Paul Waldman

Back in the early days of the Internet, a college student set up a webcam in her dorm room and delivered a live feed to the world of everything she was doing — eating, sleeping, studying, even changing clothes. It caused quite a stir, with lots of beard-scratching commentary about how this new technology would […]

The prevailing narrative about our current political moment goes something like this: Obama took office facing some large challenges. Then he overreached, by doing all kinds of big-governmenty things. This provoked a backlash, and now we’re fighting over it. We see the latest version of this narrative in today’s David Brooks column, one of surpassing […]

Like many a candidate before him, Barack Obama rode to electoral victory on the promise of “Change.” We could debate endlessly about whether that promise has been delivered, but there’s one area where it’s definitely in process. They have a substantial way to go, but the feds have made lots of progress on getting their […]

In a timely corrective, Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith of the Politico point out that the Tea Party is getting a lot more attention that it really warrants: [GOP consultant Mike] Murphy, who calls the attention “absolutely ridiculous,” sees it of a piece with what has become the biennial compulsion in the political community to […]

Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall brings us the alarming tale of one Sue Lowden, who believes that the answer to our health-care woes lies in shifting from a system based on insurance to one based on barter. Pressed on this rather quaint 17th-century notion by a local news station, Lowden stuck to her […]

Every once in a while, like Judy and Mickey saying, “Let’s put on a show!”, conservatives decide that instead of just complaining all the time about the perfidy of the America-hating liberal media, they ought to create some media of their own. This happens despite the fact that they already have lots of media of […]

A year ago, I wrote a column lamenting the effect the inevitable death of the newspaper would have on my breakfast ritual. Until Apple comes out with the iDiningTable — which will be totally overpriced, no doubt — you just can’t beat having the paper spread out beneath your coffee and cereal, as you start […]

I kid Mitt Romney a lot, because in a country full of phony politicians, his phoniness is so transparent and encompassing. But let’s put that aside, and offer Romney some qualified praise. Newsweek has an interesting interview with Romney on the subject of health care, one that shows both the promise and the peril of […]

There are some political problems that can be solved with a shift in strategy or rhetoric — for instance, after Scott Brown‘s surprise victory in the Massachusetts special election, Democrats realized they were being damaged by the perception that they were a bunch of ineffectual cowards, so they stopped acting cowardly and actually passed health-care […]