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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

The Exchanges, the Mandate, and the Opt-Out.

Paul WaldmanDec 18, 2009

I’ll be saying more about this in my column on Tuesday, but as this new uprising among progressives like Howard Dean, Markos Moulitsas, and Keith Olbermann against the health-care bill has emerged, much of the fire has been directed at the individual mandate, the requirement for everyone to be insured. This often takes the form of “people are going to be forced to buy crappy insurance from evil insurance companies, and they won’t have a public option.” While the last part is true, and the second part (about the companies being evil) is basically true, there are elements to the first part that haven’t been addressed enough.

A Eulogy for the Public Option?

If health-care reform is to be a true progressive victory, there has to be room for future improvement.

Paul WaldmanDec 14, 2009
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., talks to reporters after leaving a Democratic caucus outside of the Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2009.(AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

The debate over health-care reform has been many things. It has been an education in both the intricacies of public policy and the ease with which fears can be activated and deception accomplished. It has been a dispiriting exercise in the limits and pathologies of American politics. And it has been a clash of values.

Because progressives think government can actually solve problems, they tend to have at least a partially technocratic view of policy. At least in theory, it should be possible to analyze a problem, assess various solutions to it, select the one most likely to solve it, and then implement that solution. Yet so often in our country, this self-evidently sensible approach ends up feeling like an unattainable ideal.

The Spending Wars

Wars cost money. They shouldn't be fought like they're free.

Paul WaldmanDec 07, 2009
Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)

When Rep. David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, recently proposed a surtax that would pay for the Afghanistan War, the collective response from most of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle was, "Are you nuts?" Nancy Pelosi quickly put the kibosh on Obey's "Share the Sacrifice Act," and all talk of funding the war has been banished. Meanwhile, Democrats have spent untold hours debating how to finance health-care reform, all while Republicans carp about how doing so is just too darn expensive, what with our ever-climbing deficit.

Ink-Stained Wretches Still Rule.

Paul WaldmanDec 04, 2009

In last month’s print issue, I wrote about the status of the newspaper syndicated columnist. Although it’s something of a complex picture, one of the conclusions you come to after examining the issue is that words on a page still have a power to bestow prestige that pixels on a screen lack. And in this age of ever-multiplying sources of news, information, and especially commentary, there are certain sinecures that bring unmatched influence.

The Persecution Complex of Sarah Palin

We all define ourselves by our enemies -- but it can be taken too far.

Paul WaldmanDec 01, 2009
We all define ourselves by our enemies -- but it can be taken too far.

While most politicians portray themselves as actors on a grand stage, others try harder to convince us that they are no better than we are, of middling station and modest self-regard. Republicans, always conscious of their party's white-shoe past and continued advocacy for the most fortunate, work particularly hard to communicate their folksy ordinariness. Some do it more convincingly than others, but all know it's a key ingredient of political success.

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