Eyal Press

The last ten minutes of Barack Obama's health care speech, invoking the legacy of Ted Kennedy and emphasizing concern for others as an essential part of "the American character," were powerful and affecting. Eschewing the professorial tone he has too often struck when discussing health care in recent months, Obama spoke instead about "large heartedness" and the "terror and helplessness" any parent would feel to have a sick child go without treatment because of money. He also said "the danger of too much government is matched by… more

Eyal Press is a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation.  He is a contributing writer at the Nation and a journalist who has written extensively about politics, social issues and the world of ideas.  His essays, reviews, and feature stories have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, The Columbia Journalism… more

In the days between Christmas and New Year's Eve, Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, sat at his desk in Lower Manhattan and reached out to people who had lavished generous donations on his organization during the long, benighted tenure of George W. Bush. It was a heady moment: the era of Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales was winding to a close, and Barack Obama was about to assume office, having vowed to rescind some of his predecessor's more egregious assaults… more