BY SUSAN ESTRICH You’ve got to hand it to Nancy Pelosi. Love her or hate her – and there are probably more people in the second category than the first – you can’t deny the enormity of her accomplishment. She did something very, very big. She cut a tough deal at the last minute to […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH Everything and nothing happened on Tuesday. I could have predicted that. Whoever “wins” says it means everything. Whoever “loses” says it means nothing. That’s how off-off-year elections work. History supports both sides. This time, the Republicans managed to claw at least a little bit of defeat from the jaws of victory with […]

BY FROMA HARROP The Tea Party wing of the Republican Party had the perfect strategy for upstate New York’s 23rd congressional district: 1. Support a candidate who doesn’t live in the district – in this case, Conservative Douglas Hoffman. Savage the local Republican choice, Dede Scozzafava, and hound her into dropping out. 2. Condemn the […]

BY JOE CONASON When Newt Gingrich warned Republicans that they were making a grave “mistake” by driving out moderates and enforcing the angry orthodoxy of the far right, the sober tone of his remarks was stunning. This is a politician who is no stranger himself to the wilder shores of extremism, a populist and a […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH There’s an old story about a Harvard professor who gets a call from the president [of the United States] and responds that his president is the president of Harvard. Being a professor at Harvard is like that. Academics in Cambridge are a big deal; Harvard is an amazing place; and if you’re […]