Lexington's notebook

American politics

  • Congress

    Even worse

    Apr 26th 2012, 14:05 by Lexington

    THE title and subtitle seem to say it all: "It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism" (Basic Books). But the anger that courses through this latest analysis of America's broken politics comes as a surprise. Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of Brookings are highly respected analysts. Their earlier book on Congress ("The Broken Branch") became something of a classic. Now they seem to be close to despair. Coming from them, the claim that the American system is even worse than it looks deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness.

    The book's thesis is not unusual.

  • The veepstakes

    To complement or amplify? That's the question

    Apr 19th 2012, 18:42 by Lexington

    IT IS probably folly, but someone at The Economist had to do it. In my print column this week I join the speculation about Mitt Romney's choice of a running mate. And for what it's worth, I'm betting (metaphorically) on Portman:

    At a minimum a potential vice-president needs to look capable of taking over as president. This was the test Sarah Palin is deemed to have failed, despite all the knowledge of Russia she gleaned by being able to see it from Alaska. Beyond that, nothing is clear. Should a nominee pick a running-mate to appeal to the sort of voters he finds it hard to reach himself?

  • Atrocities

    Bring back the good old wars?

    Apr 18th 2012, 18:04 by Lexington

    THE photographs of American soldiers showing off the dismembered body parts of their enemies in Afghanistan are shocking. Andrew Sullivan seems to believe that this is "what empire does":

    At what point will we recognize that inserting ourselves into places like Afghanistan and Iraq will change us, has changed us, and will change us. Mercifully, this latest inhuman excrescence is not government policy, as at Abu Ghraib. But it exposes even more deeply the inherent failure and moral corruption of occupying Afghanistan and the need to withdraw sooner rather than later.

  • Hillary Clinton

    Let her dance

    Apr 16th 2012, 12:45 by Lexington

    THIS really is unbelievably silly. Hillary Clinton had a dance at a nightclub at the Summit of the Americas in Colombia. Britain's Daily Telegraph gets on its high horse and thinks this is an "embarrassment".

    The overwhelmingly liberal US media is treating the story as a bit of fun, with the usually austere Mrs Clinton seen as letting her hair down. But I suspect that a lot of US taxpayers will see it differently – as a senior government official having a jolly time on an official overseas junket at taxpayers’ expense.

  • The Republicans

    Candidates as space rockets

    Apr 13th 2012, 15:03 by Lexington

    THE North Korean rocket that broke into pieces less than two minutes into its flight put me in mind of Rick Perry's presidential campaign. Newt Gingrich's reminds me of one of those NASA probes that heads off for the outer edges of the solar system and is never heard from again, apart from the faint occasional peep of an indecipherable radio signal. I suppose Mitt Romney's has to be the Saturn 5. It was incredibly powerful and expensive, and it got to the moon, but with the benefit of hindsight nobody can remember quite why the journey was made in the first place.

  • The Republicans

    A little problem with women

    Apr 4th 2012, 16:07 by Lexington

    AFTER cleaning up in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, now is the time for Mitt Romney to use his mastery of etch-a-sketch to erase some unfortunate messages that reached big parts of the electorate during the Republican primaries. His main problem will be with Hispanic voters and women. My print column this week looks at women:

    Lexington The scarcer sex

    ALL of a sudden, or so it seems, the gripping yarn that was the Republican presidential primary is running out of plot twists.

  • Newt Gingrich and Schadenfreude

    Parting is such sweet sorrow

    Apr 3rd 2012, 14:02 by Lexington

    SHOULD I hate myself for taking such delight in the political obituaries of Newt Gingrich? They have, after all, been a delicious read. One of the best came from my own colleague, J.F. His kicked off with Newt's habit of calling for a fundamental transformation of everything:

    Newt Gingrich does not eat sandwiches; he fundamentally transforms them, radically changing them from solid foodstuff to masticated bolus to energy.

    In the Washington Post I also relished this, from Richard Cohen:

    His sword will rust and his horse will die under him, but he and the loyal Callista will persist, taking their quest for the White House into the bush, the jungle, the mountain redoubts of America.

  • Foreign policy

    An interview with Hillary Clinton

    Mar 22nd 2012, 16:22 by Lexington

    HILLARY CLINTON has announced that she will not continue in her job for a second term. In the print edition this week we take a preliminary look at her record as secretary of state. Our Washington bureau chief (and Lexington columnist) sat down with her on March 16th to discuss her approach to running the State Department.

    LEXINGTON: You’re doing a great job, so why have you decided to stop?

    MRS CLINTON: Well, thank you for that kind comment, but the job’s not over. I’m one of these very focused people when it comes to day-to-day work, and I’m trying not to think about what comes next so that I can stay very focused on what I’m doing now.

    I have had an extraordinary 20 years. I’ve been really at the highest levels of American political life. And these last years as secretary of state, coming at a fraught time for our country—economically, politically, strategically—has been the honour of a lifetime. But I do think I need to take a little time to reflect, step off the very fast track I’ve been on.

    It was a very hard decision, but I made it last year, and told the president and others that I would work to the very end, and obviously be as involved as I am in all of the work of the National Security Council and our whole inter-agency process here at State and USAID, working with the Congress to try to solidify this foundational shift that I have tried to lead here at the State Department in how we do foreign policy in the 21st century.

  • The murders in France

    Jumping to conclusions

    Mar 21st 2012, 13:25 by Lexington

    IT BEGINS to look as if the horrific school murder in France was carried out by a Muslim with connections to al-Qaeda, or at least under the influence of its ideas. But it is dangerous to jump to conclusions, as Britain's Guardian must now feel. Yesterday it carried an indignant article by Fiachra Gibbons, a writer based in Paris, who simply assumed that blame for the atrocity was to be put on the French right:

    Police are a long way yet from catching, never mind understanding, what was going through the head of someone who could catch a little girl by the hair so he wouldn't have to waste a second bullet on her. But some things are already becoming clear.

  • The petrol-price war

    Blaming the president

    Mar 18th 2012, 14:41 by Lexington

    SO AN e-mail has just plopped into my letter box from Mitt Romney's campaign, reporting that the candidate has called for Barack Obama's "gas hike trio" to resign. Mr Romney told Fox News:

    Well, there’s no question that when he ran for office he said he wanted to see gasoline prices go up. He said that energy prices would skyrocket under his views and he has selected three people to help him implement that program: the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of the Interior and the EPA administrator. And this ‘gas hike trio’ has been doing the job over the last three and a half years and gas prices are up.

  • Iran's supreme leader

    Praise Obama could do without

    Mar 8th 2012, 16:23 by Lexington

    WELL this is a turn-up for the books.  Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has just praised Barack Obama in public.

    “Two days ago, we heard the president of America say: ‘We are not thinking of war with Iran.’ This is good. Very good. These are wise words. This is an exit from illusion,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to state television."

    Praise from Iran is, of course, the last thing the president needs in an election season. It is also not quite what Mr Obama said. He implied strongly that he would at some point consider military options, if sanctions and diplomacy failed to deter Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

  • Humanitarian aid

    Ungrateful foreigners

    Mar 8th 2012, 14:44 by Lexington

    THE Pew Research Centre has taken a look at whether American humanitarian aid boosts its image in the recipient country. The answer is mixed. American help for Japan after last year's nuclear disaster appeared to help, as did help for Indonesia after the tsunami of 2004. Some countries, however, find it hard to be grateful. Pakistan is a good example.

    Following a devastating October 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan, the U.S. pledged significant levels of aid, eventually totaling more than $500 million. Shortly after the tragedy, U.S. Chinook helicopters could be seen rescuing victims.

  • Obama on Iran

    Not bluffing

    Mar 2nd 2012, 13:45 by Lexington

    FOLLOWING yesterday's post on accidental nuclear war, here is the latest, lengthy and definitive interview with Barack Obama on his Iran policy. Key point: he says he is not bluffing when he intimates that military action may be needed to keep Iran from a bomb. He tells Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic:

    Look, if people want to say about me that I have a profound preference for peace over war, that every time I order young men and women into a combat theater and then see the consequences on some of them, if they're lucky enough to come back, that this weighs on me -- I make no apologies for that.

  • Iran and the bomb

    Nuclear standoffs

    Mar 1st 2012, 15:20 by Lexington

    THIS newspaper believes strongly that it would be a mistake for Israel or America to attack Iran's nuclear facilities in order to prevent it getting a bomb. But anyone inclined to be relaxed about containing a nuclear-armed Iran needs to remember how precarious nuclear containment was in the cold war.

  • Santorum on "snobs"

    A weird world where thick is good

    Feb 28th 2012, 13:10 by Lexington

    MAYBE I was too kind to Rick Santorum in last week's print column. His latest attack on Barack Obama is just too ridiculous for words. He calls the president a "snob" for wanting more Americans to have some higher education. The Washington Post nails him: his argument is not only absurd but also hypocritical:

    Talking Points Memo unearthed a 2006 campaign pledge from then-Sen. Santorum “ensuring the [sic] every Pennsylvanian has access to higher education,” including providing “loans, grants, and tax incentives to make higher education more accessible and affordable.

About Lexington's notebook

In this blog, our Lexington columnist enters America’s political fray and shares the many opinions that don't make it into his column each week. The column and blog are named after Lexington, Massachusetts, where the first shots were fired in the American war of independence.

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