Reihan Salam

Barack Obama's success was built in no small part on his ability to connect with the large and growing share of American voters who are college-educated, affluent, and have a fondness for arugula. Though Obama campaigned on raising taxes for families making more than $250,000 and cutting taxes for everyone else, he won a majority of voters in households earning $200,000 or more a year. To tax-loathing Republicans, this was a bit like plump chickens enthusiastically voting for Frank Perdue. So when House Democrats called for… more

Could Colin Powell run against Barack Obama as a Republican and win? The idea is more than a little fanciful. Alma Powell, Colin Powell's wife, has long opposed her husband's political forays. And of course a presidential campaign would be an ordeal for a man Powell's age, his robust health notwithstanding. It doesn't help that there is no clamor for a Powell presidential campaign.

...According to Reihan Salam, that might not be such an irredeemably bad thing. Salam, a journalist, commentator, and fellow at the New America Foundation, is one of a few conservative thinkers outlining what a new big-government conservatism might look like. He wrote a 2008 book, “Grand New Party,” with the columnist and blogger Ross Douthat, another rising star among young conservatives and the New York Times’ newest political columnist.

Barack Obama promised to transform health care and energy and America's role in the world. But what made tens of millions of Americans loopy with joy is the implicit promise that the young biracial senator would, through the power of his biography and charisma, heal racial divides. Throughout the presidential campaign and the brief but blissful post-inaugural delirium, countless trend pieces vividly described how blacks and whites were--gasp!--chatting amiably. They were giving each other Obama-inspired fist-bumps. Though there

Men represent 80 percent of job losses in the U.S. since last fall, according the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Traditionally male domains like construction and manufacturing were hit especially hard. Globally, public opinion singles out the macho culture of investment bankers for taking aggressive risks in the market.

Meanwhile, conventionally women's trades are gaining ground and in countries like Iceland and Lithuania women are gaining political power as well. No wonder some are naming this recession a he-cession.

It's been a rough recession for everyone, but especially rough for men.

Tally up the job losses since November, and 80 percent have fallen on American males. Factory jobs, gone. Hard hat construction jobs, gone. The very male cowboy culture of Wall Street, stumbled and humbled.

Reihan Salam looks at the fall and sees not just numbers. He sees the end of an era of macho jobs, macho risk-taking, the end of an age of macho culture ruling the economy.

It may be a quiet end, he says.… more

Of all the reactions to Sarah Palin's Friday morning press conference, the most common by far is bafflement followed by gentle and not-so-gentle mockery.

A generation of American activists was inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, which promised moral clarity amid the cruel compromises of the cold war. As Barack Obama vividly explained in Dreams from My Father, he was one of them. Given the foreign policy dilemmas that the president will face in the years ahead, it's worth thinking through the lessons of the South African transition.

Don't cry for Mark Sanford, beautiful Argentinean mistress. Cry for the would-be American revolutionaries Mark Sanford has let down.

After watching President Obama's latest press briefing, I've reached a troubling conclusion: For the good of America and the world, the man badly needs a regular supply of nicotine.

Though smoking will undoubtedly put the president at grave risk of developing a serious illness, it also will keep him from lashing out at innocent reporters and, behind closed doors, any number of worshipful subordinates.