In much the same way that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, Mitt Romney regularly appears to offer himself as the elder statesman the United States needs to lead the nation out of troubled times. The failed 2012 GOP White House hopeful and current Utah Senator is it at again, […]

As both the body count and the financial misery from the American coronavirus outbreak continue to grow, the fierce debate over whether, when and how to “reopen” the U.S. economy is starting to boil over. Many of President Trump’s allies are apparently so eager for people to return to work that they are willing to […]

Mitt Romney has never missed an opportunity to be an opportunist. Romney the leveraged buyout pioneer took advantage of the U.S. tax code to pocket tens of millions of dollars from investments in companies that failed. Mitt the mythical Massachusetts moderate transformed himself into the "severely conservative" 2012 presidential nominee by turning his back on […]

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was back in the headlines this week--not for any particular wisdom regarding authoritarian regimes and movements she shared with the House Intelligence Committee, but for this: "I personally owe an apology to now-Senator Romney, because I think that we underestimated what was going on in Russia. I was on […]

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Mitt Romney made a not-so-bold promise about the stewardship he would provide for the American economy. "I can tell you," he guaranteed, "after a period of four years, by virtue of the policies we'd put in place, we'd get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent--perhaps a little […]

So, 13 months after Donald Trump took the oath of office, it's come to this for the Republican Party. Its putative leader used to be pro-choice. He routinely boasted about getting "everybody" insured, only to then promise to "kill" Obamacare. He not only reversed past positions at a rapid-fire rate, he lied to voters at […]

In his 2007 book The Assault on Reason, former Vice President Al Gore warned about what he saw as a dire threat to American democracy. "The 'well-informed citizenry,'" Gore fretted, "is in danger of becoming the 'well-amused audience.'" In a presentation on Super Tuesday 2008 ("That's Entertainment: Politics as Theater in Campaign '08"), I elaborated […]

The article below ("The Othering of the President") originally appeared on February 23, 2015 in response to Rudy Giuliani's obscene claim that "I do not believe that the president loves America." But with Donald Trump's presidential campaign trying replace its old Birther slander with a new one (that the Birther movement itself was started by […]

It was one of the defining moments of the 2012 presidential campaign. "Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917," Republican Mitt Romney charged during the third and final debate, adding, "Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947." President Obama responded with overwhelming […]

For the second straight week, Republican nominee Donald Trump has continued his much-hyped "outreach" effort to black voters. But as the recent polling suggests, Trump is failing to convince African-Americans that he will "build the future" of the Party of Lincoln "on his legacy." That's in large part because in words and in deeds, Donald […]