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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a contributing editor for the Prospect and the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.

Recent Articles

Republican Governors Push Federalization of Health Insurance.

Paul WaldmanMay 04, 2010

As you no doubt remember, much of the Affordable Care Act doesn't go into effect until 2014. In order to deal with the problem of people whose pre-existing conditions make insurance companies uninterested in giving them coverage, the act provides for the creation of high-risk pools for people who have been uninsured for over six months. States can establish the high-risk pools themselves (some states already have them), or they can let the federal government do it for them.

Singing Government's Praises.

Paul WaldmanMay 04, 2010

Over at her other home, Nancy Scola hips us to the results of the General Service Administration's video contest, which challenged Americans to create a video explaining the tsunami of awesomeness that is USA.gov. The site is GSA's portal into a range of government services. I know, I know -- you've been following this like a hawk. But in case you missed it, the winner was Peter Sullivan of Nashville, TN, who created this little ditty:

Child's Play

The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a California law restricting sales of violent video games to minors. But do the games harm kids?

Paul WaldmanMay 04, 2010
(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

In the late 1920s, as Americans became more and more concerned about the effect "talking pictures" might have on impressionable youth, the Payne Fund commissioned a series of studies on the subject. Movies, the researchers reported, put children into an emotional state, affected their sleep patterns, and probably contributed to juvenile delinquency. Among the alarming findings was that movie scenes with erotic themes seemed to make teenagers highly aroused. If you can believe it.

The Irony of Government Response to Disasters.

Paul WaldmanMay 03, 2010

There's a saying about the Republican Party: When they're out of power they argue that government is incompetent and corrupt, and then when they get power they set about to prove it. So failures of government like George W. Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina end up as lessons conservatives use to demonstrate not that we need more effective government but that government can't do anything right, and therefore ... we should elect more Republicans. It would be nice if this argument were met with howls of laughter, but it isn't, in large part because of what we tend to remember and what we tend to forget.

Please Remain Calm.

Paul WaldmanMay 03, 2010

For years, hawks have tried to convince us that terrorists, whether affiliated with al-Qaeda or anyone else, are brilliant masterminds of evil with infinite resources who could kill us all at any moment. But once again, we see that actual terrorists tend to be remarkably incompetent. Whoever the guy who tried to blow up an SUV in Times Square was (and there is no evidence yet that he was affiliated with anyone), his knowledge of explosives seems to be about that of the typical sixth-grader. Propane tanks, gasoline canisters, some non-explosive fertilizer (he apparently thought all fertilizer could explode), and firecrackers. Firecrackers?

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