I’ve done my best to remain blissfully unaware of what it is Rep. Anthony Weiner did to get himself in political trouble. But I did note that as soon as the controversy, um, revealed itself, wise voices pointed out a simple way for Weiner to avoid having to leave office as a result — simply, refuse to resign.

LGBT Americans need support for our goals in both parties — but we don’t need advocates who give in just when victory is at hand. Viewing Patrick Murphy’s actions that way doesn’t require a partisan lens, but it does require removing the rose-colored glasses Jonathan Capehart wears as he types up another screed against people who embarrassed Team Obama.

I’ll leave it to the ethics wonks to decide whether Bauer can do the job — on ethics — well or not. But I am worried about what this says about the Administration’s focus on two other critically important functions. You see, when Bauer took over for Greg Craig, he was hailed as the kind of guy who could solve two problems Craig had failed to: judicial confirmations and closing Gitmo.

Autocrats, plutocrats, authoritarian ideologues and elitists of all stripes speak often of the people’s inability to govern themselves in a complex world that requires expertise – namely, the self-justifying expertise of the elite themselves. With surprising frankness, federal appeals court Judge Richard A. Posner summed up the elite’s paternalistic rationale: Few citizens have the formidable [...]

American democracy is a better mousetrap. Unfortunately, it was born in the Age of the Rat.

The Harold Ford Gaffe-tacular Bus just keeps on rolling.

Horseshoes, handgrenades — and Bloomberg campaigns? Does “close” count there, too? There’s no more lucrative campaign business to be in than Michael Bloomberg’s. The wee Mayor bestowed his every-four-year bonuses on campaign staffers after barely winning re-election in a squeaker that was expected to be a blowout: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent [...]

Five years ago, Thomas Frank wrote “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”, about how the GOP uses cultural populism to dupe rural working-class Americans into supporting pro-corporate policies that hasten their own economic demise. Today’s Obama/Rahm/Reid Democrats have turned that dynamic on its head, in more ways than one.

Matt Taibbi distills everything wrong with the Obama administration into two pithy sentences.

Now that at least four US Senators have put a hold on Ben Bernanke’s nomination to another term as the chair of the Federal Reserve, what is the process going forward?