Word: democratizations
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Washington commissions and hearings are often yawn-inspiring affairs. But this one, officially called the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), could trigger some fireworks in part because of the severe damage caused by the financial-industry meltdown. What's more, the commission's chair Phil Angelides, a Democrat and former California state treasurer, has already come out swinging against Wall Street, calling the bonuses financial firms are planning to hand out soon for last year "unjustifiably wrong." So it's no real surprise that the first ones to be in the hot seat are the bankers themselves. (See pictures...
Diminutive in the imposing vastness of her office, Angela Merkel appears surprisingly frail for someone who's spent the past 20 years upending political norms. Now 55, Merkel, Germany's first Chancellor raised in the communist East, is the head of a democratic form of government and the guardian of individual freedoms that she was denied until her 30s. She outsmarted phalanxes of gray-haired, gray-suited machine politicians to set two other precedents, becoming the first woman to occupy the Chancellery as well as its youngest incumbent. Then in September, after four tricky years helming a coalition that yoked...
...upside of this approach is obvious: It gets things done. Between the stimulus package, the pending health care bill and a new raft of financial regulations, Obama will soon be able to claim more major legislative accomplishments than any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson. The downside, though, is that sometimes what gets done isn't worth doing...
...turned out to be the year of the antihero. It is the year in which Joe Lieberman gets my nod--cynical though it is--as 'American of the Year.' A Democrat of convenience, Lieberman has succeeded in doing what Benedict Arnold couldn't. In a masterful act of treachery, he retains a position of trust among the very people he betrayed...
Assembly speaker Karen Bass, a Los Angeles Democrat, says she is "highly troubled" by Schwarzenegger's proposals for further cuts to a social-welfare system under severe strain. Unemployment in many urban neighborhoods tops 20%, and the number of homeless women and children is growing. Additional cuts to the foster-care system and increased caseloads for social-welfare workers will put children's lives at risk, according to Bass. "Last year's budget left the safety net on life support," she says. "Now the governor is talking about disconnecting the respirator...