David Broder

Columns

• Reform's option, amid the ruins - 2/4/2010

  The economic collapse of 2008 and 2009 did so much damage to the United States that only now can we begin to measure the devastation.

• Getting ready to battle over campaign ads - 1/31/2010

  The sober, sprawling State of the Union address President Obama delivered last week was marked by one extraordinary moment.

• At the moment of truth, the Senate chooses betrayal - 1/29/2010

  On the very same day this week when the Congressional Budget Office warned that the succession of previously unimaginable trillion-dollar-and-more budget deficits could inflict ruin on the United...

• John Cornyn's good fortune - 1/24/2010

  If you are John Cornyn, the 36 hours from last Tuesday night through Thursday morning had to be the best time of your life.

• For Democrats, a wake-up call in Massachusetts - 1/22/2010

  When I talked with Rep. Richard Neal, the veteran Democratic congressman from Springfield, Mass.

• For Obama's first year, he gets an incomplete - 1/17/2010

  As Barack Obama nears the first anniversary of his inauguration as president, a faculty friend of mine renders what strikes me as the right assessment: "If he were a student, I'd have to give him an...

• Labor ups the ante on health care reform - 1/15/2010

  The best thing about American labor leaders is that they don't beat around the bush.

• Chris Dodd, straight shooter - 1/10/2010

  During the last three decades that I have been covering politics in Washington, there was never a time when I could not reach Chris Dodd to check what was happening.

• Barack Obama's 9/11 - 1/8/2010

  Was Christmas Day 2009 the same kind of wake-up call for Barack Obama that Sept. 11, 2001, had been for George W. Bush?

• Napolitano flavors the administration - 1/1/2010

  Most Americans got their first prolonged look at Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, last weekend.

• With friends like these, Obama doesn't need political enemies - 12/20/2009

  In the last year or so of George W. Bush's second term, commentators used to talk a lot about the conspicuous scarcity of other Republicans willing to stand up and defend him.

• It's the debt, stupid - 12/18/2009

  The 34 names are familiar to anyone who has followed economic policy in Washington for the past generation, one-third of them former chairmen or members of key committees of Congress, seven of them...

• Listening to Obama's words is illuminating - 12/13/2009

  One of the things that sets Barack Obama apart from most politicians is how much can be learned from listening to his speeches.

• Senate freshmen step up on health care bill - 12/11/2009

  Finally, there is some good news on the health care front.

• The high cost of escalation - 12/6/2009

  On the same evening last week that President Obama went to West Point to outline his plans to send 30,000 more U.S.

• Year of living dangerously - 12/4/2009

  It is now as certain as anything can be in politics that 2010 will be a painful year for Democrats — a year of high unemployment, staggering deficits and a growing list of casualties from an...

• Both health bills are budget-busters - 11/22/2009

  It's simply not true that America is ambivalent about everything when it comes to the Obama health plan.

• Picking a fight is GOP tradition - 11/20/2009

  For Sarah Palin, with her personality and history, to tell Rush Limbaugh that Republicans should welcome primary fights within their own ranks is hardly surprising.

• The hand Obama should play — soon - 11/15/2009

  The more President Barack Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees.

• A health care reform bill that doesn't pay the bill - 11/13/2009

  While the House Democrats spent the week congratulating themselves for squeezing out the midnight passage of their version of health care reform, neutral observers were reminding them: You've left...

• Taking wing in their honor - 11/8/2009

  A couple weeks before Veterans Day, I went down to the World War II Memorial on the Mall to join Bob and Elizabeth Dole and a group of elderly soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen from her hometown...

• Does the election signal trouble ahead for Democrats? - 11/5/2009

  A year after Barack Obama's election stirred broad hopes for change among American voters, persistent high unemployment and the spectacle of continued gridlock in Washington threaten Democratic...

• Prelude to a 2010 drama - 11/1/2009

  The first key votes of the Obama era take place this week, not on the floor of the House or Senate, where health care legislation still languishes, but in Virginia, New Jersey and northern New York...

• Reid's risky gamble - 10/30/2009

  There is an air of desperate improvisation to Sen.

• Reid, Obama resort to budget sleight-of-hand - 10/25/2009

  When I wrote a few days ago about the growing nervousness of moderate Senate Democrats over the approaching vote to raise the federal debt limit, I had no idea how quickly evidence of that shift in...

• Raising the debt ceiling puts stress on Dems - 10/22/2009

  Within the next few weeks, probably as soon as the votes on health care reform have been taken, the Senate faces the painful duty of once again raising the statutory limit on the national debt, as...

• Delaware's battle for Washington - 10/19/2009

  A year from now, when we are in the final weeks of the midterm elections, voters across the country will likely be focused on a state that has rarely drawn attention from any but its own residents.

• It's time for your health plan now, Mr. President - 10/15/2009

  It has taken much longer than President Obama hoped, but we are finally at the point where he can — and must — put his personal stamp on his main domestic initiative, the overhaul of the...