Reihan Salam: All Publications, Events and Press

The Right Role For Sarah Palin

Erin Drankoski — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:33:00 -0500

When Sarah Palin resigned on July 4th weekend, it certainly looked as though she had decided to abandon politics, or at the very least given up on running for president in 2012. And despite the saturation coverage of Palin's Going Rogue book tour, it's not obvious that she hasn't. As Republican political strategist Patrick Ruffini has observed, a Palin presidential run would have profited from releasing the book a year from now, maximizing media exposure in the crucial year before Iowa. Granted, John McCain also capitalized on his political

Where Stupak Leads

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:24:00 -0500

Last week, the debate over the Democratic health reform effort took a brief and unexpected philosophical turn. Bart Stupak, a pro-labor Catholic Democrat representing Michigan's 1st congressional district, managed to pass the Stupak amendment as part of the House health bill. Sensing that an insurrection among anti-abortion Democrats threatened to derail the legislation, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who ardently opposes restrictions on abortion, allowed Stupak to offer the amendment, and it passed by a wide margin thanks to Republican votes.

China's Race Problem

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:44:00 -0500

Is racism universal? Since the end of the colonial era, the rising powers of the developing world have been quick to condemn Western racism. Ethnocentrism and color prejudice can be found in virtually all human societies, going back centuries if not thousands of years.

The Collateral Damage to Muslims

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:56:00 -0500

Is Iraq Slipping Away?

Erin Drankoski — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:53:00 -0400

America's Worst Governor?

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:42:00 -0400

Charlie Crist is an extraordinarily gifted politician, known for his unpretentious and warm demeanor. He might also be America's worst governor. Given that there is a great deal of competition for this dubious honor, that's saying rather a lot.

After Obama | Washington Post

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:20:00 -0400

Every Wednesday, Reihan Salam examines the ideological struggle for the future of American conservatism and how to revitalize the Republican party. ...

Drill Gas Here, Drill Gas Now

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:42:00 -0400

While environmentalists are keen to fight climate change by reducing carbon emissions, rank-and-file voters seem more taken by the promise of energy independence. Last year, Republicans energized the conservative base by promising to "drill here, drill now," a rallying cry that promised to exploit domestic energy reserves to reduce America's reliance on foreign oil. Energy experts insisted, however, that because oil is a global commodity, exploiting offshore oil would have a trivial impact on our exposure to geopolitical instability in

The Taliban-Al Qaeda Connection

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:07:00 -0400

The case of Najibullah Zazi serves as a grim reminder that al Qaeda continues to plan deadly attacks against American civilians. Zazi traveled to Pakistan's rugged borderlands, where he connected with al Qaeda operatives who provided him with explosives training in the summer of 2008. The next year, a few months after he had returned home to the United States, Zazi began gathering explosive materials to launch an attack, one that could have killed dozens. Yet it's worth keeping in mind that this plot, however dastardly, pales in

Surviving Obama (Oct 14) | Washington Post

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:22:00 -0400

Every Wednesday, Reihan Salam examines the ideological struggle for the future of American conservatism and how to revitalize the Republican party. ...

The Education Revolution

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:43:00 -0400

If you believe the nightmarish forecasts, the American labor market will take a decade to return to full employment. That means that kids in high school and middle school are going to walk directly into an economic buzz-saw by the time they graduate, and that's assuming, rather wishfully, that all of them will indeed graduate. Roughly half of these children are college-bound, which means that they will have the time and resources to gain some valuable and not-so-valuable skills.

Why We Must Stay

Erin Drankoski — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:59:00 -0400

In an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August, President Obama made an impassioned case for the American military effort in Afghanistan. "If left unchecked," Obama said, "the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans." Indeed, he went so far as to call the war in Afghanistan a "war of necessity," a term one normally reserves for repelling a foreign invasion or foiling an imminent attack. One of the vitally important points the president made was that just as the

Surviving Obama | Washington Post

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:22:00 -0400

Every Wednesday (on WashingtonPost.com), Reihan Salam examines the ideological struggle for the future of American conservatism and how to revitalize the Republican party. ...

America Is Getting Hustled

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:36:00 -0400

After the revelation of Iran's previously secret uranium-enrichment near facility Qom, home to the country's clerical elite, Barack Obama, flanked by Gordon Brown and the hawkish Nicolas Sarkozy, eloquently condemned Iran for its contemptuous disregard for international law. The visuals were powerful: while the Bush administration had been condemned for its unilateralism, here was President Obama standing with the leaders of America's allies, all of them offering a single forceful message. It didn't hurt that Obama towered over the perpetually

The Death of Conservatism | Slate

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:31:00 -0400

A book conversation, with Reihan Salam and Sam Tanenhaus, on The Death of Conservatism ...

Can He Wow the World Again?

Erin Drankoski — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:14:00 -0400

President Obama's address to the United Nations General Assembly neatly captured his strengths and weaknesses, from his admirable focus on the difficulties involved in meeting global challenges to his easy solipsism. On Tuesday, he delivered a widely praised address on climate change, one that offered a message that was hopeful and urgent in equal measure. In one memorable passage, the president noted the United States "has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our

The New Racism

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:23:00 -0400

During a wide-ranging interview with John King of CNN, President Barack Obama distanced himself from former President Jimmy Carter's contention that the recent surge of opposition to big government is motivated by racism. Rather, the president observed that the debate over the size and scope of the federal government has been ferocious since the days of Andrew Jackson. And to his credit, he noted that harsh language has been used not just to condemn the partisans of government expansion, like FDR, who was also derided as a socialist,

The First Neocon

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:16:00 -0400

In Memoirs of a Trotskyist, Irving Kristol, one of the most daring and provocative American intellectuals of the 20th century, recounted his years as a young radical at New York's City College. What he recalled most vividly weren't the seminars and lectures that made up his formal education, but rather the mostly playful--but occasionally very heated-arguments that took place among friends in Alcove No. 1, a small corner of the dark and dank college cafeteria that was home to the anti-Stalinist left.

Don't Short the Surge

Erin Drankoski — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:31:00 -0400

One of the many ironies of this political moment is that some of President Obama's worst enemies are poised to become his best friends. Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, is widely credited with crafting the strategy that defeated Bill Clinton's 1993 healthcare overhaul. This time around, Kristol has been an equally fierce critic of Democratic health-reform proposals. But as one of the founders of the Foreign Policy Initiative, successor to the pro-war Project for the New American Century, he has also worked to persuade Republicans to

A Lehman Anniversary Diavlog | Foreign Policy

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:24:00 -0400