Gov. Mitt Romney’s post-debate surge, turning what looked like an impending rout into a close race, says something that’s profoundly reassuring but also something that’s deeply disturbing about American politics. Romney is surging because, in tone and substance, he’s now personifying the essential moderation of American voters – a moderation that ensures the continuity and …
Fifty years ago today, a dashing young American president visited Rice University, in Houston, TX, and spoke words that reflected the optimism and can-do spirit that had defined his nation since its founding. Explaining his call of a year earlier that the United States achieve the goal of “landing a man on the moon and …
On the Iran nuclear crisis, hope not only springs eternal; in Western circles, it springs maddeningly so. We often hear that our approach to stopping Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weaponry is working; Iran is more isolated than ever; sanctions are biting; its economy is suffering; Tehran is ready to talk. The international community can solve …
The news of recent days reminds us that, in a close U.S. presidential election (as the ObamaRomney contest is expected to be), Jews have an influence that far exceeds their numbers across America. That’s because they congregate in key swing states (e.g., Florida, Ohio) and the wealthiest among them tap their resources for candidates and …
President Obama and Congress are moving to replace the landmark Jackson-Vanik law of 1974 – which conditioned U.S. trade with the Soviet bloc on its willingness to let Jews and other oppressed people emigrate – with a law to establish normal trade relations with what’s now Russia. The effort is probably long overdue. The Soviet …
Delivering her Nobel Lecture after a 21-year delay, Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi offered a timely reminder from the front lines of struggle. “To be forgotten,” she said in her October 16th address in Oslo, “… is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest …
The economic news of recent days has unsettled the conventional wisdom that Washington will take an all-talk, no-action approach to fiscal policy until Election Day, with all sides posturing for electoral gain and delaying action to address looming deficits until late 2012 if not early 2013. Until recently, the political class assumed President Obama and …
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