It’s not just that our nation is divided. Both parties are divided. The Democrats’ division is generational. The Republicans’ division is personal. One party’s insurgency comes from the left; the other, from the right. One is young vs. old; the other, inside vs. outside. Both come from a deep well of fear and loathing about…
Read More“He’s a nasty guy. A very nasty guy.” Donald Trump was talking about Ted Cruz and with the same uncanny instinct that unmanned Jeb Bush with two words (“low-energy”) he’d put his finger on Cruz’s Achilles heel. In many ways Ted Cruz looks like the archetype of a candidate who should win a Republican Primary:…
Read MoreThe constitutional question about whether Ted Cruz is a “natural-born” citizen is as good a reason as any to deny him the White House. If we want a President from Canada, let’s get Justin Trudeau. The issue is sweet confirmation of the Universal Law of Payback. How many Cruz supporters were “birthers” who questioned President…
Read MoreA girl who thinks she’s a boy asked to use the boys’ bathroom at her high school. The principal allowed her to use a staff bathroom instead. Then a boy who thinks he’s a girl circulated an internet petition saying the principal was wrong. And it landed, beneath a picture of the two teenagers, on…
Read MoreLong before he was elected to the U.S. Senate, a lot of people in Raleigh didn’t like John Edwards. Like insurance executives, defense lawyers and doctors, to be exact. They took great delight in Edwards’ fall from political grace. Schadenfreude is the word for it: “a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing…
Read MoreFranklin D. Roosevelt said the Presidency “is preeminently a place of moral leadership.” President Obama’s State of the Union met that standard. The President channeled FDR, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan all in his speech. He rose above the usual political theater than these speeches have become. He set out an optimistic vision of…
Read MoreRepublicans are right: Our freedoms and liberties are at risk from an overly intrusive, overreaching government. Like the Republican-controlled government in North Carolina that requires doctors who perform an abortion after the 16th week of pregnancy to send an ultrasound to state officials. That’s kind of creepy, when you think about it. Are the DHHS…
Read MoreTo read Jon Meacham’s new biography of Bush 41 (“Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush”) is to realize how much politics has changed in 20 years, to understand why Jeb Bush is going nowhere in the presidential race and to marvel at GHWB’s admirable character – and fundamental cluelessness. The…
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