Peter J. Boyer

A university named for George Washington and Robert E. Lee wrestles with its traditions and heritage.

Subtlety not being Donald Trump’s customary approach to his job, his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court was a surprisingly artful political play.

Trump manages to pick a Supreme Court nominee that appeals both to the establishment and the Deplorables.

In Mississippi’s special Senate election, Trump’s favor is ‘stronger than goat’s breath.’ This year that may hurt anti-establishment campaigns like Chris McDaniel’s.

One year and a day after Betsy DeVos was confirmed as secretary of education, she sat in her seventh-floor office, a vast and soulless space in one of the unloveliest buildings in Washington, and reflected upon the process that brought her there.

On the morning of December 12, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took the stage at the Dean Acheson Auditorium to conduct a year-end town-hall meeting with his anxious and largely skeptical State Department staff. The event was keenly anticipated and the venue packed. No one in attendance—not even…

As the reckoning over sexual abuse finally reaches Bill Clinton, with handwringing by some of his former defenders in the press and in politics, one Clinton White House veteran is following developments with particular interest—and a large measure of skepticism.

Democratic euphoria over the party’s sweeping November 7 election triumph in Virginia lasted, undisturbed, for all of four days—until the airing of that week’s installment of Saturday Night Live jarringly altered the mood. SNL, which, in the Trump era, has seemed like the comedy auxiliary of the…

In a speech on October 11 promoting his tax-reform plan, Donald Trump spoke rosily of America’s economic revival, crediting himself for having cleared the way for growth. “Since January of this year, we have slashed job-killing red tape all across our economy,” the president said. “We have stopped…

In a speech on October 11 promoting his tax-reform plan, Donald Trump spoke rosily of America’s economic revival, crediting himself for having cleared the way for growth. “Since January of this year, we have slashed job-killing red tape all across our economy,” the president said. “We have stopped…

When the rise of Donald J. Trump obliterated the norms of American politics, the norms of American journalism were demolished, as well.

As Kim Jong-un’s cavalcade of menace has proceeded across the 2017 calendar, revealing a North Korean arsenal that now includes a hydrogen bomb and missiles capable of reaching New York City and Washington, D.C., America’s strategic posture has been old and familiar (if now more colorfully…

As Kim Jong-un’s cavalcade of menace has proceeded across the 2017 calendar, revealing a North Korean arsenal that now includes a hydrogen bomb and missiles capable of reaching New York City and Washington, D.C., America’s strategic posture has been old and familiar (if now more colorfully…

With the departure from the White House of strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who helped shape the so-called nationalist-populist program embraced by Donald Trump in his unlikely path to election, a new phase of the Trump presidency begins. Given Trump’s nature, what comes next will hardly be…

A presidential decision on a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, long delayed and the subject of bitter dispute inside the White House, may finally be at hand. Key members of the Trump administration’s war council met with the president on August 10 at the summer White House in Bedminster,…

A presidential decision on a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, long delayed and the subject of bitter dispute inside the White House, may finally be at hand. Key members of the Trump administration’s war council met with the president on August 10 at the summer White House in Bedminster,…

By the end of his presidency, Barack Obama, who had once seen in his own coming the healing of the earth and a curb on the rise of the oceans, had reason to be well pleased with his environmental record. He had not mastered the tides perhaps, but he had imposed upon the nation a climate program…

As the 2016 presidential campaign neared its final throes, the journalist Salena Zito offered an elegant explanation of the chasm between the political-media class, which beheld Donald Trump as an unelectable clown, and those Americans propelling him toward victory. "[T]he press takes him…

As the 2016 presidential campaign neared its final throes, the journalist Salena Zito offered an elegant explanation of the chasm between the political-media class, which beheld Donald Trump as an unelectable clown, and those Americans propelling him toward victory. "[T]he press takes him…