The New Republic

A number of commentators have wondered why the rigging of LIBOR—the most widely used interest-rate in the world—hasn’t caused the uproar in this country that it’s provoked in Britain. The easy answer is that no U.S. bank has fessed up or been outed over its role in manipulating LIBOR, unlike in Britain, where Barclays has agreed to pay nearly half a billion dollars in fines and fired its top three executives.
 

Eleven years ago, I moved to Washington, D.C. to work on education. The liberal think tank that hired me focused on state issues, so I had nothing to do with the project that was consuming D.C. wonks at the time: a once-a-decade reauthorization of the mammoth federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act that would become the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Many public universities are suffering these days, wracked by budget cuts and struggling to bring enough students through the door. The University of Virginia isn’t one of them. A $5 billion endowment makes it the wealthiest public university, per capita, in the United States. Over 28,000 students applied for admission last year, a record high. The stately campus, a classic of red brick and white colonnade, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Thomas Jefferson’s founding spirit lives on.

Any taxonomy of first friends includes a few familiar types. There’s the amiable glad-hander destined for the outer Cabinet, like George W. Bush crony Don Evans. There’s the scheming, scandal-prone loyalist, like the Clinton hanger-on Harry Thomason, of Travelgate infamy. And then there’s the discreet consigliere who serves alternatively as fixer, sounding board, chief surrogate, and all-around defender of the faith.

When the New York Times reported last month that Wal-Mart had brazenly been bribing government officials in Mexico, the public responded with anger. According to the Washington Post, the outcry forced the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to slow its campaign to water down the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the 1977 law that bars payoffs to foreign decision-makers in exchange for business. The agitation also led to a 5 percent drop in the price of Wal-Mart stock.

In endorsing gay marriage, Barack Obama may have gotten ahead of public opinion on one of the most emotional issues in politics. And yet I can’t help thinking the move poses more risk for Mitt Romney. Am I crazy?

When Chen Guangcheng departed the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on Wednesday with apparent guarantees that he would lead a safe and productive life in his native land, it seemed that a major international crisis had been averted. In a startlingly short period of time, American and Chinese officials had hammered out an agreement that seemed to protect Chen, while preserving the bilateral relationship.

While $1,000 is nothing to scoff at, that’s only a “marginal increase” in what students currently owe, according to Jason Delisle, the director of the Federal Education Budget Project at the New America Foundation. According to a recent blog post by Delisle, a Stafford loan recipient who borrowed at the 3.4 percent interest rate, rather than the unsubsidized 6.8 percent rate—assuming he borrows the $5,550 maximum allowable amount as a third- or fourth-year student—would save a total of only $9 each month.

Though it was obvious to almost no one at the time, Thursday, April 5, may have certified a momentous change in contemporary politics. It was that day when Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus was quoted saying that the Republican “war on women,” a favorite liberal talking point, was a creation of Democrats and the media—no more reality-based than a Republican “war on caterpillars.” It probably wasn’t the most outlandish comment a GOP operative uttered that hour.