E.j. Dionne's Slant

Consider the contrast between two groups of Democrats, in Wisconsin and in the nation's capital. Washington Democrats, including President Obama, have allowed conservative Republicans to dominate the budget debate so far. As long as the argument is over who will cut more from federal spending, cons ..

Richard Nixon espoused what he called "the madman theory." It's a negotiating approach that induces the other side to believe you are capable of dangerously irrational actions and leads it to back down to avoid the wreckage your rage might let loose. House Republicans are pursuing their own madman ..

If you want to get national attention as a governor these days, don't try to be innovative about solving the problems you were elected to deal with - in education, transportation and health care. No, if you want ink and television time, just cut and cut and cut some more. Almost no one in the nation ..

This is not the first time that Wisconsin has been at the center of national agitation over the role of unions. The earlier battle was staged in Sheboygan at Kohler, the legendary manufacturer of kitchen, bath and furniture products. The Kohler employees had voted to join the United Auto Workers un ..

Take five steps back and consider the nature of the political conversation in our nation's capital. You would never know that it's taking place at a moment when unemployment is still at 9 percent, when wages for so many people are stagnating at best and when the United States faces unprecedented cha ..

For 30 years, conservative ideologues have played moderate deficit hawks for suckers. You'd think this might endow those middle-of-the-road deficit-busters with a touch of humility. Fat chance. They stick with their self-righteous moralism, pretending to be bipartisan and beyond ideology. In fact, t ..

Today begins the war over E2I2. The great budget battle of Bill Clinton's presidency was waged around a set of initials also inspired by the "Star Wars" character R2D2. Clinton's lieutenants jauntily encapsulated his fight against Republican cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment ..

In light of the history-shaking events on the streets of Cairo, it's not surprising that a truly remarkable development slipped through the news cycle with barely a nod. On a unanimous voice vote last Thursday, the Senate passed a resolution co-sponsored by John Kerry and John McCain urging Egyptia ..

The democratic uprising in Egypt has brought into relief a gradual and little-noticed transformation in American politics. Over the past decade, ideological divisions on the role of democracy and human rights in American foreign policy have been scrambled. In the meantime, President Obama has restor ..

A cynic might be justified in seeing a call for a sweeping reorganization of the federal government as the last refuge of a politician who doesn't want to ruffle any ideological feathers. For example, President Obama could have used last week's State of the Union address to propose a ban on those h ..

President Obama faces a choice in his State of the Union message: Does he spend the next two years consolidating the gains he has made, or does he retreat? My prediction: He will go for consolidation that conservatives will try to label as retreat, even as they attack him for not retreating fast en ..

President Obama's call for "a more civil and honest public discourse" will get its first test much sooner than we expected. Having properly postponed all legislative action last week out of respect for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of the Tucson shootings, the House Republican leade ..

There is one commentator whose words should enlighten us on the meaning of Saturday's shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the savage murders that took the lives of, among others, a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. The person is Giffords herself. In an interview last March, the Arizona Dem ..