Outside the Beltway

Thomas Ricks makes the case that JFK was the worst President of his century but his argument misses the mark.

While his best-known solo effort was “anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, [and] anti-capitalistic,” John Lennon became a Reagan Republican a few years later, his assistant claims.

Are you better off than you were three years ago? 44% of Americans say no.

Michele Bachmann is not Sarah Palin.

WaPo’s Jackson Diehl asks, “Will the GOP nominate a dove?”

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Unemployment was high when Barack Obama took office and it’s gotten substantially higher. Does that mean he won’t get re-elected?

Another appellate panel heard arguments on the Constitutionality of the health care reform law this week.

The GOP doesn’t have a charismatic superstar waiting in the wings. That’s okay.

Comparing Obama to Carter on foreign policy (especially in terms of electoral politics) doesn’t make sense.

President Obama doubled down in his speech before this year’s AIPAC conference. Why he did so only he understands.

Once again, Congressional abdication has led to an Executive Branch power grab.

Elias Isquith proclaims my Atlantic essay “How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology” to be “a total disaster.”

Technology has saved the lives of countless American soldiers. But it’s made going to war easier.

Nate Silver argues today’s polls “have a reasonable amount of predictive power in informing us as to the identity of the eventual nominee.”

Warren Christopher, Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of State, has died at 85.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is beginning to more like a real candidate for President. She won’t win, but she will be entertaining.

While there are doubtless flaws with the journalistic values and culture of the New Media, we too often contrast today with a Golden Age of Media that never existed.

Republicans begin to discover that defeating an incumbent President isn’t an easy task.

A new set of polls from Gallup show that President Obama is still looking good for re-election.

The American right has become infected with the notion that Barack Obama isn’t just wrong, but evil. That won’t be healthy in the long run.

Jon Huntsman is running for president. Who the hell is Jon Huntsman, you say?

Was the 2011 SOTU a blatant rip-off of past speeches? Or simply banal?

Thirty years after the hostages were freed from captivity in Iran, the United States still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

As things stand right now, the dynamics don’t look good for President Obama in 2012

Even though it will likely be unsuccessful, a primary challenge against President Obama could end up harming him enough to hand Republicans the White House in 2012.

California’s Proposition 8 faced another legal test in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday, and the day didn’t seem to go well for opponents of same-sex marriage.

According to a new Gallup poll, President Obama is not only less popular than George W. Bush, but the only president from the last half century less popular is Dick Nixon.

After 1 1/2 years in office, President Obama has yet to grant a single request for a pardon or clemency, continuing a thirty year trend in which the Presidential pardon power has nearly fallen in to disuse.

While Tim Pawlenty and John Thune get high marks from insiders, they have next to no shot at winning the 2012 Republican nomination for president.

The “Ronald Reagan” that many of today’s conservatives wish today’s Republicans were more like didn’t actually exist.

Arnold Schwarzenegger predicts President Obama’s re-election. Historically, that’s the safe bet.

President Obama’s approval is at its lowest point to date, matching President Clinton’s in 1994. It’s 14 points higher than his predecessor’s.

This handshake on August 14, 1980 in Madison Square Garden put an end to the public contest between President Carter and Senator Kennedy, but now the former President has decided it’s time to reopen old wounds.

Democrats are sending some of their candidates to the Death Panels.

The first ad of the 2012 presidential cycle has aired, by some dentist touting Hillary Clinton. She’s not running. Could she?

More odd developments inside the modern day version of the Hermit Kingdom

If you think Jimmy Carter is the Worst Figure in American History, you really need to read more.

Conservatives seem very eager for Hillary Clinton to get back on the campaign trial, but it’s not going to happen.

A Southern Baptist Democratic president hated by conservatives is largely responsible for the rise of the American craft brew industry.

The Democrats are pulling a trick from the Reagan playbook for the fall campaign. They might want to rethink that.