Editor's Note
The Jiujitsu Kid
by Paul Glastris

Tilting at Windmills
Cool Hand Barack … Don’t let sleeping lies dog … Capitalism could break your heart …
by Charles Peters

Cover . . .

What He Should Say in the State of the Union: Memos to Obama

Introduction:
Clinton Needed Help in ‘94. You Need Help Now.
by William A. Galston

Find a Few Good Opponents
by Bruce Bartlett

Recommit to Reform
by Howard Dean

Talk the Jobless Off the Ledge
by Debra J. Dickerson

Send In the Military
by Heather Hurlburt

Appeal to History
by Michael Kazin

Do Small Business a Simple Favor
by Jeffrey Leonard

Rise Above Party
by Will Marshall

Be the Mediator in Chief
by Andrés Martinez

Communicate Better
by Theda Skocpol

Make Government More Effective, Not Smaller
by Ruy Teixeira

Features . . .

A Time Against Race
Last year Mitch Landrieu became the first white mayor of New Orleans in three decades. He did so by garnering majority support from citizens of both races—the rarest of achievements in American politics. How long can he hold it all together?
by Justin Vogt

Get the Energy Sector off the Dole
Why ending all government subsidies for fuel production will lead to a cleaner energy future—and why Obama has a rare chance to make it happen.
by Jeffrey Leonard

On Political Books . . .

Goodnight Moon
Will America ever escape the shadow of Apollo?
by Charles Homans

Solitary Confinement
Tony Judt thought a great deal about dignity. His final book, written while the author was dying of ALS, is the epitome of it.
by Michael O’Donnell

Valley Forged
Early American counterfeiters and their heirs on Wall Street.
by Jamie Malanowski

Guerillas in the Mist
Peter Bergen blows away the political fog surrounding our war against al-Qaeda.
by Christian Caryl

The Greater Terror
In his masterful new history, Timothy Snyder portrays Stalin’s and Hitler’s mass exterminations as flip sides of the same genocide—one that was both more horrible and less unique than we thought.
by Benjamin Wallace-Wells