U.S. Energy Policy After 2012

While energy is not a top-tier issue for the American public, Obama and Romney present very different visions for how the United States will generate and consume energy over the next four years – and perhaps set the stage for the next twenty. They provide a clear choice for American voters and explicit differences for […]

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The Choice

The morning was cold and the sky was bright. Aretha Franklin wore a large and interesting hat. Yo-Yo Ma urged his frozen fingers to play the cello, and the Reverend Joseph E. Lowery, a civil-rights comrade of Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s, read a benediction that began with “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the segregation-era lamentation […]

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For U.S. Voters, Foreign Policy Needs To Reflect Immediate Economic Goals

The defining image from the October 22 debate between President Obama and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is of the two candidates passionately disputing their prescriptions for the U.S. domestic economy. The moderator, veteran TV journalist Bob Schieffer, caught the spirit of the evening with his final words before inviting the debaters to make their closing […]

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Ben Bernanke Is Locking in His Legacy

Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase, has a fascinating analysis out Thursday on how Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is moving to lock in new procedures for setting interest rates that will last long after his term ends in January 2014. The upshot is that Bernanke, who vowed to depersonalize the Fed, could end […]

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The Cost and Consequences of the U.S. Drought

The 2012 farming season may be in its waning days, but the consequences of this year’s drought, the worst of its kind in 25 years, are yet to be known. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the drought will push retail food prices up by between 3% and 4% in 2013. That’s a higher-than-average […]

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The All-Powerful President

Throughout the U.S. presidential campaign, Republican and Democratic political operatives have strived to articulate major foreign-policy distinctions between President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney. Several close foreign-policy watchers, however, have struggled to identify any such differences. The final presidential debate on Oct. 22 finally cemented what has been apparent to many over the course of the campaign: […]

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Can U.S. Still Lead In Economic And ‘Soft’ Power?

At Monday night’s foreign policy debate, the first round of questions for the presidential candidates will involve “America’s role in the world.” The answers from President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney likely will focus on military readiness and anti-terrorism efforts. That’s what most Americans would expect to hear, given that their country has been […]

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George W. Bush Haunts Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney has a George W. Bush problem. In fact, that’s Romney’s biggest problem. It’s George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, who has made voters skeptical of many of Romney’s core policies. It’s George W. Bush, not Obama campaign strategist David Plouffe, who persuaded voters that our economic troubles aren’t mainly Obama’s fault. And so it is, in a sense, […]

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100% Right 0% of the Time

Two weeks ago, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered the Landon Lecture to hundreds of U.S. servicemembers and students at Kansas State University. During the question and answer session, a cadet in the Air Force ROTC asked, “What [do] you see being the focus of our nation in 5 to 10 years, […]

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