IMMEDIATE RELEASE 16 Apr. 2014 WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND Today’s Events in Historical Perspective America’s Longest-Running Column, Founded 1932 By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – By putting 250,000 troops on the border of Ukraine, Russian President Putin is inviting Russian separatists within Ukraine to rise up, and that’s what they’re doing. When Putin then warns […]
LBJ put the bully in bully pulpit
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND Founded 1932, America’s Longest-Running Column LBJ put the bully in bully pulpit By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – President Lyndon B. Johnson put the bully into the bully pulpit. He knew where all the political bodies were buried, and he used that knowledge to cajole, coerce, and convince. When five presidents […]
Mainstream Extreme
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – A book deal is one of the stops on the way to running for president, and Tea Party favorites Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., are the latest to sign contracts for memoirs they hope will set the stage for 2016. The […]
Obamacare and the Difference Between Dissent and Sabotage
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – Many opponents are not only rooting for the failure of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, they are doing what they can to make it fail, spreading fear about its impact and telling young people not to sign up. This is conduct unbecoming elected […]
Presidents as Permanent Senators
Washington Merry-Go-Round by Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – Ex-presidents are an untapped natural resource. It should not be so. Former President Jimmy Carter is making the rounds of the talk shows promoting his latest book, which focuses on human-rights abuses against women worldwide, which are often conducted in the name of religion. Carter […]
Czar Putin
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – Addressing an audience of young people in Brussels, President Obama told them never to take for granted the progress toward democracy that’s been made, citing Russia “challenging international rules that only weeks ago seemed self-evident.” First among those rules, Obama said, is don’t go into […]
Obamacare Puts Democrats and Hillary on Defense
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – Democrats are in a defensive crouch over Obamacare, and that’s not a winning strategy. Last week’s special election in Florida was a real shock because Democrats had a chance to pick up the seat, and they blew it. Democrats didn’t get out their vote like […]
Trip Wires for Putin
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – Russian President Putin says he has no additional territorial interest in Ukraine, but a nervous Europe and an appropriately skeptical U.S. president can’t take him at his word. What they can do is slap sanctions on highly placed Russians to prevent them from traveling to […]
Kennedy, Reagan, and deBlasio on Taxes
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – The spread between the haves and have-nots in American society is greater now than at any time since the days of the Robber Barons early in the last century. The widening gap along with the shrinking middle class did not happen by chance, but is […]
Flight 370
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – At this writing, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777-200 plane with 239 passengers and crew aboard, has not been found, in part because so much misinformation has abounded – information that apparently sent search planes and ships looking in the wrong areas. What is […]