Last Saturday the 2010 Rhodes scholars were announced and a full five Harvard students were among them (along with two Yale students and one Princeton student…but, really, who’s counting?) On the same day, Elliot Gerson, the American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, published an op-ed in the Washington Post, pointing out that more and more Rhodes scholars are pursuing careers ... Read More
After Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D – Pa.) switch to the Democratic Party yesterday, I decided to check out a piece he wrote for The New York Review of Books, “The Need to Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs.” In the piece Specter details his plans to reintroduce legislation designed to limit executive power that failed to pass during the Bush administration. ... Read More
How Obama is riding out the Democratic storm of scandals From Tom Daschle’s taxes, to Charlie Rangel’s apartments, to Rod Blagojevich’s hair, scandals have recently shaken the Democratic Party. Yet polls show that President Obama and the Democratic brand remain relatively untarnished by this long train of embarrassments. His widespread pre-existing popularity has certainly helped Obama limit the fallout from ... Read More
Social issues move off center stage At the 1992 Republican National Convention, conservative media personality Pat Buchanan fired the opening salvos of the ongoing national culture war, declaring, “There is a religious war going on in our country…it is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.” ... Read More
Does America’s transportation policy need an overhaul? “The nation faces a crisis. Our surface transportation system has deteriorated to such a degree that our safety, economic competitiveness, and quality of life are at risk.” So begins the Feb. 2009 report of the National Surface Transportation Financing Commission (NSTFC), tasked by Congress to develop a new framework for funding America’s transportation ... Read More
