Outside the Beltway

I’ll be liveblogging tonight’s Republican national security debate over at RealClearWorld along with a solid team of foreign policy analyst

The PPACA now has a 3-1 record in US appeals courts.

If Republicans keep looking for the next Ronald Reagan, they’re going to be disappointed for many reasons.

Have Republicans been co-opted by the Big Government they claim to hate?

Byron York argues that the lesson of Rick Perry’s candidacy is “Think before you run.”

In an interview, President Obama says that Americans are worse off than they were four years ago.

When the old rules don’t apply anymore, the system breaks down.

The execution of Troy Davis brings back to the forefront the reasons why the death penalty is inherently flawed.

Rick Santorum is tired of “filth” atop Google searches for his name and wants the company to do something about it.

President Obaama’s poll numbers are lower than where Reagan and Clinton were at this point, but not by very much.

The economy continues to drag the President down.

Richard Cohen reports that people like Richard Cohen have lost their enthusiasm for Barack Obama.

It never ceases to amaze me how many smart people manage to believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that their political philosophy has massive support.

The bloom is off the rose for some of the President’s most ardent 2008 supporters.

Steve Clemons highlights former first lady Laura Bush’s continuing work in promoting education and international engagement.

The debt ceiling debate may turn out to be Obama’s Katrina.

Is America’s political system to blame for our current problems?

The Ames Straw Poll is like the first scrimmage of NFL training camp.

Steven Metz muses, “Scholars argue that too much political mobilization can make democracies dysfunction. Is that where the US is today?”

President Obama is polling at 46.8 percent, below the level needed to win re-election.

Where is the line on using the White House to further the president’s re-election effort?

Thomas Ricks makes the case that JFK was the worst President of his century but his argument misses the mark.

While his best-known solo effort was “anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, [and] anti-capitalistic,” John Lennon became a Reagan Republican a few years later, his assistant claims.

Are you better off than you were three years ago? 44% of Americans say no.

Michele Bachmann is not Sarah Palin.

WaPo’s Jackson Diehl asks, “Will the GOP nominate a dove?”

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Unemployment was high when Barack Obama took office and it’s gotten substantially higher. Does that mean he won’t get re-elected?

Another appellate panel heard arguments on the Constitutionality of the health care reform law this week.

The GOP doesn’t have a charismatic superstar waiting in the wings. That’s okay.

Comparing Obama to Carter on foreign policy (especially in terms of electoral politics) doesn’t make sense.

President Obama doubled down in his speech before this year’s AIPAC conference. Why he did so only he understands.

Once again, Congressional abdication has led to an Executive Branch power grab.

Elias Isquith proclaims my Atlantic essay “How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology” to be “a total disaster.”

Technology has saved the lives of countless American soldiers. But it’s made going to war easier.

Nate Silver argues today’s polls “have a reasonable amount of predictive power in informing us as to the identity of the eventual nominee.”

Warren Christopher, Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of State, has died at 85.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is beginning to more like a real candidate for President. She won’t win, but she will be entertaining.

While there are doubtless flaws with the journalistic values and culture of the New Media, we too often contrast today with a Golden Age of Media that never existed.

Republicans begin to discover that defeating an incumbent President isn’t an easy task.

A new set of polls from Gallup show that President Obama is still looking good for re-election.