Third Way Perspectives
U.S. must step up on Mexico drug wars
August 25th, 2010
This piece was originally published in Politico.
News reports out of Mexico grow grimmer each month.
Four decapitated bodies were found on Aug. 22, hanging from a bridge in Cuernavaca as a warning from one drug gang to another — adding to the grisly toll of more than 28,000 killed by drug-trafficking violence in Mexico since 2006.
Bush tax cuts reverse party lines
August 24th, 2010
This piece was originally published in Politico.
The next big issue on the congressional agenda is a real humdinger: the Bush tax cuts.
This is one issue on which Republicans can’t “just say no.” If Congress fails to act by the end of the year, the Bush tax cuts will expire. And Republicans will have enabled a major tax hike.
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Moving the middle on marriage
August 19th, 2010
This piece was originally published in Politico.
This month, a federal district court judge in California struck down Proposition 8 — the state ballot measure that banned gay and lesbian couples from marrying — as unconstitutional, and the case is most likely to be settled by the Supreme Court. Although the decision has been stayed, many understandably saw it as a victory and perhaps an indication that legal arguments — not public persuasion — are going to be the fastest way to bring about equality.
For energy reform advocates, lessons from health care
August 2nd, 2010
This piece was originally published in The Washington Post.
With the United States struggling to recover from a job-killing recession, a Democratic president asks a Democratic Congress to pass sweeping reform of a major sector of the economy. “We can no longer afford to continue to ignore what is wrong,” he explains. “We must fix this system, and it has to begin with congressional action.” The public, however, rejects this plea. The proposal dies in Congress, and recriminations begin. Chastened and disappointed, advocates regroup and seek a new path forward.
Americans still trust Obama on Afghanistan
July 21st, 2010
This piece was originally published on Foreign Policy.
Recent polls showing pessimism about U.S. prospects in Afghanistan seem to suggest that Barack Obama has lost the United States’ support for the war there. However, general exhaustion from years of war and specific support for Obama’s Afghanistan strategy should not be so easily conflated. A careful reading of the polling data on Afghanistan shows that while the public is weary, they haven’t yet given up on the mission or Obama’s redefined strategy…yet.
Poland has chosen modernity
July 8th, 2010
That was the message of Sunday’s Polish presidential election. And the view of the politicians, journalists and academics I interviewed when I visited Poland as a guest of the Polish Press Agency.
Most notably, it was the view of Lech Walesa, the founder of Solidarity and former Polish president.
