The reason presidents fail these days is that we want something that they can’t deliver. That’s because we can’t deliver it either. Living in a deeply polarized country, we desperately want a president who, to coin a phrase, can be a uniter and not a divider. But the country is divided. And it may be unreasonable to expect a mere president to change that. Via the New York Times.
On the other hand, Peter Beinart makes the case in the Atlantic that we should be prepared for an Obama boomlet.
In Sydney, a siege and a promise: #I’llRideWithYou. Via the New Yorker.
Byron York writes in the Washington Examiner that Congress could stop Obama’s immigration plan. He says the answer is right in the spending bill.
The question you’ve been asking yourself all day: Why do Republicans defend torture? Jonathan Chait has an answer in New York magazine.
You know who doesn’t seem to care much about the torture report? That’s right – most Americans.* Via the Washington Post.
*Then again, the poll never mentioned the word “torture,” failed to describe, much less detail, the CIA “methods” recently revealed in the Senate torture report and, although the survey authors put the questions in the context of fighting terrorism, they never mentioned that the CIA methods violated domestic and international human rights law. Survey in full here at Pew.
If you want to live longer, here’s the best medical advice you can get: You should make sure to be born white instead of black. Via Vox.
It’s not exactly a math test, but the Washington Post explains why Elizabeth Warren does not equal Ted Cruz.
[Photo by Neil Lee.]
