The Editors

Prospect executive editor Mark Schmitt debates Reason Editor-in-Chief Matt Welch on bloggingheads. Here they discuss the contradictions of John McCain: And here they consider whether libertarians should fear an Obama presidency: –The Editors

Rachel Stern speaks with Gal Luft, an alternative energy activist who argues that flex fuel vehicles are the solution to our oil woes: RS: What do you think about the bad rap that ethanol has been getting lately? Is it all media hype, or is there any truth to it? GL: Ethanol is now all […]

Tim Fernholz explores what a liberal housing policy would look like: Affordable housing programs have fallen lower and lower on Congress’ priorities list over the last decade. But the sub-prime mortgage crisis offers a silver lining: the potential for the less well-known problem of affordable housing to piggy-back on the attention given to its more […]

Paul Waldman marvels at Obama‘s ability to reverse a decades-long Democratic deficit in media strategy: While Barack Obama was photographed standing on mountaintops and being mobbed by adoring troops, John McCain was filmed tooling around in a golf cart with George H. W. Bush, a figure from the political past. Then, while Obama spoke in […]

We’ve only got one article today, but it’s a big and important one: There’s no doubt that the past year or two have seen a dramatic drop in Iraqi violence, and real gains in stability. In the American press, much of this stability has been chalked up to the “surge” of 30,000 or so extra […]

Gershom Gorenberg has some interesting thoughts on Obama‘s recent trip to Israel: On Wednesday morning, Israel Radio reported responses to Obama’s arrival, including this one: “A Hamas spokesman said, ‘The American senator is trying to reach the White House via Tel Aviv, at the expense of the Palestinians.’” The immediate meaning of that comment is […]

Yesterday Rich Byrne explained the politics of the arrest of Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic: Even the choice of Karadzic as the first to be arrested has the feeling of a test balloon. Karadzic’s main constituency was in the Serbian portion of Bosnia. He was not a military officer, like his fellow indictee, Bosnian Serb […]

Today Courtney Martin writes about how her gay friends’ enthusiasm for marriage has caused her to rethink her own aversion to the institution. What am I to make of my commitment to not participate in a sexist, historically racist institution when my own gay friends are flocking to the coasts so they can join in […]

Harold Meyerson reviews a new book that uses science (science!) to determine what strategies for increasing voter turnout actually work: The late Alan Baron, sometime political consultant and full-time political wag, used to tell a story about a campaign kibitzer in Des Moines in the autumn of 1964. Every day as the election drew closer, […]

David Axe reports from Chad, where a U.N. mission to protect refugees and aid workers may actually be prolonging the conflict in neighboring Darfur: Rebel fighters can charge into battle knowing their families are safe, well-fed, looked after by Western doctors, and guarded by a mixed brigade of French, Swedish, Polish and Irish troops called […]