IN SEVEN weeks America‘s federal budget will self-destruct and plunge America back into recession unless Barack Obama can persuade the Republicans in Congress to raise taxes, which they have vowed never to do. So what is he doing between now and then? He’s heading off to visit south-east Asia and attend the East Asian Summit. […]
It’s not the eco-nomy, stupid! That is the biggest takeaway from the recent presidential election in America. If anything, it was really about identity. As Barack Obama was not of the right colour, his opponents felt that his elevation in 2008 was because they had not stressed identity enough. They would have dearly liked to peel his skin off, […]
In late spring, the backroom number crunchers who powered Barack Obama’s campaign to victory noticed that George Clooney had an almost gravitational tug on West Coast females ages 40 to 49. The women were far and away the single demographic group most likely to hand over cash, for a chance to dine in Hollywood with […]
In the United States, the world’s largest economy, President Obama has secured a second term as leader of the country. In China, the second largest economy, by this time next week new leaders will likely have been confirmed as well. In both cases, the new leaders will officially begin their terms in 2013, even if Obama has […]
LET him savour, for a day or two, a victory that many had said could not happen. No president since FDR had been re-elected with unemployment so high. The country seemed pessimistic and bitterly divided, on racial grounds even more than on economic ones. His best-known achievement, health-care reform, had turned out to be deeply […]
President Barack Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Myanmar, one of three stops on a Southeast Asia trip this month. Obama will meet with President Thein Sein and opposition leader and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon, Myanmar, as part of U.S. efforts to encourage the transition to democracy in the country, […]
At the final presidential debate of the 2012 campaign season, President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney mentioned Israel some 30 times, more than any other country except Iran. Both candidates called the Jewish state “a true friend,” pledging to stand with it through thick and thin. Some political commentators criticized these effusive declarations of […]
It’s time to think legacy. For the last four years, President Obama has had plenty of reasons to pull his punches: at first, he was a new and inexperienced president, relatively unversed in how to make Congress and the executive branch work, and he mostly avoided going out on limbs. Then it was time to […]
Throughout the campaign season, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama alike insisted that the 21st century must be another American century—that the U.S. should continue to be the world’s predominant military, economic, and political power for generations to come. After ten years of shattered hegemonic dreams, leaders of both parties still feel compelled to declare their […]
The race was tough, but US President Barack Obama has won re-election. The question now, for the United States and the world, is what will he do with a fresh four-year term? To win re-election with a still-weak economy and unemployment close to 8% was not easy. Many leaders – Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, and […]
