Reform's Biggest Hurdle: White America's Fear

Party 'lacks vigor now that welfare state is complete'

(NEWSER) - The Democrats' passage of health care reform felt like a family reunion where you saw "the whole panoply of what you loved and found annoying about these people" to David Brooks. President Obama and Nancy Pelosi deserve posterity "for sheer resilience," he writes, but as the last plank of the welfare state slides into place, their party seems to be lacking the energy needed to take America into the future, Brooks writes in the New York Times. More»

(NEWSER) - Sorry, Jimmy Carter: The White House doesn't think hostility toward President Obama is motivated by race, the Washington Post reports. “The president does not believe that the criticism comes based on the color of his skin,” said Robert Gibbs. Carter started a firestorm by asserting just that—the fervent anti-Obama animosity, he said, "is based on the fact that he is a black man." Administration officials say that while race might be a factor for some, people are mostly upset at his sweeping reform proposals. More»

(AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter says Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech last week was an act "based on racism." Carter says Wilson's comment was part of an "inherent feeling" of some that a black man should not be president. In responding to a question at a town-hall meeting at his presidential center in Atlanta, Carter also called Wilson's comment "dastardly" and said the president should be treated with respect. More»

Joe Wilson not wrong about Obama wanting to insure illegals

(NEWSER) - Give Joe Wilson a break. It’s hard to fit the complexities of policy into an outburst during a presidential address, but the South Carolina congressman has a point: If you connect two of President Obama’s top policy priorities, he does want to give insurance to illegal immigrants. It’s just that he’ll make them legal immigrants first, writes Terence P. Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of the right-wing CNS. More»