Even though House Republicans are now wisely folding their tents, their disarray this week over extending a payroll tax cut has left a sour taste at year's end in Washington, contributing in no small part to an even bigger political story: the resurrection of President Obama and his fellow Democrats heading toward the 2012 elections.
Not long ago, many pundits agreed that the Republican nomination was Mitt Romney's to lose. Now, with one recent poll showing Gingrich up a whopping 21% over Romney among likely GOP voters nationwide (and wide leads in early states like Iowa, South Carolina and Florida), it appears the former Massachusetts governor could actually lose this thing in the next few weeks. So many are asking: What's gone wrong in Boston? And what if anything might he do?
In the cold light of morning, Mitt Romney still looks like the man to beat for the Republican presidential nomination, but the buzz Tuesday night in the debate hall and since has mostly centered on Newt Gingrich.
This past Sunday's "60 Minutes" and the latest issue of Newsweek bring back to the fore the complicated issue of money and politics. Both highlight a new book by Peter Schweizer, "Throw Them All Out," which rails against what Schweizer calls "honest graft."
Amidst the welter of election results from voting yesterday, two conclusions seem pretty clear:
Herman Cain may very well bounce back and remain a popular contender for the GOP presidential nomination, but the normal rules of politics would say that he has about 48 hours to get his campaign under control.
With Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's dramatic demise this Thursday morning, the world is rid of a tyrant, and a free Libya has jumped a mile forward to stability (though, as CNN's Ben Wedeman reports, there are still many more miles to go).
Mitt Romney walked into Tuesday night's Republican debate as the front-runner and, in my view, walked out in an even stronger position. But in retrospect, he and party leaders might wish they could have invoked the Las Vegas rule: What happens there stays there.
Pressure is mounting on Republicans to address spreading public protests against Wall Street. How they answer could shape the political landscape from here to the November elections.
Even as events here in the United States are reshaping the political landscape for the 2012 presidential elections, it has become blazingly clear that what is happening in Europe may actually prove more decisive.
When trouble strikes in our personal lives and we are searching for a source, it usually makes sense to take a look in a familiar place -- the mirror. And so it should be in our troubled politics today.
President Obama was smart to change the date of his speech to a joint session of Congress and to do so quickly, but whether he is adopting a smart strategy for creating jobs is a much bigger, tougher question.
When you have flown through a heavy storm, the plane tossing one way and another, have you ever wondered whether there was really anyone in the cockpit? That's the feeling that many Americans have today -- as if we are lurching through an economic storm with no one in charge.
Before returning to the States this weekend, I and others in my family spent enthralled hours at the Churchill War Rooms in London, along with the new museum in his honor next door. Now, there was a leader! There was a man whose example shouts out to us now in our hour of trouble.
Tucked away here at a family reunion among rolling hills, one can easily drift into another, more pleasant world, but the old realities keep intruding. Time and again, English relatives have gingerly but worriedly asked, "What is to become of America after this debt struggle?"
With America now perilously close to default, here's where I sense we stand. My observations may be off as I have only had a brief time in Washington to take measure, but let me give it my best shot.
If Bill Safire were still with us and writing a column about the debt follies in Washington, he might well begin by asking readers: Which of the following outcomes is most likely in the days ahead?
With tempers near a boiling point and the risk growing that the United States could default on its debt obligations, it is time for a truce in the budget talks in Washington -- essentially a cease-fire in place.
With a debt-ceiling crisis building in Washington, the administration on Tuesday opened another window into President Obama's thinking about the best ways to bring resolution.
It's hard to remember a simmering crisis when America's political leaders have painted themselves into so many corners, but that's where we are as we face a potential default on our national debt. As leaders return to bargaining Monday afternoon, they had better find their way out soon, or we will pay a fearful price.
The stakes are growing ever higher on deficit negotiations in Washington. And as they do, the politics are becoming ever more treacherous, especially for Democrats.
"When they won't see the light," goes the old saying, "make 'em feel the heat." That was the strategy President Obama employed today in his press conference as he skewered Republicans over deficit negotiations. But where will it lead?
There was something deeply unsettling about President Obama's speech on Afghanistan and much of the commentary that surrounded it -- or at least there was to me, as someone who clings to some old-fashioned traditions about U.S. foreign policy.
While America retains many underlying strengths, economists increasingly worry that unless we change course, the United States could be heading toward an economic train wreck. For months, the focus has been on the country slipping into a debt crisis. In the past few weeks, concerns have risen sharply about economic growth as well. Two top economists, Larry Summers and Carmen Reinhart, have asked aloud whether we could be stumbling into a "lost decade," a catastrophe that swept Japan in the 1990s.
The first big Republican debate ended with two clear winners in the race for the nomination: Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann. And there was one other candidate who helped himself: Newt Gingrich.
Who should decide the fate of Anthony Weiner? His constituents in Queens and Brooklyn? Or the leadership of the Democratic Party?
Four months after he began ruthlessly repressing dissent in Libya, Moammar Gadhafi appears to have entered his final days. Dead or alive, he seems very much on the verge of giving up power -- perhaps as early as this weekend, perhaps a little longer.
When a young GOP Congressman stripped off his shirt, took his picture and e-mailed it to a woman, he did more than end his career -- he set off a political ripple that probably ends prospects for resolving the nation's growing debt crisis before next year's elections.
In the president's speech on Thursday, there were two surprises that could shape its impact for a long time to come.
Since President Obama's dramatic announcement that America had successfully found and dispatched Osama bin Laden, we have been awash in questions and second-guessing about the mission. Were the SEALs wrong to shoot him? Why didn't the White House get the story right in its first telling? Why can't we see the photos? Were Americans wrong to celebrate?
It is far too soon to judge the long-term significance of America's successful operation to kill Osama Bin Laden. Will al Qaeda begin to crumble now that its charismatic leader is dead, or will we endure new terrorist attacks, perhaps on U.S. soil?
In his budget speech yesterday, President Obama showed once again that he is a more masterful politician but less courageous leader than we might have imagined. What that will mean for the country's economic future remains deeply uncertain.
Tuesday morning, thanks to CNN.com, I had a chance to write a column asking what you thought about President Barack Obama's speech Monday night on Libya and the future use of military force. Thousands of you responded, showing that many Americans long for a robust debate.
Now that the "commentariat" has had its say about President Barack Obama's speech Monday night on Libya, chewing over every phrase, the decisive American verdict about his address rests not in television studios but in homes across the country.
After conversations with top players in Washington last week, mostly as I accompanied a group of Zuckerman Fellows from Harvard on a field trip, here are some brief reflections on the mood there toward events in the Middle East:
President Obama promises to focus his State of the Union tonight on one of the most important domestic questions we have faced in years. Whether he will succeed in moving the nation forward will depend not only on his own leadership but on the willingness of others -- the left, the right and the media -- to put the country first.
My friends at CNN have asked for a few reflections about the president's speech Wednesday night in Tucson.
Until we have more definitive information about the shooter, pointing fingers at who might bear responsibility for the Tucson, Arizona, massacre only contributes to what we must end in America: a toxic political environment.
In our national politics, where power and fame are the most powerful narcotics, it takes a rare person to walk away from it all. But Pete Rouse has just done that in the White House and he deserves a hearty salute.
Voters who flocked to the Republican banner seven weeks ago are probably scratching their heads, wondering, "Who really won in November?" After handing the president and Congressional Democrats the worst drubbing in more than half a century, they can only watch in disbelief as President Barack Obama has reeled off a series of unexpected victories.
Opening The New York Times on Friday morning, I blinked. The headline on its lead story, spread over two columns, blared out, "Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage."
"Does he get it?" That is a question about President Obama that I have heard repeatedly in recent travels from people across the country.
Just when we are exhausted from hard times, we have to brace ourselves for more of them around the corner.
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