Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter is a Bloomberg View columnist appearing on Fridays. He is the author of two New York Times bestsellers: "The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope" and "The Promise: President Obama, Year One."
A longtime analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, Alter was for 28 years a senior editor, media critic and columnist for Newsweek, where he covered seven presidential campaigns. A collection of his columns, "Between the Lines: A View Inside American Politics, People and Culture," was published in 2008. His work has appeared in the New Republic, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the Washington Monthly and the New York Times, and his political writing has won numerous awards, including first prize from the National Headliner Awards for a series of columns on life after 9/11.
Articles By Jonathan Alter
Republicans Are Unprotected on Contraception: Jonathan Alter
During the 1928 presidential campaign, nutty right-wing Protestants claimed that Al Smith, the first Catholic nominated for president by a major party, was planning to extend New York’s Holland Tunnel all the way to the Vatican.
Stop Super-PACs With a Fair Elections Amendment: Jonathan Alter
The 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case is fast becoming as explosive as Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) or Roe v. Wade (1973). It took nearly 60 years before the Supreme Court reversed the Plessy endorsement of “separate but equal” treatment of the races in Brown v. Board of Education, and opponents of abortion are still waiting (probably in vain) for Roe to go.
Gingrich Attacks Will Help Romney and Hurt Obama: Jonathan Alter
Newt Gingrich was so bitter after his Florida loss that he neither called Mitt Romney to concede nor congratulated him in his primary-night speech. Now he’s hell- bent on chasing Romney around the U.S. for the next seven months making his life miserable. Who does this help? I say Romney.
For Obama, Pro-Business Populism Is No Oxymoron: Jonathan Alter
If 2011 was defined by a debate over the national debt, 2012 looks to be focused more on fairness, which is just the way President Barack Obama wants it. The trick for him -- the balance he was trying to strike in his State of the Union Address -- is to come across as a pro-business populist.
Obama Should Go Big and Bold for State of Union: Jonathan Alter
The news media won’t learn what’s in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address until a few hours before he delivers it Tuesday night. But we know one thing: If the president doesn’t give us specific ideas of what he wants to do in a second term, he’ll have a harder time winning one.
How Bill Daley Died a Death of a Thousand Cuts: Jonathan Alter
The resignation of William M. Daley as President Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff brings to mind the words of David Wilhelm when he left his post as chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1994: “I’m going back to Chicago where they stab you in the front.”
As Best Anyone-But-Mitt Choice, Santorum Can Win: Jonathan Alter
Even after a surging Rick Santorum had tied Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses, Intrade, the predictions market for politics, put Santorum’s chances for the Republican presidential nomination at less than 5 percent. Traders apparently think Romney will win because he has the funding and organization.
Lies, Damn Lies and the Four Whoppers of 2011: Jonathan Alter
“Have It Your Way,” the Burger King slogan goes. And most politicians do, twisting words to fit their interests. But sometimes they go beyond french-frying facts to serving whoppers.
Republican Candidates Can’t Run From Iraq War: Jonathan Alter
All U.S. ground troops will be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, and soon this sorry conflict will fade quietly into the past, the second-dumbest war in American history. Yet the Iraq War has been missing in action during the Republican presidential campaign.
Gingrich Uses Fog of Words to Cloud Our Memory: Jonathan Alter
Newt Gingrich is back in contention for the Republican presidential nomination partly because he understands the power of words, the pervasiveness of amnesia, and the dark art of making them work together.
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