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Harold Meyerson

Harold Meyerson is the editor-at-large at The American Prospect and a columnist for The Washington Post.

Recent Articles

Sotto Voce

Harold MeyersonNov 06, 2003

If defeat is an orphan, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, for which the Senate appropriated $87 billion by a voice vote on Monday, should already go down in the loss column.

By rejecting the normal option of a recorded vote, America's senators decided that they did not want to be held individually accountable for our continuing presence in Iraq. That decision speaks far louder than their decision to actually fund our forces there and the Iraqi reconstruction.

What a difference a year makes! In the fall of 2002, the administration was positively gleeful about forcing Congress to go on record to authorize the coming war, and Democrats from swing states or districts knew they voted no at their own peril.

Benedict Arnold

Harold MeyersonOct 31, 2003

Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Washington today, and the difference between the two coasts, he'll find, is a good deal greater than that between fire and rain.

In California, the governor-elect is hailed as the Republicans' Great White (or, through the miracle of modern tanning, Orange) Hope. The first Republican gubernatorial candidate to proclaim himself pro-choice, anti-assault weapon and anti-homophobic, Schwarzenegger exhibited a crossover appeal that the GOP hadn't seen since Ronald Reagan invented the Reagan Democrats.

Battle Shy?

Harold MeyersonOct 24, 2003

In the spirit of Bertolt Brecht's maxim that an unpopular government would do well to elect a new people, Wesley Clark and Joe Lieberman have opted to bypass the Iowa primary. In Lieberman's case, this is probably a misdiagnosis: The Connecticut senator's problems may be less with Iowans than with Democrats, many of whom remain unswayed by the one candidate in the Democratic field whom they view as Bush-lite.

News Break

Harold MeyersonOct 16, 2003

Ever worry that millions of your fellow Americans are walking around knowing things that you don't? That your prospects for advancement may depend on your mastery of such arcana as who won the Iraqi war or where exactly Europe is?

Then don't watch Fox News. The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong.

Not Quite the Big One

Harold MeyersonOct 16, 2003

So, is it a wrap for progressive California?

According to many political observers, largely but not entirely on the right, the recall of Democrat Gray Davis and the election of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger mark a tectonic shift in California's political makeup. Over the past decade, as Latinos have voted in greater numbers and independents have trended Democratic, California has become just about the most reliably Democratic state in the nation. Since Davis became governor, at the prodding of a liberal-dominated legislature, he's signed landmark legislation establishing the state as a progressive beacon in a reactionary time.

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