Latest Work
Here are my latest pieces, from 2008-2010, added as published. Eventually these will be moved to the thematic sections on this site or to my archives offline.
Grand Strategic Failure: Why Charles Hill’s new book is as suspect as his entire career Foreign Policy, August 13, 2010. This emblematic story of the crisis in American leadership training and liberal education is extended in What Politics Does to History, TPMCafe, August 13, 2010. These two long pieces should be read together.
Power and Appeasement: Donald Kagan and Paul Kennedy on opposite sides, and a third Yale professor, Jonathan Schell, looks beyond. The Guardian, August 12, 2010. (This was also posted in TPMCafe the next day.)
McChrystal’s Master-Stroke? What Obama May Lose by Dismissing Him, TPMCafe, June 24, 2010 Why Conservatives Saw Dangers in McChrystal that Some Neo-cons Didn’t. TPMCafe, June 22, 2010
All Israel, All the Time? TPMCafe, June 13, 2010 From Beit Shemesh, A Cry to American Jews, TPMCafe, June 4, 2010 Is Israel Drifting Toward Civil War? TPMCafe, May 31, 2010
How and How Not to Engage Liberalism and Islam, TPMCafe, May 26, 2010
Peter Beinart Unbound, and Israel in the Dock, TPMCafe, May 19, 2010. There are no un-thankless ways to write about Israel and its apologists or its scourges, but here goes….
[INTERLUDE: A group of colums on Israel's prospects during and since the 2008-09 Gaza war. ISRAEL'S TRAGEDY, AMERICAN NEO -CONSERVATIVES' FOLLY. A collection of nine columns, written early in 2009, during the Gaza War and amid neo-conservative re-positionings on American conservatism.]
John Lindsay, Yale, and Liberal Leaders’ American Dilemma, TPMCafe, May 6, 2010. These reflections are prompted by a PBS documentary, “Fun City Revisited: The Lindsay Years,” in which I also make a number of additional observations about Lindsay’s leadership style. It’s linked in this TPM piece.
Jim Sleeper on PBS discussing John Lindsay, May 6, in WNET’s hour-long documentary, “Fun City Revisted: The Lindsay Years”
New York Justice Goes National, TPMCafe, May 11, 2010. In nominating Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, Barack Obama seems on the verge of completing New York City’s domination of the federal justice system. There are only a couple of things he’s left out.
Reflecting about race and the left; NPR Interview, April 15, 2010, The Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC, on the 20th anniversary of my The Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York. This interview lasts about 20 min.
Liberal Racism and Power at the New York Times, TPMCafe, April 7, 2010. Beware Racial Conspiracy Mongers — On Both Sides, TPMCafe, April 5, 2010 Both The New Republic and The Nation got dragged into this one, and both got a bit over-excited — as I had reason to know. Obama to Liberals: Learn to Let Race Go, TPMCafe, March 28, 2010. Well-meaning, impassioned efforts by liberals (from Jimmy Carter to Frank Rich) to broad-brush the virulent opposition to health-care reform as “racist” are so stupid strategically that they wind up being wrong morally, as well — not because racism isn’t real but because it distracts us from deeper, more powerful currents driving the protests.
Religion in Politics? Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It, TPMCafe, March 26, 201o. Religion is often indispensable to civic insurgencies but odious and oppressive when it rules.
What David Brooks’ Editors and Producers Keep Missing, TPMCafe, March 16, 2010
How the Power Elite Gets its Power, TPMCafe, Feb 19, 2010.
The Congressional Black Corrupticus, Yet Again. TPMCafe, February 13, 2010. The Congressional Black Caucus’ corruption is especially revealing because it’s like the rest of Congress’ corruption — only more so, owing to the unique history it invokes to cloak its deals.
What Tea Party Patriots See — and What They Don’t, TPMCafe, February 9, 2010 They protest that government is coddling incompetent and dishonest corporations with taxpayers’ money, but they don’t take strong stands against those corporations.
This Just in, on Earmarks and Paralysis, TPMCafe, February 8, 2010
State of the Union Speech: Pearls Before Swine, TPMCafe, January 27, 2010
Currents and Undercurrents in the Supreme Court’s Campaign-Finance Coup, TPMCafe, Jan. 22, 2010. To really understand how shoddy this ruling is, note what some Justices actually said about it six months before they delivered it. The day after writing this, I did a quick follow up, “More Obfuscation About Corporate ‘Speech’”, prompted in part by a lazy piece in the New York Times. Don’t Blame Massachusetts.
Two short, columns, TPMCafe, Jan. 18, 2010, show why undercurrents driving the the upset election in Massachusetts of Scott Brown to replace Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate are driving a new “American Dilemma.”
Whose Voodo? Not Haiti’s, TPMCafe, January 15, 2010. The Haitian earthquake points up the dangers of carrying cultural explanations of disaster quite as far as David Brooks.
A New Year, a New ‘Liberation’ Strategy for Israel-Palestine, TPMCafe, Jan. 1, 2010. Well, not so new, but newly evident and irresistible. It’s Neo-conukah!, TPMCafe, Dec. 12, 09. Once again, neo-cons are trying to find in Judaism too many precedents and justifications for their national-security-state strategies.
Commander in What, Again?TPMCafe, Dec. 11, 09. Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech was deft, but it still begged a few too many questions, posed by his predecessor and still unresolved, about the proper scope of presidential power. Obama’s presidency after his West Point speech on Afghanistan. TPMCafe, Dec. 2, 09. The problem isn’t really his presidency, its what others are doing to the republic.
The Congressional Black Corrupticus Strikes Again. TPMCafe, Dec. 2, 09. A quick study in ethno-racial mis-bonding. Be sure to read my responses to some of the posted comments.
Commander-in-What? TPMCafe, Dec. 2, 2009. The problem behind Obama’s West Point speech about his Afghanistan strategy. How Afghanistan’s May Seal Our Own, TPMCafe, November 12, 2009. This is a brief intro to an important Dissent magazine essay, “Stanley McChrystal’s War on Poverty,” in which I explain why those who are demanding that the U.S. spread democracy while defeating the Taliban are the same people who have spent a decade seriously damaging this country’s capacity to do either.
Do Joe Lieberman and David Brooks Know What Time it Is? The Dangers of Selective Silence, TPMCafe, November 10, 2009. Lieberman and Brooks are right to condemn politically correct apologetics for Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, who massacred soldiers at Fort Hood. But they’re right the way a stopped clock is right twice a day, and their neglect of the other times is a problem worth probing. Here He Goes Again, TPMCafe, October 3o, 2009. A Halloween post that’s dead serious about NY Times columnist David Brooks as he ratchets up another doomed war scenario. Here I link two earlier TPM posts that have broadened and substantiated my indictment of this charming but serpentine writer, who, as I put it gently in this Halloween column, “sucks the blood of the American republic and thinks he’s in love.”
Obama’s Civil Religion — And Ours, TPMCafe, October 27, 2009. The President is one part Harvard neo-liberal, one part Chicago pol, and one part legatee and leader of an American civil religion carried forward by the civil-rights movement from earlier Puritan and Hebraic currents that joined Christian personal witness to collective history making as exemplified in the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt. This TPM post introduces my 6000-word assessment, in the World Affairs Journal, of how those Puritan and Hebrew strands shaped the early American republic and still drive its character and purposes in ways we have forgotten and miscarried.
What ‘Liberal’ Academy? The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 18, 2009, and TPMCafe, October 21, 2009. I was provoked by an exchange in The Chronicle among Mark Lilla, Alan Wolfe, and Bruce L. R. Smith about “liberal” bias against conservative scholars in universities that I thought missed the elephant in the room: The real cause of intellectual and cultural conformity on many leafy campuses isn’t leftists or liberals, silly though their priorities and policies have often been, but the swift market currents driving students and administrators, as well as professors themselves. The Chronicle published a letter from me, and the TPM post gives it some context.
Can Anything Change the Conversation? Maybe This Book Can. TPMCafe, Monday, Sept. 21, 2009. Irving Kristol’s bad faith vs. Nicholas Thompson’s civic-republican faith.
Why Obama is Calm While Jimmy Carter is Alarmed about racism in conservative protests. The Washington Post, Sunday, Sept. 20. , 2009. Obama knows that the summer’s rage wasn’t driven mainly by racism. That doesn’t mean, though, that he and liberals are offering good responses to the anger. This Anger Isn’t Just Black and White, Washington Post, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009. When Jimmy Carter said that most of the “tea party”-style rage at Obama is racist, I felt it necessary to emphasize that there’s a lot more to it than that. The Washington Post ran this on the front page of its “Outlook” section and had an on-line chat in which readers and I went back and forth on the claim.
Has the New York Times Book Review Come to Its Senses? TPMCafe, Sept. 12, 2009. Leon Wieseltier’s put-down of Norman Podhoretz in the Book Review isn’t as reassuring as it may seem.
Deliberating on Corporate “Speech,” the Supreme Court Delivered Only a Laugh a Minute. TPMCafe, Sept. 9, 2oo9. Justice is properly blind, but in this case the conservative Justices were just opportunistic. Corporate ‘Free Speech’? Since When?, Boston Globe, Sept. 5, 2009. In 700 words, my civic-republican case for why the Supreme Court shouldn’t void restraints on corporate influence in election. This got a lot of responses, which I characterized a day later in Watch Out for Wednesday’s Other Donnybrook, another warning about the Court’s intentions.
Why Are Some Jews Like Norman Podhoretz? Bookforum, Sept.-Oct., 2009. In Why Are Jews Liberals?, Norman Podhoretz unintentionally shows why some Jews are neo-conservatives and why, these days, a few liberals are former neo-cons who’ve been mugged by reality.
After the Finger-pointing, a Look Back - And Ahead, TPMCafe, August 25, 2009. Town-hall and “tea party” craziness like what we saw this summer isn’t exclusive to the right, as some commentators have suggested. Candor about its parallels on the left actually makes some important differences clearer.
Gail Collins Tells David Brooks Where to Go, TPMCafe, August 13, 2009. One Times columnist tells another to stop pretending to have undertaken a post-partisan makeover and to return to help his Republican Party.
An ‘Imperturbably Valiant’ Lawyer, TPMCafe, July 29, 2009. Nancy Wechsler (1916-2009) balanced civic-republican principle and progressive conviction.
Obama’s response to the Gates-Crowley incident reminds us that ultimately — and especially in achieving racial justice – this is a country, not a courtroom. TPMCafe, July 25, 2009. In Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s racially charged fracas with a Cambridge cop, both men were wrong, but one was wronger. TPMCafe, July 24, 2009
Annals of Protest: A Jeremiah Without a God? TPMCafe, July 17, 2009. A commentator scourges Michael Jackson’s weird afterlife, and maybe himself.
David’s DonnyBrooks, on You Tube, TPMCafe, July 10. A pundit’s flame-out, on camera.
Who Needs the NY Times? We All Do. Still. TPMCafe, July 8, 2009 Joe “Loose Lips” Biden Strikes Again, TPMCafe, July 5, 2009. Just when Obama’s “pitch-perfect” responses to the political crisis in Iran were destabilizing the regime, Biden’s comment may have given it a new lease on life.
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THREE COLUMNS ON THE UPRISING AGAINST IRAN’S RIGGED ELECTION
What Happened in Tehran Couldn’t Happen Here… Right? TPMCafe, June 26, 2009. The experience of a former student of mine there during the crackdown suggests otherwise. Now, the Crackdown, TPMCafe, June 19, 2009. With a short clip of Ayatollah Khamenei’s supporters cheering his speech declaring demonstrations off limits. Not only did that up the ante for the brave Iranian demonstrators; it made things difficult for American neocons, who actually like having the current regime around as a foil but have to restrain their own rhetoric by making the U.S. a foil for the mullahs. What the Next 24 hrs in Tehran Will Tell, TPMCafe, Wed., June 17, 2009. A former student of mine, “on the ground” in Tehran on the eve of what may be “the” big, decisive demonstration — or of what may be a decisive crackdown — reports that many Iranians who voted freely for Ahmadenijad are appalled by the government’s response and shifting toward opposition. Will it matter? ____________________________________________________________
Three More Advantages to Obama’s Cairo speech, TPMCafe, June 4, 2009. He vindicates his middle name; he flushes out ideologues on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict; and he says things about intelligent non-violence that go a big step beyond bromides. Leads for People Debating Judge Sotomayor’s Nomination, TPM Cafe, May 31, 2009
Yale’s student civic culture, 1969 and 2009, Yale Daily News, April 30, 2009. A Commencement-season reminiscence suggests that certain things haven’t changed. You might be surprised at what things they are.
Coercive Non-Violence Isn’t What You May Think, TPMCafe, April 1, 2009. A follow-up to “A Quiet ‘Must’ Read,” this explains why it’s neither foolish nor manipulative to explore and champion non-violent resistance in the West Bank and elsewhere against what seem to be insuperable odds. The precedents are compelling — and the alternatives unworkable. A Quiet ‘Must’ Read for a Dark Moment, TPMCafe, April 1, 2009. A stunning report, in an unlikely place, advances my thinking in “Israel’s Tragedy, American Neo-Cons’ Folly,” below. Here I commend Gersom Gorenberg’s “The Missing Mahatma: Searching for a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King in the West Bank.”
That Strange New Voice at Times Op Ed, TPMCafe, March 13, 2009. The conservative Catholic Ross Douthat, 29, will pose left-liberal readers a deeper challenge than his neo-conservative predecessors have done, because he has beliefs, while they only have insecurities mascarading as insights.
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FOUR COLUMNS ON THE PERSISTENT NEO-CON MALADY
Neo-cons, Rising Again? TPMCafe, Feb. 18, 2009. A New York Times Book Review editor can’t quite get over his section’s infatuation with them. U.S. Neocons Jump the Conservative Ship, openDemocracy, Feb. 10, 2009. The predicament of Sam Tanenhaus reminds us that conservatism’s original sin lies not in its bombastic neo-conservative interlopers but in the tragic nature of conservatism itself. The Pity of It All, TPMCafe, Feb. 10, 2009. I’m not quite done with Sam Tanenhaus, David Brooks, David Frum, William Kristol, and other neo-cons whose recent efforts to cleanse themselves and be thought well of leave too many wrongs unacknowledged and questions unanswered. Half-Right, Commonweal, Feb. 13, 2009. A review of Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam’s Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream. American Conservatism’s Original Sin is Confessed! TPMCafe, Feb 7, 2009. Finallly, Sam Tanenhaus comes out with it — on his third try. ______________________________________________________________________________________________
Procrastination or Journalism: Is There a Difference? TPMCafe, Feb. 7, 2009.
Status/Self-Esteem Disequilibrium Strikes Again, TPMCafe, Feb. 3, 2009. You’ve never heard of it? Neither had I until I made it up to parody David Brooks’ Status/Income Disequilibrium on my way to explaining why his punditry has become as delusional and destructive as Bernard Madoff’s ponzi-scheme investing.
Israel’s Only Way Out — and Michael Walzer’s, TPMCafe, Jan. 30, 2009. Coming after five columns I posted during the Gaza War, this one draws my arguments together and reckons briefly with a bad essay on the conflict by the political philosopher Michael Walzer and links a good one by the political philosopher Seyla Benhabib.
Bubbles We Still Need to Burst, TPMCafe, Jan 23, 2009. An invaluable essay by the writer Jonathan Schell shows how to get beyond partisan polemics and moralizing to advance a progressive American agenda.
To Help the Minority, Reach For the Majority, TPMCafe, Jan. 20, 2009. A response to (really an agreement with) Orlando Patterson on racial inequality in America. Part of an Inauguration-week symposium on a special issue of Democracy Journal, in cooperation with TPM.
Why It’s “I, Barack Hussein Obama, TPMCafe, Jan. 20, 2009. On the morning of the highest symbolic moment in Obama’s ascent to the White House, I reviewed the advantages of his middle name.
U.K., U.S. Drop Their (and Israel’s) Grand Strategy, TPMCafe, Jan. 19, 2009. So doing, they vindicate Hannah Arendt’s warning to Zionists in 1944 that instead of trying to play with the big powers, they should reach out more credibly to neighbors. That’s not naive even now. How (and How Not) to Assess Israel’s Moral Self-Destruction in Gaza, TPMCafe, Jan. 15, 2009. An assessment of how four very different veteran participants and observers in political and military conflict — Chris Hedges, Jeffrey Goldberg, Avraham Burg, and Jonathan Schell — deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict during the Gaza war of early 2009. Hedge’s oblique response prompted me to reply that “Truth Digging Requires Fuller Reports, Not Sermons,” on Jan. 21.
It’s Time for an Orwell in Gaza, TPMCafe, Jan. 12, 2009. Discovering that freedom in Spain had more cruel enemies than the one everyone thought it did, he told his readers some things they didn’t want to know. This piece prompted a 20-minute interview with WNPR’s Brian Lehrer on Jan. 15. A Noteworthy Anniversary at the NY Times, TPMCafe, Jan. 12, 2009.
William Kristol’s year-long run on the newspaper’s op-ed page makes me wonder why American newspaper opinion pages are so bad. Some of the reasons aren’t journalists’ fault; but editors react in ways that make newspapers deserve their decline.
How Dysfunctional is Israel?, TPMCafe, Jan. 9, 2008. It’s a lot more dysfunctional than its apologists think, but it’s less than more than a few of its critics. Can There Be Politics in Tragedy? or in Gaza?, TPMCafe, Jan. 5, 2009. Written during Israel’s ground war.
Look Who Loves Ivy Neoliberals Now!, TPMCafe, Nov. 21, 2008. Like most conservatives, David Brooks used to lampoon them. Then he discovered that the reality at Yale and Harvard is more complex and, in some ways, more impressive. But don’t count on him to keep saying so.
How Summers at Treasury Would Beggar the Republic, TPMCafe, Nov. 11, 2008. The former Harvard president’s hyper-neoliberalism would subvert civic-republican virtue, that’s how. We need deeper reform than he would bring. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ JIM SLEEPER’S OBAMA CHRONICLES. These were posted from the morning after the New Hampshire primary in January, 2008 through Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, tracing the evolution of my and others’ thinking about Obama’s candidacy and his handling of challenges involving race, elitism, exoticism, economic disorientation, campaigning style, and leadership. Note the columns on racial identity, including assessments of what other commentators, from Shelby Steele (1 column) and Sean Wilentz (2 columns) to Obama’s leftist critics, were saying. Note also the columns also on Louis Farrakhan, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s comment on whites who “cling to guns and God,” and his race speech in Philadelphia. Also included are some assessments of my columns that were posted in the New York Times “Opinionator,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, by the neo-conservative Obama-basher Daniel Pipes, and others. There are a few columns on Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, Joe Biden, and the “Billary Clinton” of the campaign season. Some of these Obama columns are also below this line, date by date, running back from the week after his birthday. But other, unrelated columns are below, as well. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What I’m Learning (Slowly) From Obama, TPMCafe, Nov. 11, 2008. A columnist’s confessions. “I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear….” TPMCafe, Nov. 9, 2008. Why he should use his middle name at the inauguration, and how his full name vindicates what is still exceptional about America. A similar version ran in the Yale Daily News on November 14. Don’t Gloat — Organize. Dissent, Nov. 6. Part of a special issue of pieces, “The Day After,” by Dissent editors, including Michael Walzer, on the election. Burdens of History, Reconciliation, and Fatality. TPMCafe, Nov. 5, 2008 A victory night reflection on what we and Obama face — and on why he seems so deeply well equipped to face it. Thoughts on Casting a Vote in New York City at 6 am, TPMCafe, Nov. 4, 2008 How to Gauge Racism in This Election, TPMCafe, Oct. 28, 2008. Don’t ask Jack Shafer, Slate’s blowhard press critic, who thinks that liberals, enraptured by Obama, are just getting jittery. A viral e-mail I got clears things up. My Hidden Stake in an Obama Win, TPMCafe, Oct. 27, 2008. Whether or not it succeeds on November 4, Obama’s candidacy has come to represent and confirm positions I’ve taken on racial politics for years. Things We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Race, Dissent, Oct. 27, 2008. Eight days before election, everyone is talking about whether “the Bradley effect” will sink Obama’s apparent lead. A ‘Sad’ Reckoning That Isn’t, TPMCafe, October 26, 2008. How not to think of McCain nine days before the election. The Neo-con Merry-Go-Round Runs Down…., TPMCafe, October 17, 2008. Tortured defections from McCain tell the tale. A Pundit’s Day of Reckoning — And Ours, TPMCafe, October 14, 2008. As McCain’s campaign became increasingly embarrassing, this column predicted well how NY Times columnist David Brooks, formerly a sinuous McCain supporter, would ride out the election. A Pundit Fails the Republic, TPM Cafe, October 13, 14, 2008. As the presidential election approached, David Brooks, liberal editors’ favorite conservative, parried and then ducked the truth that John McCain had proven himself unstable and incompetent as commander-in-chief of his own campaign. Serious conservatives such as Christopher Buckley told it like it is. Don’t Just Hold Your Nose, TPMCafe, October 2, 2008. Now that the Senate has sweetened and porked up the bailout, it will pass, but will damage republican principles even more than the earlier version did. Senators, Beware! TPMCafe, October 1, 2008. Hours before the Senate’s scheduled vote on a bailout package, reponses from sober bankers, professors, and policy analysts to my column of last night were surprising and seemed to warrant another column. Why a Second Bailout Bill Should Fail, TPMCafe, Sept. 30, 2008. Not that I expected it to…. John Quixote, Sarah Panza, and the Windmills of 2008, TPMCafe, Sept. 9, 2008. How McCain and Palin are blaming the wrong elites in this election. “Yoo Es Ay! Yoo Es Ay!” TPMCafe, September 6, 2008. The Republican tragedy in John McCain’s acceptance speech. What Sarah Palin Offered in her Convention Debut — and What it May Cost, TPMCafe, September 4, 2008 Another One Bites the Dust, TPMCafe, August 28, 2008. Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, a Hillary Clinton dead-ender, had to be ushered off the stage the night that Bill Clinton made clear that Barack Obama is ready to lead. The Neo-con on Your Shoulder, TPMCafe, August 26, 2008. Why commentator David Brooks has become the Vladimir Posner of American neo-conservatism, especially during presidential elections. What Biden Brings, TPMCafe, August 23, 2008. This was written just before Obama’s introduction of Biden and the latter’s speech in Springfield, which fulfilled my anticipations here. Now the other shoe will drop, and Biden will put his foot in his mouth a few times this fall. But he’s a great choice, all things considered, even if he’s not the answer to the fundamental challenges I raised in the column before this one. It Won’t be Obama’s Veep Who Saves Him, TPMCafe, August 22, 2008. Written the day before Obama announced his choice of running mate, this piece went looking for what seemed the missing fire in his belly. Has Obama the courage of black voters’ convictions? TPMCafe, August 8, 2008. A congressional election in Memphis was a win-win-win opportunity for Obama to endorse the white incumbent, against a black challenger — and in a majority-black district! But he didn’t do it. This is also a case study of where 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act went wrong. Intellectual Usury Feels Good, at First, TPMCafe, July 20, 2008. Punditry, perversity, and the foreclosure crisis. Changing the Debate — For Real, TPMCafe, July 18, 2008. This continues the arguments of the previous post, focusing somewhat on the deep and pervasive taboos against criticizing corporate capitalism and our two-party system. I see Republicans as Whigs, circa 1858, but, so far, there is no credible leadership pointing beyond both parties, unless Obama can actually do it. So Near, and Yet so Far, TPMCafe, July 16, 2008. Two young conservative writers think that Republicans can earn the trust and support of American workers by changing their philosophy and governance. I dout it, and I ask, why the crises of capital that are converging on working people, especially, during Bush’s final months don’t discredit both parties and justify a new alignment that transcend both — not in this November’s election, which we all hope will produce the next Roosevelt, but beyond it. Conservatives’ Conundrum — and Ours, TPMCafe, June 18, 2008. What’s gotten into George Packer? His account of “The Fall of Conservatism” in the May 26 New Yorker shows mainly how the chattering classes, liberal as well as conservative, avoid reckoning our civic-republican decline. Obama: Neoliberal or Civic Republican? TPMCafe, June 13, 2008. He’s really a bit of both, I argue, and he has the capacity to vindicate the Republic against the worst of global capitalism. Whether he will depends on whether our national economic and social crises deepen — and on what people seem ready to hear. Obama in the Straits, TPMCafe, June 5, 2008. As Obama claimed the Democratic nomination after the last primaries, a meditation from abroad on the racial dimension of the challenge and the opportunity his candidacy has put before the country and the world. Obama in the Wilderness. TPMCafe, April 29, 2008. As Obama staggered under the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s preening shortly before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, some historical and religious perspective. A Literary Prophet’s Bad Faith: TPMCafe, April 28, 2008. This assessment of Leon Wieseltier’s assault on Martin Amis book about 9/11 in the New York Times Book Review shows not ony that it takes one to know one but also that envy and rivalry here are compounded by bad faith. Obama’s Way Out of the Race Trap, TPMCafe, April 23, 2008. After losing the Pennsylvania primary, Obama had to re-connect with working-class whites. I suggested that calling for class-based affirmative action would turn a lot of heads and gain a lot of ground electorally and for social justice. How Republicans Gamed the Pennsylvania Primary, TPMCafe, April 22, 2008 The Ur-Story Behind Obama’s ‘Cling’ Gaffe in PA, TPMCafe, April 16, 2008. His problem with working-class whites is deep, though not his fault. Why Obama’s Leftist Critics Are Sputtering,TPMCafe April 3, 2008. Obama’s racial wisdom vs. holdouts left and right, TPMCafe, April 1, 2008. Both conservative black writers like Shelby Steele and many leftists academics are misjudging his campaign and his motives. The Campaign We Really Need, TPMCafe, March 28, 2008. A clarification concerning the column just below this one. Billary’s One-Two Punch Has Changed the Game, TPMCafe, March 26, 2008. How the Clintons became a part of American democracy’s problem, not the solution. A few unfortunate phrasings left this one open to both innocent and willful misreadings. Please read it with “Obama, Crowds, and Power,” here below, and with “The Campaign We Really Need,” above. In Philadelphia, Obama’s Historic Challenge, TPMCafe, March 18, 2008. And, in Brooklyn, a lit of history behind controversies like the one for Obama’s Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Spitzer’s Non-Prosecution, as Perfect as a Perfect Crime, TPMCafe, March 12, 2008. That he self-destructed doesn’t leave his investigators with clean hands. The Spectre Haunting Spitzer’s Inquisitors, TPMCafe, March 11, 2008 How to Really Put that Farrakhan Endorsement to Rest TPMCafe, March 4, 2008. Why no “furor” over Farrakhan is likely to fly, even though some people will keep trying to launch it. Obama in a Valley of Insinuations and Lies: A desperate historian’s attack, TPMCafe, February 27, 2008. A real meltdow. Obama, Crowds, and Power, TPMCafe, February 13, 2008. Written just after Obama won the “Potomac Primaries, a cautionary note. Obama’s Biggest Weakness, TPMCafe, February 6, 2008. Written as returns from SuperTuesday were still coming in. Why it’ll be Obama vs.McCain, TPMcafe, February 2, 2008 Written just before SuperTuesday. Here I was behaving as an anthropologist more than a partisan. Many readers were not amused. David Brooks Scurries to McCain…. via Ted Kennedy! TPMCafe, January 30, 2008 Giuliani: Should We or Shouldn’t We? The Tallahassee Democrat, January 24, 2008. This in the daily newspaper of Florida’s capital just before Rudy Giuliani’s make-or-break bid for the Republican nomination in the state’s GOP Primary of January 29. It is adapted from my TPMcafe column of March, 2007, Why Rudy Giuliani Really Shouldn’t be President, If I Vote for Obama, It’ll Be Because… , TPMcafe, January 8, 2008, Posted the morning after his second-place finish in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary. Arthur Sulzberger’s Cracked Kristol Ball,<em> TPMcafe, January 6, 2008 and At Times Op Ed Page, the Plot Sickens TPMcafé, January 8, 2008. Why the New York Times’ “fickle and perverse” Times’ publisher made a leading neoconservative apparatchik an op-ed page columnist, and what that costs the paper’s credibility. Jury’s Out, Dissent, Winter, 2008, in a collection of short essays prompted by Tocqueville’s remarks on the jury system. Teaching Toughness,<em> Democracy Journal, Winter, 2008, review of Richard Kahlenberg’s Tough Liberal, a biography of teachers’ union president Albert Shanker