The Rise of Sewer Money by Joe Conason
In New York, there is a traditional name for the kind of anonymous cash now cascading into the American electoral process.
Commentary by Joe Conason
Most Recent Releases
October 29, 2010
October 21, 2010
Thugs on the Right by Joe Conason
What do the tea party ideologues mean when they speak of liberty and freedom and the Constitution that they supposedly revere?
October 14, 2010
A Generation of Termites by Joe Conason
When American politicians talk about the legacy we are leaving to the next generation, their usual theme is financial deficits, as if there were no other kind.
October 7, 2010
The Ideologies Behind the Ideologues By Joe Conason
Let nobody accuse the tea party enthusiasts of lacking intellectual sophistication, no matter what their favorite candidates might say about evolution, civil rights, masturbation or alcohol prohibition.
October 1, 2010
Lies of the Tea Party By Joe Conason
For Americans still suffering from persistent unemployment, falling incomes and rising inequality, politicians of either party probably generate little enthusiasm. Yet although political ennui is understandable, the disaffection and demoralization of Democrats has created a dangerous political vacuum that is being filled with misleading data, urban legends and outright lies.
September 16, 2010
Will Big Tobacco's Former Bag-Man Really Be the Next Speaker? By Joe Conason
With their loud voices and antic style, the "tea party" activists may lead voters to expect something new and different if the Republican Party returns to power. But observing the man who would wield that power if his party wins a midterm majority should swiftly dispel that illusion.
September 10, 2010
Why Barack Is Behind by Joe Conason
Among the very puzzling aspects of the midterm election -- and the Democratic debacle that appears to be looming in November -- is why voters would return the opposition to power only two years after the multiple disasters of the Bush administration.
August 19, 2010
Courage and Lower Manhattan By Joe Conason
Nothing tests a president like standing up against a wave of fear and prejudice, even at potentially great cost to his own party and prospects. That is what Lyndon Baines Johnson did when he signed the civil rights acts he knew would forfeit the South to the Republicans for a generation or more.
August 12, 2010
The Racists Return By Joe Conason
Among the most revealing aspects of life during the Obama presidency is the panoply of responses to a black family in the White House. What made so many of us proud of our country on Jan. 20, 2009, has increasingly provoked expressions of hatred from the far right. That is troubling, but not nearly as troubling as the behavior of conservatives who excuse, embolden or simply pretend to ignore the bigots surrounding them.
August 5, 2010
Defending the Mosque By Joe Conason
No recent controversy has so plainly revealed the hollow values of the American right than the effort to prevent the construction of a community center in Lower Manhattan because it will include a mosque. Arguments in opposition range from a professed concern for the sensitivities of the Sept. 11 victims' families to a primitive battle cry against Islam -- but what they all share is an arrant disregard for our country's founding principles.
July 29, 2010
Leaking to Avert Disaster By Joe Conason
The outpouring of tens of thousands of classified military documents by WikiLeaks is not precisely comparable to the publication of the Pentagon Papers -- but in at least one crucial respect, it may be more valuable. While the Pentagon Papers revealed the duplicity of American policy-makers in the senseless Vietnam War, their release came too late to save many lives or change the course of that conflict. The WikiLeaks disclosures may have arrived in time to influence policy and prevent disaster.
July 22, 2010
Our Secret Leviathan By Joe Conason
Back in the bad old days of the Cold War -- when mutual nuclear annihilation was a policy option -- a culture of secrecy arose in Washington. What wise observers understood even then was that while governments tried to keep secrets from each other, their chief concern was to keep secrets from their own people.
July 15, 2010
A Change Election -- In Wrong Direction by Joe Conason
The headline for the latest poll says that public confidence in President Obama has sunk to a new low, with a majority of Americans saying they don't trust him to make the best policy choices, especially on the ailing economy. These same voters, surveyed by The Washington Post and ABC News, are even more disdainful of Congress, split almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Those numbers may portend a shift in partisan control of the House and a loss of Democratic seats in the Senate if citizens express their anger by punishing incumbents.
July 8, 2010
Show Us the Money By Joe Conason
So often are the certitudes and pronouncements of the chattering class simply mistaken that they must always be treated with deep skepticism. That is especially true when anything important is at stake -- from the arguments for invading Iraq several years ago to today's economic stagnation. Whatever the conventional wisdom tells you must be true is almost certainly false.
June 18, 2010
A Green New Deal Now by Joe Conason
If the right-wing chorus insists that the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is "Obama's Katrina," then let us hope the president will make the most of that slogan. The comparison between the utter failure of the Bush administration and the missteps and errors of the Obama White House is fundamentally false. Yet there is nevertheless a crucial parallel to be drawn as the fifth anniversary of the hurricane approaches.
June 3, 2010
Israel From 10,000 Feet By Joe Conason
The government of Israel is supposedly run by the Jewish state's toughest and most ardent defenders, but so far they have inflicted worse damage on its security and its future than its enemies ever could.
May 28, 2010
What Rand Really Believes By Joe Conason
Rand Paul, tea party flavor of the month, is said to be avoiding "overexposure." Senior Republican Party operatives, worried by the Kentucky Senate nominee's all-too-revealing remarks after his primary victory, have urged him not to grant any interviews for a while. So he flip-flopped on his criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, flaked out on a "Meet the Press" appearance and has scarcely been heard from since.
May 21, 2010
Oil Rules By Joe Conason
The more we learn about the BP oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the more we ought to question the basic assumptions that led us here. Like the explosion of the housing bubble that ruptured the world economy, this human and environmental tragedy resulted from a system that encourages reckless profiteering without effective regulation.
May 13, 2010
Obama's Feminist Touch By Joe Conason
Someday, when Americans have learned to live the true meaning of our creed, a Supreme Court nomination of a woman, a Latino, an African-American or any other variety of human being -- including a gay man or woman -- will provoke no comment or concern. Until then, we should applaud every step toward that future.
May 6, 2010
What We Learned from Times Square By Joe Conason
Within hours after the car bomb fizzled in Times Square, the nonstop noise resumed on Fox News and talk radio, warning that the Barack Obama administration is failing to protect us. Evidently, the president and his aides don't say "terror" and "terrorism" sufficiently often to make it go away, according to the professional noisemakers. If you believe that kind of nonsense, then you are listening too much to the professional noisemakers and may have caused damage to your mental health.
