Today's Stories

January 1, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
If Hamas Did Not Exist

December 31, 2008

Pam Martens
Wall Street's Collapse and the Ownership Society

Neve Gordon /
Jeff Halper
Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

Ted Honderich
The First Casualty of Israel's War

Brian Cloughley
Five Little Girls on a Sofa: Gaza's One-Sided Images

Ron Jacobs
What is Hamas, Really?

Vijay Prashad
Hot Rod and His Sikh Warrior: Blago's Indian Connections

Franklin Lamb
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!

Mike Whitney
My Brilliant Career

David Macaray
What Really Killed the Auto Bailout

Richard Thieme
The Betrayal of the Commons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Who Wins What in Gaza?

Stephen Lendman
The Troubling Case of the Fort Dix Five

Worthy Group of the Day
Western Shoshone Defense Project

December 30, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
May We No Longer Be Silent

Tariq Ali
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant

Robert Bryce
The $775,000-a-Year GI

Jonathan Cook
Electioneering with Bombs

Gary Leupp
The Fishbarrel War

Dave Lindorff
Tough Guys Don't Walk: Will Cheney Seek a Pardon?

Brian McKenna
Ted Downing and Troublemaker Anthropology

John Walsh
The End of the Green Party

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the World

Bob Sommer
The Education of David Frost

Worthy Activist of the Day
Support Marie Mason

December 29, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza

Neve Gordon
What, Exactly, is Israel's Mission?

Joshua Frank
Obama and the "Special Relationship"

George Salzman /
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The War Against Palestine: Exception From Humanity

Norman Solomon
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye

Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza Today: "This is Just the Beginning"

Rob Larson
The Banks Laugh All the Way to the Bank

Kenneth Libby
Arne Duncan's Dark Years in Chicago

Robert Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

Elsa Johnson
High Noon at Black Mesa: Bush's Farewell Gift to Peabody Coal

Nicola Nasser
Resolution 1850: Bush's Parting Gift

Belén Fernández
Hanukkah Games

Worthy Group of the Day
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

December 26-28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Medusa's Head

Dr Eyad Al Serraj
The Boming of Gaza: "An Earthquake on Top of Your Head"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Cancerous Air

Bradley Simpson
Obama's New Intel Chief, Dennis Blair, Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers

Ralph Nader
Government Without Laws

Gary Leupp
Obama and the Graveyard of Empires

Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT

Matt Landon
The Great Coal Ash Flood: a Report From Swan Pond Road

David Macaray
SAG's Terrible Dilemma

Patrick Bond
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet

Norm Kent
Invoking Bigotry: Obama and Rick Warren

Brian T. Ketcham
Fuel Efficiency is Easy--Just Don't Let Detroit Tell You How to Do It

Rannie Amiri
War Clouds Over Gaza

Larry Portis
Changing the Ethnic Vocabulary

Richard Rhames
Welcome to Soup Kitchen America

Stephen Lendman
29 Red Flags: Early Suspicions About Bernard Madoff

James L. Secor
Unheralded Coup

Ramzy Baroud
Iraq, the Plot Thickens

Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture

Cpt. Paul Watson
Tracking the Cetacean Death Star

Howard Lisnoff
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment

Michael Dee
The Bill of Rights, Killed in Action by the War on Drugs

Steve Conn
Eight Predictions for 2009

Poets' Basement
Valentine, Kaung, Moser and Graham

Worthy Group of the Weekend
United Mountain Defense

December 25, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas

Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead

Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council

December 24, 2008

Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina

Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics

Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?

Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers

Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?

Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness

Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

December 23, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm

Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy

Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight

Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv

Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands

David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?

Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default

David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?

Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation

December 22, 2008

Pam Martens
Madoff's Money Trail Leads to Washington

Gary Leupp
Base Alienation: Obama's Team of Rivals

Mike Whitney
Bail Out the Economy? More Pay is the Only Way

Karl Grossman
Lost in Space: NASA at 50

Niall Meehan
Conor Cruise O'Brien: Historian, Politician, Censor

Steve Conn
Where Would Larry Summers Dump the Guantanamo Mess?

Uri Avnery
Israeli Elections: Spot the Difference

Corey D. B. Walker
The Politics of Freedom

David Swanson
The Purloined Constitution

Worthy Group of the Day
Socialist Worker

December 19 - 21, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
An Ethnic Cleansing in America

Jeffrey St. Clair
Salazar and the Tragedy of the Common Ground

Paul Craig Roberts
Country Without Mercy

Patrick Cockburn
The Baathist "Coup Plot"

Felice Pace
Green Myopia: Obama's Appointments Reveal What's Wrong with the Environmental Movement

Diane Farsetta
The Pentagon's PR Slush Fund

George Ciccariello-Maher
By the Time I Get to Arizona: ICE Raids and Resistance in Flagstaff

Eric Bergoust
Extinct Lifestyles: Redefining Prosperity

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Without Regrets: Cheney's Unrepentent Confession

Stan Cox
Clothes and Commentaries That Don't Fit

Michael Donnelly
Clinton III: Continuity We Can Believe In

Robert Weissman
The Auto Bailout

Ralph Nader
Excluded Democracy: Scholastic and the Two Party System

Alan Farago
Shock and Awe Economics

Sam Smith
Not All Public Work is the Same

Timothy G. Hermach
What Happened on the Way to the Inauguration?

Seth Sandronsky
Who's Not Getting By and Why

Rannie Amiri
All Quiet on the Gazan Shore

David Yearsley
Bach as Jihadi

Martha Rosenberg
Wyeth's Pay-to-Play

Dave Lindorff
White House Lied About Iraqi Yellowcake Buy (But That's Not the Biggest Scandal)

Christopher Brauchli
Weekend at Bernie's: the Confinement of Mr. Madoff

Missy Beattie
President Meathead

Richard Rhames
Corporatizing the Kids

Stephen Martin
Full-Spectrum Dominance of the Big Lie

Paul Krassner
Milk and Twinkies

Lorenzo Wolff
Does Coldplay Give a Shit Anymore?

Poets' Basement
Kathwari, Halling and Payne

Worthy Group of the Weekend
Heartwood

December 18, 2008

Phillip Doe
The Man in the Hat: Salazar and the Status Quo

Ronnie Cummins
Vilsack: Another Shill for Monsanto

Jesse Sharkey
No School Left Unsold: Arne Duncan's Privatization Agenda

Saul Landau
Postcard from Venezuela

Peter Morici
What's Next for the Fed?

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney for Torture

Panos Petrou
Days of Rage in Greece

Jeff Cohen /
Norman Solomon
The 2008 P.U.-litzer Prizes: the Stinkiest Media Performances of the Year

Worthy Group of the Day
Organic Consumer Alliance

December 17, 2008

Peter Lee
Pushing Pakistan Over the Edge

Conn Hallinan
Angels and Demons in Mumbai

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Fatal Flaw

Jeff Halper
Obama and the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Alan Farago
The Audacity of Parkland

Peter Morici
The Big Hole

Norm Kent
Obama Lights Up

Col. Douglas MacGregor
The Price of Expediency

Margaret Kimberley
Blacks and Gay Rights

Ron Jacobs
The Myth of the Good Guy: Waiting on a President to Do the Right Thing

Worthy Group of the Day
Campaign to End the Death Penalty

December 16, 2008

Vicente Navarro
A Forgotten Genocide: the Case of Spain

Patrick Cockburn
Each Shoe was Worth a Thousand Words

Thomas Michael Power
Back to the Pump: an Economic and Environmental Dead End

Jason Hribal
Orangutans, Resistance and the Zoo: the Story of Ken Allen and Kumang

Farzana Versey
Straw Warriors and the Pantomime of Patriotism

Wajahat Ali /
Ahmed Rashid
Indian Muslims: Defining Their Loyalty

Mats Svensson
The Order to Destroy has been Given

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Mumbai Terror's Afghan Roots

David Macaray
Workplace Violence and Termination Etiquette

Howard Lisnoff
Left Control of Academia? The Case of William Felkner

Worthy Group of the Day
AWR: the Last, Best Hope for Saving the Big Wild

December 15, 2008

Andy Worthington
Hit Me Baby One More Time: a History of Music Torture in War on Terror

Franklin Lamb
Why Hezbollah Stiffed Carter

Karl Grossman
Dr. Chu's Nuclear Prescription

Brian Cloughley
Land of the Free (To Torture and Imprison Without Trial)

Mary Lynn Cramer
Stiglitz's Foolishly Flawed Morality

Steve Early
From Nicky Pockets to Blago: Why Pay-to-Play is Bad for Labor

Thomas Christie
Pentagon Train Wreck Awaits Obama

Ken Paff
Remembering Ron Carey: a Great Labor Leader

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
What is India to Do?

Dave Lindorff
A Hero of Our Time: Muntadar al-Zaidi

Alan Farago
The Artless Dodger

Worthy Group of the Day
Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund

December 12 / 14, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to Chicago, Beacon of American Values

Michael Hudson /
Jeffrey Sommers
The End of the Washington Consensus

David Price
The Leaky Ship of Human Terrain Systems

Jeffrey St. Clair
Nukes Up the Hudson

Frank Barat
An Israeli in Gaza: an Interview with Jeff Halper

John Ross
Writing a Thesis in Blood

Binoy Kampmark
Humanitarian Imperialism: Obama and the Genocide Task Force

David Macaray
Killing the Auto Bailout: a Dagger to the Heart of Organized Labor

Ralph Nader
Antidotes to Plunder: a Holiday Reading List

Eamonn Fingleton
Whatever Happened to Iris Chang?

Lawrence Velvel
Why Blagojevich Might Be Acquitted

Behzad Yaghmaian
The Housing Crisis: a Timebomb China Can't Defuse

Sam Husseini
Putting the Pro in Protest

Tom Barry
Incentives to Detain: How Immigrants Drive Prison Profits

Howard Lisnoff
Why I Went to Jail

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Immigration Problem

Raj Patel
The WTO and Other Fairy Tales

Ron Jacobs
The Manufacturing of History

Paul Watson
Risky Business Down Under

David Yearsley
They Also Serve Who Only Pull or Tread

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Want Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star...

Kim Nicolini
Finally, a Vampire Movie You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

Susie Day
Proposition 1984: the Problem with Heterosexuals

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Lerch and Crete

Worthy Group of the Weekend
Energy Justice

December 11, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Total Defeat for U.S. in Iraq

P. Sainath
After Mumbai

Vicken Cheterian
The Zarqawi Generation

Ray McGovern
Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

Dedrick Muhammad
Post-Racial Racism at the Post: the Undying Obsession with Black Family Values

Lee Sustar
Victory at Republic

Peter Morici
The Big Drag

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Must They Hate Us So?

George Wuerthner
Another Subsidy to Big Timber?

Christopher Brauchli
Mr. Berg's Strange Obsession

Worthy Group of the Day
Animal Balance

December 10, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Whose Interests Will Shape Obama's Change?

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Question

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Nuclear Weapons Obsolescence

Joshua Frank
Breaking the Stranglehold on Middle East News Coverage

Jack Ely
Stop Sobbing About Free Music Downloads: a Message to the Music Industry from the Lead Singer of the Kingsmen

Steve Conn
An Obama Public Works Program?

Lee Sustar
Republic Workers Target Bank of America

Glen Ford
The Die is Cast

Stephen Lendman
The Persecution of Syed Fahad Hashmi

Nadia Hijab
The Face of America

Dave Lindorff
We All Need a Union

Website of the Day
This One's For You, Senator Dodd

December 9, 2008

Mike Whitney
Card Check

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Us vs. Them

Ghada Karmi
The UN Resolution That Time Forgot

Dave Lindorff
A Car Dealer Explains Why the Bailout is a Raw Deal

Steve Breyman
Notes on a Green Economy: Managing Stuff in the 21st Century

Lee Sustar /
Nicole Colson
Raising the Stakes at Republic

Rev. William E. Alberts
God of Our Fathers

Martha Rosenberg
Bill Richardson: Secretary of Bloodsports

Sam Husseini
How Holbrooke Lied His Way Into a War

David Macaray
The UAW in Peril

Website of the Day
This Toxic Life

December 8, 2008

Steve Early
Is Obama Backing Off a Crucial Pledge to Labor?

Michael Hudson
Obama's Favoritism: Wall Street, Not the Auto Industry

Patrick Cockburn
Talking to a Lashkar Militant

Diane Farsetta
An Officer and a Conflicted Man: McCaffery, the Pentagon and Fleishman-Hillard

Paul Craig Roberts
Chapters in Imperial Hypocrisy

Daniel Gross
The Chicago Sit-Down Strike

Saul Landau
To Bail or Not to Bail?

Harvey Wasserman
Why John Bryson is Unfit for Energy Secretary

Mike Ferner
The New Generation of "Non-Lethal" Weapons

Norman Solomon
The Silent Winter of Escalation

David Michael Green
The Other Foot

Website of the Day
The Remains of Detroit

December 5 / 7, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Honeymoans From the Left

Brian Cloughley
Shambles in Afghanistan

Paul Craig Roberts
Muslim Revolution: How Washington Arrogance Helped Drive the Mumbai Attacks

Liaquat Ali Khan
Mumbai and the Kashmir Tinderbox

Farzana Versey
Mumbai's Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

Peter Lee
Pakistan Nears the Breaking Point

Peter Morici
Slouching Toward a Depression?

Ralph Nader /
Toby Heaps
Junk Cap-and-Trade

Yinon Cohen /
Neve Gordon
Obama Could End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Will He Meet the Challenge?

Wajahat Ali
Perverse Justice: the Holy Land Foundation Convictions

Johnny Barber
Aswad's Story: Illegal Detention and the Declaration of Human Rights

Alan Farago
Fallout from the Pass-Through Economy

Jeremy Scahill
Obama Doesn't Plan to End Occupation of Iraq

Mike Whitney
Powergrab in Ottawa

Ranjit Hoskote
Jahiliyya Versus Jihad

Carl Finamore
Thank God I'm an Atheist! (Or Boy is Bill O'Reilly in for a Big Surprise)

Marjorie Cohn
Obama and Women's Rights

Norm Kent
Tommy Chong, the Unanticipated Warrior

Missy Beattie
What Lies Ahead

Binoy Kampmark
Committing Suicide On-Line: the Briggs Case

David Macaray
The Best and the Brightest Redux: Too Many Brains, Not Enough Humility

Nancy Stohlman
Relational Activism

Ron Jacobs
Irreverent Politics Then and Now

David Yearsley
Thematics From the Golden Past

Lorenzo Wolff
Troubled Songs of Home and War

Poets' Basement
Orloski: The Door Opener

Website of the Weekend
In Prison My Whole Life

December 4, 2008

Ece Temelkuran
Inside the Ergenekon Case

Ralph Nader
Turning Crisis into Opportunity: Who Will Seize the Moment?

Harry Browne
The Bush-Obama National Security Strategy

Eamonn Fingleton
The American Car Industry: a Riposte to the Knockers

Conn Hallinan
The Syria Attack

Mike Whitney
Fiasco in Somalia: Another CIA Cock-Up

Stewart J. Lawrence
Obama and Latinos: Richardson, Alone, is Not Enough

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Message to Obama: Stop Killing Afghanis

Karyn Strickler
Show Us the Green, Before We Show You the Money

Jennifer Matsui
Obama-Cola: the Great National Temperance Beverage

Website of the Day
"He Ain't Got Laid in a Month of Sundays..."

December 3, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
What's Wrong with the U.S. Military

Sheldon Rampton
Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal

Robert Weissman
Nationalize GM

Yifat Susskind
From Mumbai to Washington

William Blum
The Obama Bummer: Vote First, Ask Questions Later

Alan Singer
The Ghost of the Defunct Economist

David Macaray
Trampled Under Foot at Wal-Mart

Martha Rosenberg
Born With a Statin Deficiency? Line Forms to the Left!

Mats Svensson
The Crimes Have No Period of Limitations

Website of the Day
Why Bill Richardson's Nomination Should be Opposed

December 2, 2008

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Kettle of Hawks

Paul Craig Roberts
The New Arms Race

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Is Pakistan to Blame?

Sarah Anderson /
John Cavanagh
Skewed Priorities: How the Bailout Dwarfs Spending on Other Global Crises

William Blum
The Mythology of the War on Terrorism

John Ross
Mexico's Drug War Goes Down in Flames

Dave Lindorff
A Tale of Two Terror Attacks

Nicola Nasser
A Peace Process That Makes Peace Impossible

Steve Conn
Operation Redskin Removal

Robert Bryce
Coal Hard Facts

Website of the Day
Country, Funk, Soul

December 1, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
From Baghdad to Mumbai, by Way of Pakistan

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
Obama's Economic Team: Records of Failure

Vijay Prashad
The Fires in South Asia

Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Foreign Crises

Joshua Frank
Madam Secretary Clinton and the Middle East

P. Sainath
The Unlikely Martyrdom of Free Market Jihad

Alan Farago
The Right's War on Regulators

Binoy Kampmark
Sydney's Ball and Chain

Chris Genovali
Silent Fall

David Michael Green
Hope You Die Before You Get Old

Stephen Martin
The Chinese are Coming, the Chinese are Coming!

Website of the Day
Robert Rubin: Coward, Liar or Both?

November 28-30, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Time of Trouble

Mike Whitney
The Obama "Dream Team": Rubin Clones and Other Fakers

Ted Honderich
What is the Meaning of Obama's Election?

Tom Kerr
Preserving Filthy Lucre (Or Becoming My Dad)

Mike Ely
The Conquest of New England

David Yearsley
Hymns of the Conquest

Deepak Tripathi
Uproar in Police-State Britain

Sonja Karkar
Gaza's Death Throes

Ramzy Baroud
Salvation in a News Broadcast

Robert Weitzel
Israel's Settlement on Capitol Hill

Robert Roth
Can We Create a Movement for Change?

Carlos Fierro
Obama and the End of Racism?

David Macaray
How to Kill a Union

David Rosen
A New Sexual Agenda

James Cockcroft
Indigenous People Rising

Stan Cox
The Most Disappointing Gift

Steve Conn
Talking Turkey About College Basketball

Stephen Martin
The Electromagnetic Pulse and Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Busty Bimbettes, Bombs and Brand Obama

Kim Nicolini
Women as Products and Cannibalistic Achievers

Lorenzo Wolff
A Battle Cry for the Confused and Vulnerable

Poets' Basement
Woods, Harrison and Corseri

January 1 , 2009

Politics in the Time of Obama

What to Expect While We're Expecting

By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN

So who is Barack Obama?

Not only do we still not know, but in a very real sense, I don’t think he knows either.  Presidencies have a nasty habit of being shaped by external events and pressures that can sometimes be completely unanticipated.

I think the greatest parallels to this moment and this president are not so much to JFK or Lincoln in their times, but to 1932 and the Roosevelt presidency.  FDR turned out to be one of America’s greatest presidents (he’s actually at the very top of my own list) and a very liberal “traitor to his class”, but neither of those seminal attributes of his presidency were much anticipated by many.

Similarly, Barack Obama strikes me as something of an ideological chameleon, coming into office in a moment very similar to 1932, though obviously not (yet, anyhow) as dire.  Like FDR, he enters the presidency inheriting a massive economic crisis, the proportions of which we still don’t know, other than that it is already very, very big.  Like FDR, he inherits this from a discredited Republican Party which has effectively ruled the country for decades.  Like FDR, enormous hopes are riding on this rather unknown quantity about to be sworn in as president of the United States.

And, like FDR, I expect that this combination of conditions will give Obama wide latitude to govern, and even to fail to produce quick results, provided he is at least seen to be trying.  I mean, think about it.  If you wanted to follow any president in American history, who would it be?  Look at what happened to John Adams, Andrew Johnson and Harry Truman, each of whom followed the most renowned and most revered of American presidents.  Adams, one of the great patriots of the Revolution, one of the top handful of members in the Founders pantheon, couldn’t win a second term.  Johnson got impeached, in part for not being Lincoln.  And Truman was run from office in 1952 with job approval ratings that matched those of a certain chimp-like character with whom we’re all too familiar today.

On the other hand, look at who the great presidents followed.  Washington came after George III and the Articles of Confederation.  If you were Washington’s chief political strategist, you couldn’t write a script that good.  Lincoln succeeded James Buchanan, the guy who was, until 2001, widely considered the worst president in American history.  FDR followed Herbert Hoover, a president who refused to do anything while the country melted into poverty.  People began naming the cardboard shanties in which they were forced to live after that guy.  In short, Obama’s going to have a lot of good will and latitude by virtue alone of having the good fortune to follow the most disastrous cock-up of a president in American history.  Anything will be a relief after Bush.  It’s the Beatles coming on stage after the local beer hall cover band with the wasted drummer and out-of-tune guitarist, not the other way around.

For this reason and others, then, Obama is going to have a solid and likely long honeymoon, I suspect.  And if he gets through the first two years looking good, he’ll also likely keep and possibly even increase his Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate.  That is traditionally not so easy.  With rare exception over the last century, the party controlling the White House loses seats in midterm elections (particularly the sixth year of a presidency).  But I’d bet money right now, a month before Obama is even sworn-in, that Democrats do well in 2010.  Not because they’re so brilliant, of course.  They’re not.  But because of the conditions described above, because of certain characteristics I see in Obama discussed below, and because the Republican Party has dug itself into a massive pair of holes.

The first of these holes is one of form.  The GOP has run ugly campaign after ugly campaign since the days of Joe McCarthy, and as recently as the McCain-Palin attempt to turn Obama into a socialist who pals around with terrorists.  I don’t think the public is much in the mood right now for another round of insanely-divorced-from-reality carping, brought to them by the very folks who created these ugly disasters, while their president is making reasonable and centrist efforts to rescue them from sinking out of the middle class.  Personally, I hope the Republicans continue to make this most egregious of mistakes, as they have been doing lately by running hysterical ads concerning the non-existent Obama-Blagojevich scandal.  When even Newt Gingrich criticizes the stupidity of the party’s move, you know you’re hurtin’, eh?  But I say, bring it on, fellas!  Please, please, go ahead and self-destruct.  Er, self-destruct more, that is.

Of course, their other problem – a substantive one – is even more intransigent.  This is the party and the ideology that delivered the country into the perfect storm of multiple simultaneous crises.  Hey, would you buy a used government from the same people who brought you 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, global warming, skyrocketing national debt, torture, isolation from our allies, hatred of the world, and now what is – at the very least – the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression?  If you think I’m just being cute here, ask yourself this question:  Which prominent Republicans have you heard calling for a wholesale restructuring of their party’s ideological commitments?  Or even partial reform?  Better yet, have you heard even one of them take a significant shot at George W. Bush, the very personification of regressive politics?  No, we haven’t heard that.  Indeed, pretty much all we’ve heard is some mumblings about how the GOP needs to become more ‘conservative’.

Not only do these guys not intend to change, but they fundamentally cannot.  The party has become nothing more than a vehicle for plutocratic kleptocracy, run on the backs of an army of scary-monster, sex-obsessed, religious freaks who act as shock troops for the money boys.  My guess is that the latter group has long ago now left the sinking ship and is already fast cozying up to the new bosses  in town, the ones with D’s after their names on the ballots.  These thieves couldn’t possibly care less about which party they buy – they’re happy to do business with anyone.  Heck, they’re probably relieved not to have to attend those stinking prayer breakfasts anymore in order to keep their marionettes convinced that they give a shit.

But, of course, with the kleptocrats out the door, that leaves the religious right in full ownership of the GOP, and they ain’t letting go, brother.  This crowd would rather lose elections than their principles, and so they will.  And, indeed, so they have been.  Yes, it’s true, ladies and gentlemen – Republicans will no doubt continue to be a force to be reckoned with in Utah and Mississippi for the foreseeable future.  Meanwhile, though, the rest of the country appears to have come to its senses.  As a side note, that creates some interesting new political dynamics with potentially far-reaching consequences.  I can’t recall during my lifetime a moment more ripe for the development of semi-viable third and even fourth parties in America, but that will only happen, if it does, a few years out.  Meanwhile, one senses that the national GOP leadership needs at least one or two more solid electoral drubbings to disabuse them of their sorry ways, by which time it will probably be too late.

But what of the Democrats and Obama?  I suspect that one of the primary reasons that the Democrats have been so disappointing to progressives these last two years is that their years in the wilderness have made them ‘smart’.  Of course, another explanation is that they’re also nearly as bought-off as the GOP, but what I mean by this is that they have learned from their past experience and have therefore resisted doing anything remotely courageous with their majority powers – like basic oversight, investigation, impeachment, ending the war in Iraq or national healthcare, for instance.  From the perspective of a political party seeking only to aggrandize power, one might see why.  The old adage applies well here:  when your opponent is busy self-destructing, get out of the way.  From the perspective of the country’s needs, however, this has been something less than a powerful agenda for progress.

But, more than anything, I think Democrats have learned lessons from three unhappy experiences ranging from the Carter to the Lil’ Bush years:  what happens when you go off on your own without your president, what happens when your president goes off on his own without you, and what happens when you not only don’t have a president, but are additionally stuck in the minority in Congress.  Because they will be anxious, above all, not to repeat the latter experience, because the Harry Reids and Nancy Pelosis of this world are nothing like a Sam Rayburn or a Henry Clay, and because they seemed to easily be able to stomach rolling over for George Bush, I doubt seriously we’re going to be seeing much in the way of strained relations between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.  Congress, and especially Democrats, have gotten good at deference, and they’ll be happy to defer to Barack Obama as he helps them cement a generation-long realignment of American politics these next two, four and eight years.

And what of Obama himself?  There are many laudatory words that come to mind when thinking about this supernova who has burst over the American landscape.  Smart, articulate, inspiring, eloquent, balanced, grounded and thoughtful are just some of them.  But what think most people have not yet fully appreciated is quite how wise he is.  Wisdom is a bit like being smart, but definitely not the same.  Both Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were the smartest guys around.  Both had mediocre presidencies, at best.  Wisdom is perhaps best understood as applied smarts.  In any case, it surely involves having a keen understanding of what works, what motivates people, what the public wants, and how to make decisions effectively.  Look at Obama.  He’s been doing some enormously difficult things for two years now, under the most powerful competition and scrutiny there is.  And, not only has he succeeded in ways that nobody imagined he could, he has made nary a significant mistake.  That’s a record unmatched in our time.

Yep, when it comes to political wisdom, this guy turns it up to eleven.  That’s why I think he’s going to have a very successful presidency, and in doing so, he is going to cement in place a center-left, solid Democratic majority in Congress and out in the country.  There will be mistakes, to be sure, and there will be ugly bummers far removed from the administration’s control exploding in their faces.  But what I don’t think we’ll see is pitched battles among the top staff, as in Carter’s White House.  I don’t think we’ll see a focus on trivial issues or personal immaturity, as in the Clinton White House.  And I don’t think we’ll see the president trying to solve every problem all at once, as in both these precedents.

I don’t know Obama’s politics well enough to say for sure at this point, but I suspect he’s going to be too centrist for my taste (most any president who could be president in today’s America probably would).  But, at the same time, I feel very confident in his competence and wisdom.  That, coupled with all the other favorable conditions for him (which include many unfavorable ones for the country, chiefly Bush and his legacy) will probably make this the most successful presidency since Roosevelt.  Maybe we’ll even amend the Constitution to give him a third term!

Talk about getting ahead of yourself...!  I know, I know.  Sorry about that.  Meanwhile, back on terra firma, of particular concern to progressives is the shape of the administration as it has now come together over the weeks since the election.  Not only are there few progressives on Obama’s team, but there are no name progressives at all.  You won’t find Maxine Waters there, or Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich or Mario Cuomo, or even Russ Feingold.  Indeed, it’s actually worse than that.  It is no exaggeration to say that Republicans are better represented on this team than are progressive Democrats.  And we are the ones who made Obama president, while they, of course, had a slightly different plan.  And then, with the Rick Warren fiasco, it manages to get even worse still.

There is, in short, good reason for suspicion and even anger on the left.  I’m not there yet, and hope not to be.  Not because I’m a Barack groupie.  Far from it.  My attitude toward him and anyone else is to wait and see before judging.  In any case, I remain still rather hopeful for two reasons.  One is that conditions are already pushing the new administration and the country inexorably to the left.  And the other is that, within some minor limitations, I really don’t care who is secretary of this or secretary of that.  What I care about is policy, and the broad strokes of policy are typically made by the guy sitting behind the sign that notes where the buck stops.  So if Obama ends the Iraq war but has Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates staff it out, I’m happy.  If he makes major efforts to rebalance the distribution of wealth in this country but Timothy Geithner is Secretary of the Treasury, I don’t much care, to be honest.

Indeed, there is every possibility that his cabinet picks and other decisions are yet another demonstration of the wisdom that is Barack Obama, in a sort of ‘keep your enemies even closer’ kind of way.  How soon, and how ardently, do you think Rick Warren is going to be out there criticizing the new administration?  And if Obama does more such coopting of the center and even center-right, as he has in fact already been doing quite effectively, how much more ridiculous will the loonies of the GOP and the freaks on the radio look, off by themselves, trying to tear him down?

So I’m hopeful.  All the conditions are there.  A country demanding change, if not rescue.  A thoroughly repudiated opposition.  A public and in fact an entire world strongly committed to the success of the Obama presidency.  And a skilled and wise occupant of the Oval Office about to be handed the keys to government.

Of course, I remain wary and gimlet-eyed for the moment.  Everyone should.  This is, after all, government we’re talking about, and these are, after all, politicians.  Moreover, Obama has already given us some minor reasons to be concerned.

At the same time, this is the most hopeful political moment of my life.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York.  He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond.  More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.

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