Gwen's Take

Gwen’s Take | The Blame Game and Other Perplexing Things

Posted: February 28, 2013 at 6:42 pm

The man in my audience at Ohio University this week was exasperated. Why, he wondered, can’t Washington get its act together?

Why indeed?

I can’t say I had a good answer. But it was clear that –- in Athens, Ohio, at least –- the latest budget cutting debate is going over about as well as that moment when your misbehaving children blame each other for starting it first. This is when you threaten to pull the car over.

Gwen’s Take | Inside the Supreme Court with Sonia Sotomayor

Posted: February 21, 2013 at 5:50 pm

There are few places in Washington as grand as the Supreme Court. The staircases sweep; the marble columns soar, and the carved archways inside guide visitors down hushed hallways. The chamber itself, with its velvet drapes, elevated bench and rich history, makes you drop your voice to a whisper once you’re inside.

Gwen’s Take | Happy 100th Birthday, Rosa Parks

Posted: February 7, 2013 at 3:31 pm

We know instinctively that not everything we come to believe as history is true. But we want it to be.

We want to believe that a timid seamstress sat down on a city bus in December, 1955 and refused to give up her seat to a white man because she was just too tired.

We want to believe that she was a solitary heroine who single-handedly desegregated public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama overnight.

And we want to believe that she spent the rest of her days comfortably, secure in the knowledge that her meek, nonviolent approach to injustice made all the difference.

Gwen's Take | Rubio, Giffords & Hagel: The Week in Confrontation

Posted: January 31, 2013 at 7:00 pm

Government can be dry. Politics can be tiring. The law, while necessary, can be tedious.

This is why high drama in Washington can be so much fun.

We saw three instances of it this week. And unlike our periodic fascination with invisible girlfriends and doping scandals, Beyonce and Volkswagen ads, these may actually matter.

Gwen's Take | Eight Rows Back: The GOP’s Murky Path Forward

Posted: January 24, 2013 at 5:06 pm

Rep. Paul Ryan, on Inauguration Day, seated behind Beyonce and Jay-Z (Photo: NBC)

Updated: Friday, Jan 25 11:35am

Monday morning in Washington was a chilly place to be if you were a man who imagined you might have been the one facing a Supreme Court justice with your right hand raised.