Visual source: Newseum
E.J. Dionne:
Call it the Party-of-Government Paradox: If the nation’s capital looks dysfunctional, it will come back to hurt President Obama and the Democrats, even if the Republicans are primarily responsible for the dysfunction.
Then there is the Bipartisanship Paradox: No matter how far the president bends over backward to appeal to or appease the Republicans — no matter how nice, conciliatory, friendly or reasonable he tries to be — voters will judge him according to the results. And the evidence since 2009 is that accommodation won’t get Obama much anyway.
The New York Times:
Racism in the application of capital punishment has been well documented in the civilian justice system since the Supreme Court reinstated the penalty in 1976. Now comes evidence that racial disparity is even greater in death penalty cases in the military system.
Minority service members are more than twice as likely as whites — after accounting for the crimes’ circumstances and the victims’ race — to be sentenced to death, according to a forthcoming study co-written by David Baldus, an eminent death-penalty scholar, who died in June.
Jonathan Capehart:
From just about every corner of the Democratic Party’s big tent, the complaints about President Obama are uniform. His administration is following the agenda of Tea Party freshmen in Congress. And he keeps getting rolled by those same Republicans as he searches for compromise on their terms. As Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said at a Congressional Black Caucus town hall forum in Detroit this month, “We’re getting tired, y’all.” But if you listen to the president lately, things appear to be changing. There’s fight in his voice. The only question is: Will he follow through? This time I think Obama will. [...]
[E]veryone wants the president to stand up more to congressional Republicans. And if you’ve been paying attention lately, Obama appears to be getting ready to do just that.
During a Midwest bus tour this month, the president outlined a whole host of proposals he says will put people back to work and help the economy. Then he took the rhetorical fight to Congress and issued a call to arms to voters to help him get things done.
Chris Cillizza:
Less than 12 hours after announcing that President Obama would deliver his much anticipated jobs speech on Sept. 7 — the same day and time of a previously scheduled Republican presidential debate in California — the White House changed course, shifting the speech to Sept. 8.
Reaction was swift — with Republicans crowing that the president had caved and some Democrats grumbling privately about the mishandling of such a basic piece of political planning.
But Obama and his political team were smart to reschedule the event for (at least) three reasons.
Sara Jerome:
Kicking the discussion over the AT&T merger into a new venue—the courts—could be a savvy political decision by the Justice Department to cut off political debate as soon as possible.
The decision comes weeks before anyone expected, and before the Federal Communications Commission finishes its review. But there were clear incentives for the department to act quickly.
AT&T, after all, was winning the political conversation over this merger. Every day the deal stayed in the political realm—a discussion on Capitol Hill and in the media, rather than in the courts—it became a little tougher for Justice to block the deal without receiving significant political flak.
