Essential Reads
Essential Reads is your one-stop source for the top stories of the day as reported by your favorite Washington Week panelists. It's a simple way to save time and stay informed about the news you need to know. Check it out every day!
Mar 21, 2013
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Palestinians Seek U.S. Statehood Turnabout From Obama
By Julianna Goldman & Jonathan Ferziger, Bloomberg News
President Barack Obama arrived in the West Bank today to see firsthand if Palestinian leaders still angry over his rejection of their United Nations statehood bid can be persuaded to renew peace talks with Israel.
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Will Not Have Government Shutdown
A bill to fund the government through September 30 passed in the Senate, reports CNBC's John Harwood.
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Politicians and Gay Marriage: Profiles in Calculation
By Alexander Burns, Maggie Haberman and John F. Harris, PoliticoWhen historians write the story of America’s cultural revolution on gay marriage, March of 2013 may well get its own chapter — the month when the political balance on this issue shifted unmistakably from risky to safe.
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Cybersecurity Firm Says It Is Under Attack
By Eamon Javers, CNBCMandiant, the cybersecurity firm that in February released a ground-breaking report detailing the suspected activities of a Chinese military hacking unit, told CNBC on Wednesday it is suffering the consequences of going public.
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Mar 20, 2013
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Obama Arrives in Israel to Allay Doubts About U.S. Commitment
By Julianna Goldman & Margaret Talev, Bloomberg News
President Barack Obama stepped off Air Force One onto the tarmac in Tel Aviv and said that as the “winds of change” spread across the Middle East, the U.S. commitment to Israel is unwavering and the bond between the two countries is unbreakable.
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Obama Starts First Presidential Visit to Israel
By Christi Parsons, Los Angeles TimesPresident Obama arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday for his first presidential visit to Israel, hoping to reassure the Israeli people of his commitment to their security and to tend his personal relationships with key leaders.
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Congress Makes Progress on Short-Term Fiscal Bills
Susan Davis and Susan Page, USA TodayCongress is on track to approve competing party-line budget blueprints as well as legislation to fund the government and prevent a shutdown March 27, but newfound fiscal momentum on Capitol Hill is a temporary reprieve from the budget battles that will renew this year.
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Seeking a Bigger Audience, Tea-Party Hero Embraces Immigration Reform
By Beth Reinhard, National JournalBehold the junior senator and tea-party hero from Kentucky, best known for citing the U.S. Constitution, Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
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Majority Supports Benefits for Same-Sex Couples: Reuters/Ipsos Poll
By Joan Biskupic and Maurice Tamman, ReutersAs the Supreme Court prepares to decide whether the federal government may deny benefits to same-sex married couples that it allows their heterosexual counterparts, Americans seem already to have made up their minds.
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Republican 'autopsy' reveals a divide in the party
By Doyle McManus, Los Angeles TimesIt's never too early to start thinking about the next presidential race — especially if you're a political party that has managed to lose the popular vote in five of the last six elections, as the Republican Party has.
Hence the remarkable report released Monday by the Republican National Committee, which warned that the GOP looks to many voters like a party of "stuffy old men" who are "driving around in circles on an ideological cul-de-sac."
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Iraq War’s 10th Anniversary Is Barely Noted in Washington
By Peter Baker, The New York TimesA decade after the night that American bombs first rained down on Baghdad, the president joked about wearing a green tie for a belated St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Congress noisily focused on whether spending cuts would force the cancellation of the White House Easter egg roll. Cable news debated whether a show about young women has too much sex in it.
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Mar 19, 2013
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Will We Get a Deal?
By John Harwood, CNBC
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Habeas GOP
By John Dickerson, Slate MagazineIf the first step to recovery is admitting you have problem, then can you speed the process by being really frank about it? The Republican National Committee is testing this theory. The RNC “autopsy” on the 2012 election is a bracing critique. Formally known as the “Growth and Opportunity Project,” its authors say that at the national level, Republicans turn off all but the most faithful. It sharpens its critique by quoting focus groups of former Republicans who described the party as “scary,” “narrow minded,” “out of touch,” and as the party of “stuffy, old men.” If they admit it all now, and fast, they’ll be on the road to recovery in time for 2016.
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Treasury: Monitoring Situation in Cyprus Closely
With Eamon Javers, CNBC
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Obama Speechwriter Shapes Policy With His Pen
By Christi Parsons, Los Angeles TimesOne of Ben Rhodes’ first tasks when he followed Barack Obama to the White House in 2009 was to help craft the presidential speech, delivered in Cairo, that urged a restart of Mideast peace talks, called America’s alliance with Israel “unbreakable” and described Palestinian statelessness as “intolerable.”
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Commerce Chief Rebecca Blank to Lead University of Wisconsin at Madison
By Jim Tankersley, The Washington PostThe acting commerce secretary, Rebecca Blank, will leave her post in July to become chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
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Mar 18, 2013
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Have political parties lost their purpose?
By Karen Tumulty, The Washington Post
The Democrats and Republicans may be worlds apart on most things, but at their headquarters just two blocks away from each other on Capitol Hill, each is confronting the same question: Have political parties lost their purpose?
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Young Republicans Seek Bigger Role, Different Message For 2016
By Sam Youngman, ReutersYoung Republicans still stung by Mitt Romney's defeat in November are looking for a White House candidate with a message they can run with. For some, that means going back to basics - and leaving divisive social issues behind.
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Iraq war: Lessons learned?
By Doyle McManus, Los Angeles TimesTen years have passed since the United States invaded Iraq, a decision that almost everyone now ranks as one of the worst foreign policy blunders of our time. Why "almost"? Former President George W. Bush and his top aides still maintain that the invasion was a good idea, even though the premise on which the war was based — that Saddam Hussein had acquired weapons of mass destruction — proved false, and even though the ensuing war claimed the lives of more than 4,500 Americans and an estimated 127,000 Iraqis.
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Obama to nominate Thomas E. Perez as Labor secretary
By Christi Parsons, Los Angeles TimesPresident Obama plans to nominate the government's top-ranking civil rights lawyer as the new secretary of Labor on Monday, a key position as the administration prepares to take on immigration reform.
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