Corey Robin

Tag: White House

Du Bois on blowing up the East Wing of the White House for the sake of a ballroom in the sky

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One of the elements of Du Bois’s argument in Black Reconstruction that surprised me most the last time, or maybe the time before that, that I taught it, was just how much attention he pays to the Radical Republican’ vision of congressional power and congressional government over and against a Constitution based on presidential power and presidential government. Du Bois even suggests that had the Radicals won, we might have had a system more like the parliamentary democracies of Europe, or at least of Britain, where the chief executive is simply the leader of the party in parliament, and not an office completely apart from that party and that parliament. For Du Bois, that vision of parliamentary government, as opposed […]

Mi Casa Es Su Casa

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Barack Obama: President Obama showed little patience for a protester who interrupted him at a White House Pride Month reception on Wednesday, immediately waving a finger and scolding, “Nonononononononono, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” “Listen, you’re in my house,” said the president to cheers and applause. “You’re not gonna get a good response from interrupting me like this.” “Shame on you,” Obama added before having the heckler removed by White House personnel. Michelle Obama: This is really what the White House is all about. It’s the “People’s House.” whitehouse.gov: The White House is known as “The People’s House”… whitehouse.gov: President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are committed to opening the doors of the White House and […]