowed “we will run again.” The interfaith service held at Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross became an emotional rallying point for ...
Don't Jump to Conclusions About Boston Marathon Explosions
April 15, 2013 We don't know what happened. We don't know if they were bombs or boilers. We don't know if someone was angry at Boston in particular or at tax day or at anything else. The explosions at the Boston Marathon appear deliberate but we can't be sure yet and it's a ...
Analysis: Margaret Thatcher Was Tougher Than Reagan
April 8, 2013 Margaret Thatcher’s long twilight has come to an end and most Americans will view her through the lens of her ties to Ronald Reagan. After all, the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher is probably the best known and most revered tie between an American president and a foreign ...
Why Washington Is a City of Snow Wusses
March 6, 2013 On Tuesday night at 9:30 PM, after listening to news reports that Washington, D.C., where I live, was due to get its first snowstorm of the season, I went to the Safeway. Despite the hour, the parking lot was full. Like the rest of the scared citizenry, I stocked up ...
The 6 Species of Secretaries That Will Define Obama's Term
March 5, 2013 The word “Cabinet” isn’t in the Constitution, but it has been a part of every presidency since George Washington. Cabinet officers are usually forgettable and occasionally defining—whether it was Alexander Hamilton at Treasury, Lincoln’s constantly-alluded-to “Team of Rivals,” or postwar icons like Bobby Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, and Hillary Clinton. So ...
Analysis: The Good Side of Sequestration
February 20, 2013 Everyone agrees that sequestration is asinine, but Washington is increasingly resigned to it. Other deadlines have been met by fevered last-minute negotiations and, mercifully, avoidance of calamity. This time there’s less urgency and more sighs. There is an upside to it, though: an abject lesson on what government does. At ...
The 9 Biggest Cliches in State of the Union Addresses
February 12, 2013 State of the Union addresses are rarely memorable, in part because they’re basically laundry lists of proposals combined with a memo about where the country stands. In fact, between Thomas Jefferson and William Howard Taft, presidents didn’t give a State of the Union speech. They just sent their assessment of ...
Ex-Benedict: Why Popes Matter to Presidents
February 11, 2013 The history of American presidents and popes is a curious one. No American president met with a pope until Woodrow Wilson did so in 1919, and after that there was no meeting for another 40 years until Dwight Eisenhower met with John XXIII toward the end of his presidency and ...
