Javier Ogaz

rtnt:

The Making of a Post-Post-Partisan Presidency
Today’s guest submission is from Javier Ogaz.

As President Obama prepares to give his State of the Union address, which pundits will parse for evidence of how he plans to take on Republicans this fall, it’s easy to forget how different his strategy toward the opposing party was at the outset of his presidency. Three years in, it appears Obama’s efforts at post-partisanship have been futile. Ryan Lizza writes for the New Yorker on whether it is possible to reach across the aisle when an energized opposition has little interest in compromise:

Obama didn’t remake Washington. But his first two years stand as one of the most successful legislative periods in modern history. Among other achievements, he has saved the economy from depression, passed universal health care, and reformed Wall Street. Along the way, Obama may have changed his mind about his 2008 critique of Hillary Clinton. “Working the system, not changing it” and being “consumed with beating” Republicans “rather than unifying the country and building consensus to get things done” do not seem like such bad strategies for success after all.

Read the full article here.

Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story. I didn’t know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.

— Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

(Source: chasewhiteside)