From ISR, Scott McLemee reviews The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad by Tariq Ali; and an interview with Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, on Obama’s national security state. You can download the book Reaching for a New Deal: Ambitious Governance, Economic Meltdown, and Polarized Politics in Obama’s First Two Years. The introduction to Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition by James Kloppenberg (and more). Can Obama rise again? Michael Tomasky reviews Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics by Ari Berman and The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism by Roger Hodge. From TAP, the Obama presidency is far from over, but little survives of the original theory behind it. The president on whom so much depends is a peculiar person, stranger than any of us realised when we voted for him — he may be most real to himself when he is promising something. The Big Lie: Andrew Sullivan on how little falsehoods and out-of-context quotes are adding up to a deceitful narrative about the president. If you were Barack Obama, you'd hate the press, too. The 2010 Midterms: How Barack Obama was undone by his own brand of social movement politics. Midterm Postmortem: There is much we do not know, but political-science research suggest some provisional answers. Greedy Geezers: Older voters’ fury hurts the Democrats. From TNR, a new interpretation of the election results: Job loss and liberal apathy; Jonathan Chait on the myth of divided government; and Jonathan Bernstein on the prospects for political reform in the coming year (and part 2 and part 3). Heads we lose, tails you win: Why do liberals tack rightward after every election?
