The New Republic

In November 2002, Ben Bernanke apologized--for the Fed's role in causing the Great Depression of the 1930s. "I would like to say to Milton [Friedman] and Anna [Schwartz]: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again" (conclusion of this speech). READ MORE >>

Al Kamen: READ MORE >>

Good news: Pakistanis' views on the Taliban have shifted dramatically in the past year, with 70 percent now opposing the militants, according to a new [Pew Global Attitudes] poll. That's great! USA! USA! Oh, wait--bad news: The United States doesn't fare well either, with 64 percent of Pakistanis seeing Washington as an enemy. READ MORE >>

In 1993 and 1994, Bob Dole masterfully used the chimera of bipartisanship to defeat health care reform. While opposing President Clinton's reform plan, he co-sponsored his own alternative that he used to paint Clinton as too liberal. When Clinton's planfinally died, Dole renounced support for his own plan, so that nothing at all happened. READ MORE >>

Defending The Nerds: Are The Best And Brightest Really All That Bad? by Benjamin Wallace-Wells In This Economy, Should Health Care And Climate Change Be On The Backburner? by William Galston READ MORE >>

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My father is an ex-Navy man. So it was perhaps to be expected that, growing up, my sister and I Iearned pretty much everything we needed to know about profanity from watching Dad injure himself while performing household chores. (The day he inadvertently jabbed a pair of needle-nose pliars up his nostril was especially educational.)    READ MORE >>

Ed Kilgore is mischaracterizing what I wrote yesterday when I criticized his postulation that it is racism and hatred of poor people motivating (some) critics of the president's health care plan--just like it's unspoken bigotry that leads certain Republi READ MORE >>

Simon Johnson, professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and co-founder of BaselineScenario.com, argues that if Obama does not sell his plan to overhaul financial regulations to the public, all of our futures will be at risk. READ MORE >>

In a NYT op-ed bemoaning the trivialization and sexism still plaguing our Secretary of State, Judith Warner references the ill-conceived joke from the WaPo's now-defunct "Mouthpiece Theater" that, basically, called Hillary a bitch. (Full disclosure: I'm close friends with the often inflammatory Mr. Milbank.) READ MORE >>