Recurrent failures in the U.S. government’s executive and legislative branches to agree on spending during Barack Obama’s presidency resulted in a downgraded credit rating and a government shutdown. 

Since the early years of this century, political commentators have told the American public that the country is coming apart. Although survey data indicates that majorities of the American public believe such claims, a sober look at the data reveals a more complex picture.

While the political parties duke it out over divisive social issues, the majority of Americans remain steadfastly in the middle. . . .

The average American citizen, contrary to myth, is neither very angry, nor very far to the left or the right, nor inclined to treat anyone with different opinions as a mortal enemy...

If you find yourself wanting to steal that McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden sign on your neighbor's lawn, you might want to factor that feeling in when you think about where you want to retire...

The rally was held early in the Presidential cycle -- the first week of February 2007, a full 21 months before Election Day -- and its guest of honor wasn't yet an actual candidate...

During the long decade between pundit Pat Buchanan’s declaration of war and novelist Jane Smiley’s cry of anguish, the notion that America had split into two bitterly opposed political camps became as commonplace as apple pie...

As my wife and I waited to see a screening of "Best of Enemies," a new documentary focusing on the debates between the conservative publisher William Buckley Jr. and the liberal author Gore Vidal in the summer 1968, I overheard another guest say, "It will be nice to see a movie about a time when television was so much better at the news than it is today."