John Thain Poster Child for Era of Irresponsibility

John Thain, Poster Child for Era of Irresponsibility

John Thain, Poster Child for Era of Irresponsibility

There is plenty of debate about what President Obama’s stimulus bill should look like — as well there should be, given all that is at stake.

But there is a growing consensus that the guiding principle in that debate should be Obama’s call for a “new era of responsibility.”

Barack Obama Presidential Inauguration 2009

Barack Obama Presidential Inauguration - CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

A collection of articles & essays on President-Elect Barack Obama, The 2009 Presidential Inauguration and the Challenges the 44th President of the United States faces.

Top 43 Hits – Memorable Lines from Past Presidential Inaugurals

America Receives a Leading Man for the Dramas Ahead

Don’t Take that Oath, Barack

Riding on the Wings of Change

America in Shock

Great Expectations

Awaiting the Transformational Presidency

Europeans Love ‘Alabama’

Is This the End of Black

A New Way of Being on this Planet

As the Decider, The True Barack Obama will Become Clear

Special Inaugural Crossword Puzzle

Obama Isn’t the Only One Being Inaugurated on January 20th

President-Elect Barack Obama: Can Obama Pull Off A Historic Presidential Double Play

Change was driven by two things: our remarkable capacity for regeneration, and Barack Obama’s remarkable ability to tap into the better angels of our nature. You know something extraordinary is happening when even Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Joe Lieberman trip over themselves — and their hastily discarded invective — to say nice things about Obama and the tremendous signal sent by his election.

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President-Elect Barack Obama: Can Obama Pull Off A Historic Presidential Double Play

Barack Obama Wins: Why All Americans Have a Reason to Celebrate

Even if your candidate didn’t win Tuesday night, you have reason to celebrate. We all do.

Ten months ago, when Barack Obama won in Iowa, we had a glimpse of what was possible and what became real Tuesday night.

What I wrote then about one state is now true for the whole country:

Barack Obama’s impressive victory says a lot about America, and also about the current mindset of the American voter.

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Barack Obama Wins: Why All Americans Have a Reason to Celebrate

Closing Arguments Barrack Obama Election 2008 Eve

With the finish line in sight, Obama serves up familiar, pie-in-the-sky promises.

In the last few days, Obama has wrapped up his pitch to the electorate with some misleading claims we’ve heard before:

He continued to ask voters to believe he can pay for every dime of an ambitious health care plan and other spending proposals while cutting taxes for all but the most affluent. Budget experts say that’s unlikely.

He also kept up the drumbeat on a promise to end “tax breaks for sending jobs overseas,” as though that could do much to keep jobs at home. Experts say it can’t.

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Closing Arguments Barrack Obama Election 2008 Eve

Closing Arguments John McCain Election 2008 Eve

John McCain and Sarah Palin close their campaign with a new set of dubious attacks.

In the final week, the McCain-Palin campaign unleashed some all-new misleading attacks on

Obama:

• McCain strained to tie Obama to a Palestinian professor whose views on Israel are quite different from Obama’s.
• McCain and Palin both distorted a seven-and-a-half-year-old radio interview with Obama concerning the court system and civil rights.
• McCain and the GOP ran ads claiming Obama’s military budget would mean huge job cuts in Virginia, despite Obama’s proposal to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps – and McCain’s own calls for ending wasteful weapons programs.

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Closing Arguments John McCain Election 2008 Eve

It’s Official Obama Born in the U.S.A.

The Truth About Obama’s Birth Certificate

Of all the nutty rumors, baseless conspiracy theories and sheer disinformation that we’ve dealt with at FactCheck.org during campaign 2008, perhaps the goofiest is the claim that Barack Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” and therefore not eligible to be president under the constitution.

This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.

There has never been anything but rumor and speculation to support such a claim, and zero hard evidence.

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It’s Official Obama Born in the U.S.A. The Truth About Obama’s Birth Certificate

Barrack Obama Should Spill a Little Red Ink to Turn a Few More Red States Blue

Barrack Obama Should Spill a Little Red Ink to Turn a Few More Red States Blue

With less than a week to go before Election Day, both sides are worried.

Republicans, while still holding out hope for a “McCain Miracle,” are increasingly worried that McCain is losing in a way that, as David Frum put it, “threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him.”

Democrats, while being careful not to count their electoral chickens before they’re hatched, are privately worried about winning without enough of a majority in the Senate to really change things.

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Barrack Obama Should Spill a Little Red Ink to Turn a Few More Red States Blue

John McCain, The Internet & The Death of Rovian Politics

“We are witnessing the end of Rovian politics,” Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google told me. And YouTube, which Google bought in 2006 for $1.65 billion, is one of the causes of its demise.

Thanks to YouTube — and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral e-mails — it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being exposed.

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The Internet & The Death of Rovian Politics