Paul Waldman warns that centrists could be Obama's most troubling political opponents:
[T]he people we should really worry about are the "centrists," that merry band of legislators who determined the fate of the legislation. It was the centrists -- a group that may have held as many as a dozen senators but was most represented by Democrat Ben Nelson and Republicans Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins (the three GOP members who voted for the bill) who got what they wanted, and what they wanted was for the entire nation to beseech them for their favor. Every time they were photographed, they seemed barely able to contain their glee, one's goofy grin wider than the other's.
And elsewhere on the Internet, TAP senior correspondent Gershom Gorenberg reviews Jimmy Carter's new book We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land. In his New York Times piece, Gorenberg writes:
Carter's counsel lacks a couple of critical elements. Nonetheless, it has much to recommend it. The Gaza crisis is a reminder, as if another were needed, that ignoring this conflict is equivalent to waiting for it to explode again, with shock waves felt across the entire region. While a peace initiative may look risky, it might actually be the most prudent course the new administration could pursue.
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--The Editors
