Schell in NYT – China's rise

"For the last hundred years, China has wanted to be in the position where it's not pushed around." said Senior Fellow Orville Schell in an article in the New York Times. "And now they are close to that." China's rise as an economic superpower has threatened the US control has had over the world import and exporting business. Schell also believes that President Obama is working to maintain good relations with the communist state in order to gain necessary aid and alliances for the United States…….

Cowan and Schnur: Partisan cooperation will be the key to Obama's success in the coming year

Just weeks after the tragedy in Tucson, President Obama used his annual State of the Union address to urge the nation to move past divisive political debates and work together to confront the nation's problems. "What comes of this moment," Obama explained to an audience of legislators, who eschewed the traditional partisan State of the Union seating chart, "will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow." While the President earned plaudits for his tough talk, turning it into tangible results will prove to be a greater challenge. That subject, how……

Glickman – ABC News – Gov’t Gridlock

Senior Fellow Dan Glickman spoke with ABC News regarding the recent midterm election. Glickman is also a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and a former senator of Kansas. He told ABC that despite the state of the country, in order to move forward "ultimately, that takes leadership from the President and Congress and business leaders. You know, everybody's got a stake in this game." [video]……

Dr. Strangelove Redux

And now a quote that could come from Dr. Strangelove: "A lot of people fear artificial intelligence. I will stand my artificial intelligence against your human any day of the week and tell you that my A.I. will pay more attention to the rules of engagement and create fewer ethical lapses than a human force." That is from John Arquilla, executive director of the Information Operations Center at the Naval Postgraduate School. "Dr. Arquilla," reports The New York Times, "argues that weapons systems controlled by software will not act out of anger and malice and, in certain cases, can already……

The Cowardice of America at War

Photo credit storqmplusI had to pull over to the side of La Cienega Boulevard last Tuesday evening as I drove home from work. I was crying. It was nothing, or it was the same old thing. I was listening to the news on National Public Radio when there was another story about another death in Afghanistan. Pfc. Andrew Meari, age 21. A village called Senjaray. An Afghan on a moped pulled up next to an American truck and blew himself up, killing Meari and another guy. The Americans, my countrymen, were there, near Kandahar, working to win the trust and……

The Etiquette of American Politics

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson has been admonished for yelling “You lie” during President Obama’s health care speech, an outburst that startled many Americans and which others connected to this summer’s rowdy town hall behavior. However, in the United Kingdom the political process is routinely more raucous. Is American the land of polite politics… and is that changing? “There are differences in style between U.S. and U.K. political discourse,” says USC Annenberg communication professor and CCLP faculty fellow Tom Hollihan (pictured), author of Uncivil Wars: Political Campaigns in a Media Age…….

The United States of Optimism: Americans have always seen a remarkably sunny future for themselves and their country

The late 1830s and early '40s were a bad time in Missouri and most everyplace else in the U.S. People were broke and in debt after a boom in land speculation along the routes of new canals and railroads. In the bust that followed–what became known as the Panic of 1837–banks failed or cut off credit. One Missourian, a 36-year-old storekeeper and self-educated lawyer with a sick wife (a malaria epidemic had swept the Midwest) announced on a day in 1843 that he wanted to start over in the Oregon Territory: "I am done with this country," he said. "Winters……

A new era of bipartisanship?

Early in this year's primary election season I did a study on bipartisanship for the Center on Communication Leadership of the University of Southern California. I'm afraid I was not very optimistic that Republicans and Democrats would be able to get together on much of anything after the Clinton and Bush years of what some call "hyperpartisanship." Now I'm not so sure. I concluded then that: "My own feeling is that only a strong president with a mandate for governing through a universal crisis — a necessary war or devastating climate change — can bring any bipartisanship or, better, nonpartisanship……