Obama's Job No. 1: Create Jobs & Strengthen the Economy
Kenneth T. Walsh

President Obama promised to make creating jobs and strengthening the economy his top priorities in 2010. In his 71-minute State of the Union address, a mostly somber but confident Obama argued that 'again, we are tested, and again, we must answer history's call.'

The State of the President
Paul Greenberg

Obama's State of the Union address was pre-eminently a time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. So what was it the president said? What lasting impression did he leave after addressing an increasingly uneasy Congress -- and an increasingly divided nation -- for an hour and 10 minutes? Can you recall his message? Could you recall it the next morning?

Obama Courts Small-Business Owners
Rob Silverblatt

President Barack Obama assumed a decidedly populist tone in his State of the Union Address as he called for a multilayered safety net for the country's ailing small businesses. In a speech peppered with references to individual letters from Americans and examples from various cities across the country, Obama promised infusions of cash and tax credits for small-business owners

Prosperity Isn't Coming Without Structural Rebalancing
Robyn Blumner

President Barack Obama did a fine job with his first State of the Union address. His basic theses were: The middle-class is suffering. We must create more jobs. Banks have to pay more. Democrats and Republicans should get along. Nice. But to reignite a constituency for a progressive vision, Obama should be talking in broader strokes.

Obama's Policies are Becoming More Populist
Kenneth T. Walsh

Enter Barack Obama, born-again populist. Reacting to his political setbacks and the rising distress of Middle America, the president has begun to shift from projecting reasonableness and accommodation in favor of a more confrontational stance toward special interests.

Internet Buzz on Obama Drops After State of the Union Address
Paul Bedard

The blog reviews of President Obama's first State of the Union speech are in, and they're not good. The president's speech drove his online buzz down 2 percentage points, with bloggers especially harsh on his approach to unemployment and terrorism.

Top Advisers Sent Obama on Wrong Track
Kenneth T. Walsh

The long knives are out for some key administration officials as concern deepens among Democrats that members of President Obama's inner circle have pulled him off track. The criticism centers on three administration powerhouses: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and White House economics adviser Larry Summers

Obama's Post-Partisan Pipedream
Jules Witcover

While President Obama continues to plead for an end to partisanship, the outlook in the wake of his State of the Union Address seems bleaker than ever. The Republicans in the Senate were given their 41st vote to sustain their legislative stonewall by the election of conservative Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Now they have all the votes they need to make the filibuster not simply a threat.

Obama: A More Realistic President
Jules Witcover

Barack Obama has revealed himself, in his State of the Union address, as one who understands the political realities shaped in the first year and adjusting to them. The principal reality is the unacceptable unemployment rate that has fired public impatience and anger. Obama accordingly elevated job creation as his top priority, replacing the drive for health-care reform.

Obama Letting It Ride on a Bad Bet
Jonah Goldberg

For all the talk of how he needed to 'pivot' to the center, the Obama we saw was the same Obama who ran for president and the same Obama we've seen over the last year. His White House is so deep in their own bunker, they could sustain a Dresden-style carpet bombing without even hearing the dishware rattle.

Obama's Popularity Plunge
Reader Comments

Sadly, the basic attacks and criticisms that were part of the campaign arguments in 2008 against Barack Obama as president are all becoming self-evident. I think President Obama is a good man; he is just not up to the job and has surrounded himself with people who do not act in the basic interest of America.

Duped President's Wasted Foreign-Policy Year
William Pfaff

President Obama's foreign policy failure has astonished the international public and left in despair those Americans who can scarcely believe that a whole year has been irresponsibly wasted. By now, there is little or no hope of recovering that promise of national and international reform that had pervaded Western society a year ago

Obama - Trashing the Job Makers
Victor Davis Hanson

A year ago Obama inherited a recession brought on by the collapse of the housing bubble. The crash was made worse by recklessness on Wall Street. Job losses followed, and in response, Obama pushed through an epic stimulus bill. Yet despite the stimulus, unemployment soared from 7.6 percent to 10 percent. Now, an embarrassed administration continues to cite jobs saved, rather than jobs lost

Obama: On Being a One-Term President
Jules Witcover

Nothing seems more fanciful than President Obama's observation in an ABC News interview with Diane Sawyer, 'I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.' The implication of the one-term remark, however, is that Obama is willing to throw self-serving politics to the winds to achieve his major goals, which would really be a quite remarkable change in Washington politics.

Death of Democracy
(c) Don Wright

Controversial Supreme Court Decision Expected to Reshape Financing of Elections
Alex Kingsbury

In one of the most contentious rulings in recent Supreme Court history, the high court overturned decades of legal precedent that limited how corporations, unions, and other organizations can participate in the political process. The 5-to-4 decision is all but certain to dramatically reshape the conduct of elections in the United States, campaign finance experts say.

Why Wall Street Won't Buy Candidates
Rob Silverblatt

Large investment banks are irked by President Obama's plans to tax them. Corporations across the country are concerned about the implications of healthcare reform. And throughout Wall Street, businesses are expressing fear about the potential for a new regulatory regime. As a result of the Supreme Court's decision, they can all now put their money where their mouths are. But will they?

Supreme Court Decision: The Source of Corporate Power
Robert C. Koehler

The 5-4 decision in the long-awaited Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case overturns restrictions on corporate spending to influence election results, giving entities with millions (in some cases, billions) of dollars at their disposal unlimited license to electioneer for the candidate with the friendliest attitude toward their interests.

Supreme Court Decision: Quotes of the Day
Paul Greenberg

The court may actually be getting back to protecting the First Amendment: free speech in a free country. No matter who is exercising the right to it -- even corporations, politicians and labor unions. And no matter when they choose to exercise it. Let 'em all have their say. As the founders surely intended.

Supreme Court Decision: How Corporations Became 'Persons'
Clarence Page

When is a corporation like a freed slave? When it is trying to win human rights in a case before the Supreme Court. This may sound odd, but that's the historical background that led up to the Supreme Court's recent decision to open the floodgates on political spending by corporations, unions and other narrow interests.

Supreme Court Decision: Corporate Personhood
Cal Thomas

Among the interesting arguments in the 5-4 Supreme Court decision (Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission) granting corporations First Amendment protections when making campaign contributions was the majority's decision to effectively treat corporations as persons

Obama Vs. the Supreme Court
Reader Comments

Supreme Court justices have a history of building castles of legal cards to suit their own agendas. However, the Supreme Court is not entitled to throw out the means by which we defend ourselves from coercive tactics heavily funded by special interests and at variance to the public good

The Power of the Unconscious on Terrorism, Race and Politics
Jessica Rettig

From suicide bombers to the average American voter, most humans believe their decisions are based on sound judgment and core values. Yet, according to Washington Post columnist Shankar Vedantam, much of everyday decision making is rooted in assumptions that lie outside the realm of awareness.

Bring Democracy to the Senate
Bill Press

Among other priorities in his State of the Union address, President Obama vowed to change the way Washington works. Here's one good place to start: get rid of the filibuster. It's undemocratic, and it invites gross, mindless partisanship -- especially the way it's employed by today's Senate Republicans to block any legislation or nomination coming out of the White House.

How the Filibuster Changed and Brought Tyranny of the Minority
Robert Schlesinger

To observe the moribund Democrats and gleeful Republicans in the wake of Scott Brown's Massachusetts miracle, one would think that the number of Democrats in the Senate had already dipped to 49, rather than 59. And that's actually not too far off base. In American politics, 60 is the new 50.

Trouble Keeps Coming for Reid & Democrats
Anna Mulrine

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has never been one for finely crafted turns of phrase. Reid had made statements before that prompted colleagues to shake their heads. Even more problematic for the man in charge of corralling Senate votes is Massachusetts Republican candidate Scott Brown's election victory last week, ending the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority.

State of the Union Obama's Chance to Reset His Presidency
Kenneth T. Walsh

When President Obama addresses Congress and the nation, he will command the nation's attention for one of the most important speeches of his career. His State of the Union address provides the opportunity to set priorities for 2010, offer insights into whether he will adopt a fight or flight strategy in dealing with his adversaries and an opportunity to get out of a political trough.

Why Neither Ronald Reagan Nor United States Won the Cold War
Alex Kingsbury

Ronald Reagan never claimed to have bested the Soviet Union and won the Cold War. Indeed, the very idea that a winner of the decades-long rivalry between the superpowers emerged was a political formulation. The notion that the United States forced the collapse of the Soviet Union and vanquished communism is not only a myth but a dangerous canard, Jack Matlock says in his new book ...

Time for Obama to Look at Terrorism Differently
Jonah Goldberg

It is always dangerous to mistake your ideological preferences for shrewd political strategy, but that is precisely what President Obama and his advisors have done with the war on terror.

How to Fix Government and Make Democracy Work Again
Robert Schlesinger

A Democratic operative of 30 years, including working as a pollster and strategist for President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000, Douglas Schoen has been part of the political system's inner workings. It's broken, he writes in The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy From the Grass Roots to the White House , and he knows what to do about it. A recent interview ...

Hope Has Been a Bust; It's Time for Hope 2.0
Arianna Huffington

It's become painfully obvious that elected officials are not going to save us. The 2008 election was all about 'Hope.' But Hope is simply not cutting it. What we need is Hope 2.0: the realization that our system is too broken to be fixed by politicians, however well intentioned -- that change is going to have to come from outside Washington.

The Source of America's Imperial Presidency
William Pfaff

The imposingly versatile Garry Wills, Northwestern University historian, political polemicist, sometime philosopher, theologian and church historian, has a new book inspired by liberal disappointment with President Barack Obama, blaming his faults as well as other American presidential disorders on the atom bomb.

Madness, Madness ... Political Madness
Paul Greenberg

A country that can sneer at Sarah Palin but take Joe Biden seriously. That's how screwed-up we are. God save us from our precious elite. They salivate on Pavlovian cue from NPR, the New York Times, the New Yorker, New York Review of Books or whatever is today's arbiter of intellectual fashion. No class is more easily guided than our conforming nonconformists.

 

President Obama

Our Philosopher-King Obama
Victor Davis Hanson

A technocracy -- many Ivy-League-educated and without much experience outside academia and government -- pushes legislation most people do not want but is nevertheless judged to be good for them. Take the Obama proposal for health care. How about energy policy? Why, then, does the Obama administration persist with such apparently unpopular agendas?

Obama Looks for a Rebound
Clarence Page

In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama appeared to get the message: He admitted that his administration got so busy that it lost touch and left the public with 'a feeling of remoteness and detachment.' Gee, do ya think? What a difference a year makes.

Obama's Failed Bipartisan Efforts
Kenneth T. Walsh

President Obama took office pledging to end the rancor that was contaminating official Washington. A year later, it's clear that his effort has failed, just as it fizzled when George W. Bush said he would end the capital's divisions in 2001, when Bill Clinton promised to work with the opposition in 1993, and when George H. W. Bush pledged to create the 'age of the offered hand' in 1989.

The Incredible Deflation of Barack Obama
Mortimer B. Zuckerman

The air is seeping out of the Obama balloon. He has fallen to below 50 percent in the poll approval ratings, a decline punctuated by his party's shocking loss in the Massachusetts special election. Why?

Despite Falling Poll Numbers Obama Would Beat Cheney
Paul Bedard

The news isn't very good on President Obama's first-year anniversary. But as Obama mulls what to do to make sure his own 2012 re-election isn't in jeopardy, pollster John Zogby is giving him a little present.

Feeling the Heat Obama Pours Kool-Aid
Jonah Goldberg

Denial, arrogance and self-pity are ingredients for a pretty toxic cocktail. And yet it seems that the occupants of the White House bunker, shell-shocked by Scott Brown, are coping by mixing all three with a little Kool-Aid. In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, the president offered his nuanced analysis of the Bay State Gotterdammerung and his first year in office.

2010 Elections - GOP's 10 Most Wanted List
Paul Bedard

Bad polls for Obama and the Democrats has the GOP smelling blood in the political pool. Already, some are predicting major Republican gains when the 2010 elections take place. But there are several high-profile politicians the Republicans are targeting for election defeat or just embarrassment. To help follow the action, here's the GOP's Top 10 Most Wanted List

Why Voters Are So Angry and Incumbents Are So Scared
Marc Dunkelman

After his first year in office, President Obama has had what historians will likely consider a banner year. Obama's administration has managed to pull the nation back from economic free fall, is close to reforming healthcare and is making substantial progress re-orienting Washington's approach to education. Despite these accomplishments, voters appear to remain frustrated.

Some Democrats Wary of 2010 Election Prospects
Anna Mulrine

In a tough election year, retiring is a time-honored, blame-free way for embattled incumbents to bow out of potentially losing races. But as Congress returns to the business of legislating this month, even Democratic Party stalwarts are already warily eying the midterm elections as they face increasingly worrying poll figures

We the People & Political Lessons Learned
Cal Thomas

Chief among the lessons learned from Scott Brown's victory is that the voting public doesn't like arrogance. Democrats were taught that lesson in 1994. But Republicans quickly became what they replaced, believing that voters had given them a license to do whatever they wished.

Scott Brown Victory Not a Referendum on Healthcare
Kent Garber

There is clearly tension among Democrats about how to move forward following the loss of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat to Republican Scott Brown. Some have suggested slowing down and re-evaluating; others, noting how much progress has been made toward a bill, have said just the opposite. With Brown's victory, the Democrats now hold only 59 seats in the Senate.

Scott Brown: Another Tea Party
Paul Greenberg

Those folks in Massachusetts have a way of starting revolutions, and they're still at it. The Spirit of '76 seemed to morph into a new Spirit of '10 as Scott Brown, an obscure state senator, up there prepared to become a U.S. one. And, at least for 24 hours, the very emblem of American independence.

Ted Kennedy Deserved Better
Bill Press

No matter what right-wing commentators claim, one thing for sure: This special Senate election was not a referendum on President Obama. Nor was it a protest against health care reform. No, Democrat Martha Coakley lost the Massachusetts Senate race for two reasons.

Scott Brown Lesson for Democrats: Recapture Change
Brad Bannon

The Brown Out in Massachusetts was a disaster for Democrats and party leaders shouldn't pretend otherwise. Whenever a catastrophe like this occurs, there's plenty of blame to spread around. Martha Coakley's campaign was not nearly as effective as Scott Brown's. The White House failed to present an agenda. My message to Democrats is get over it and look forward and not backward.

So Long, ObamaCare? Scott Brown and Massachusetts Earthquake
Ross Mackenzie

Who could have imagined a month ago, when polls had Martha Coakley leading Scott Brown by more than 20 points, that a massive earthquake was in store not only in Haiti -- but also in Massachusetts? Haiti's was a staggering blow to a country that has suffered vastly too much. Massachusetts quake caused no loss of life but it devastated the nation's ideological landscape.

Scott Brown: Brown-Out Threatens Legislative Progress
Robyn Blumner

No matter what the voters of Massachusetts were or weren't saying by electing Republican Scott Brown to the Senate, the Democrats have reason to feel like a Mack truck ran over their last 'Yes We Can' sign. That this could happen a year after President Barack Obama took office with such hopes and popularity indicates that voters have memories about as long as a tweet

Scott Brown: Some Wakeup Call
Jules Witcover

More than a mere dash of water in the face, Scott Brown's election and the Republican capture of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts was more like a two-by-four smash upside the head of the Democratic Party.

Pat Robertson & Rush Limbaugh: Absence of Conscience
Leonard Pitts Jr.

As Haiti reeled and staggered, two icons of conservatism offered their analyses of the earthquake that devastated Haiti. Pat Robertson opined that Haiti's woes stem from the deal with the devil two centuries ago. Rush Limbaugh suggests the relief effort would 'play right into' Obama's hands. It left me wondering whether conservatism has a conscience, whether conservatism has a soul.

Supreme Court Blindness: Unlimited Campaign Contributions
Jules Witcover

The Supreme Court has ignored precedent and inserted itself into politics, paving the way for an intensified campaign money arms race. That is the ramification of its 5-4 decision opening the floodgates to unlimited campaign contribution spending by corporate America. It brushes aside the 1947 protections in campaign finance law

Bob McDonnell Virginia's New Governor: New GOP Dawn
Cal Thomas

After several weeks of heavy snow and sub-freezing temperatures, the sun came out and the snow began to melt in Richmond last Saturday for the inauguration of Republican Bob McDonnell as Virginia's new governor. McDonnell is not your stereotypical Republican.

Book of the Year -- 'Game Change!'
Liz Smith

If you want to refresh yourself on Barack Obama's talents at organizing and leading and inspiring, you must sit down right now and read the book of the moment -- 'Game Change' by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. There, laid out for all to follow, is the story of Obama's incredible rise to the top and how he overcame the forces of intolerance and old-fashioned thinking.

Senator Scott Brown
(c) Dana Summers

Scott Brown - Democrats Feel Heat Over Lost Kennedy Seat
Jonah Goldberg

It should be of more than passing interest that 'Ted Kennedy's seat' in the Senate went to Republican Scott Brown. And not just any Republican, but an actual conservative, as opposed to some me-too Republican

 

Harry Reid
(c) Matt Wuerker

GOP Mining Old Stories on Harry Reid and Race
Paul Bedard

Moving fast to take advantage of the highly controversial words about Barack Obama's race from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republicans are mining past Democratic comments decrying GOP race statements in a bid to build a case for Harry Reid to step down from his leadership post

 

When Conservative Felonies Become Liberal Misdemeanors
Victor Davis Hanson

Why in matters of stupid behavior do liberals get second and third chances from the media and general public not accorded to their conservative counterparts? We're seeing it now in the national reaction to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's reported racial gaffe. Compare how he's being treated to what happened to Trent Lott in 2002.

Harry Reid Was Right
Leonard Pitts Jr.

Somebody please tell Harry Reid there are no Negroes in America. There haven't been since the late 1960s, which is when black people arrived and drove that term out of favor. The person who uses it without irony, as Harry Reid did, paints himself as a geezer out of touch with the last 40 years.

Harry Reid - Playing Race-Card Gotcha
Jonah Goldberg

Harry Reid deserves the grief. Just last month, Reid insinuated that fellow senators standing in the way of Obamacare were carrying on the tradition of the racists who stood in the way of civil rights in the 1960s. That he's been caught talking like one of those racists is a delicious irony. But irony is one thing. Scalp-hunting is another

Harry Reid - The Tin Ear in Politics
Jules Witcover

The latest prominent qualifier for membership in the Tin Ear Club is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for his comments that Barack Obama in the Senate was 'light-skinned' and 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted one.'

Harry Reid's 'Negro' Problem
Clarence Page

To all those kind-hearted folks who want to protect my feelings as an African American from the insult that Sen. Harry Reid allegedly has heaped upon me: Thanks, but no thanks.

Harry Reid is No Trent Lott
Bill Press

Senate Majority Leader Reid should have known better than to expect his off-the-record comments about Barack Obama to stay off the record. Instead, they exploded in his face as one of the juiciest tidbits served up by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their new book, Game Change.

Obama - Battle of the Political Gurus
Jules Witcover

Ever since Barack Obama assumed the presidency a year ago, his administration's marching orders have been to seek bipartisanship. A substantial part of his instructions has been to look ahead, not back, in striving to move the country in that direction.

Need for Presidents to Look Tough Isn't Getting U.S. Anywhere
William Pfaff

President Barack Obama is said to feel he is in trouble politically because his enemies in Congress and among the Washington journalists who decide what the 'mood' of Washington is on any given day say he is not tough enough.

Terrorism: Obama's Main Political Vulnerability
Kenneth T. Walsh

Terrorism has suddenly emerged as the main political vulnerability of President Obama and the Democrats as the new year begins. The trigger was the attempted December 25 bombing of an American jetliner en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, which appalled many people and raised new questions about airline safety.

Obama's Obstacles
Reader Comments

President Obama has a rough road ahead of him. We are all hurting right now as a nation, but we have to allow the president enough time to do his job.

Obama - Obama's Second-Year Blues
Jules Witcover

Already faced with the task of dragging the Democratic-controlled Congress across the finish line in his first-year struggle to enact sweeping health-care insurance reform, the shattering earthquake in Haiti has heaped more woe on his plate.

Obama - A Change We Can Celebrate
Leonard Pitts Jr.

One year after that icy Washington day when Aretha Franklin sang and John Roberts muffed his lines and Barack Obama raised his hand and swore the oath that made him president of the United States, it turns out something fundamental has changed

'Shadow Elite' Explains Why Washington No Longer Works
Arianna Huffington

I recently read a great book by Janine Wedel called 'Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market.' It's a gripping, disquieting book that exposes and explains why it's been so hard to bring about any real change in the United States. As Janine Wedel writes in 'Shadow Elite,' a new 'transnational' class of elites has taken over our country

Global Political-Risk Outlook for 2010
Ian Bremmer and David Gordon

The biggest risk for 2010 comes from the point at which these trends converge: U.S.-China relations, Iran, European Fiscal Divergence, U.S. Financial Regulation, Japan ... Our top 10 geopolitical concerns for 2010 and their impact on the world

Transformation of Obama: Surprise Us Mr. President
Paul Greenberg

What a difference a year makes. And how differently the country begins to see Barack Obama, the shining hope as a presidential candidate, now that he's President Obama. And acting like any other president who'd rather make the big decisions behind closed doors with only his cronies present.

2010 Brings Bigger Problems for Obama
Kenneth T. Walsh

President Obama thought he had problems in 2009. But 2010 could be tougher. One reason is that an issue that had seemed dormant -- terrorism -- suddenly erupted again when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas Day. The attempt failed, but the incident showed that the terrorist threat remains real ...

A Year of Mixed Results for Obama
Kenneth T. Walsh

Obama's year started with soaring optimism and the promise of change. 2009 ended with some significant achievements but also a large helping of disappointment. And through it all, President Obama has governed in a somewhat paradoxical way that many voters didn't expect when they elected him

10 Keys to an Obama Comeback
Paul Bedard

It happened to Ronald Reagan. Ditto for Bill Clinton. And now President Obama has ended his first year in office plummeting in the polls on the heels of a bad economy. So can Obama come back as Reagan and Clinton did?

2010 Elections & Short Voter Memories
Jules Witcover

One of the first political themes of the new year is the speculation that President Obama after less than a year in office is already on the skids, and that his Democratic Party is doomed to major defeats in next November's congressional elections.

2010 Elections: What GOP Can Learn From Pizza Chain
Jonah Goldberg

This is one of those rare moments when the conventional wisdom in Washington is right. The Democrats are poised to have a bad year; the only argument is over how bad it will be. And that question rests on whether or not the Republican Party crafts an agenda voters will support.

United States The Corporate State of America
Paul Greenberg

Can anybody be surprised at the latest development in the saga of U.S.A., Inc.? The government now has advanced GMAC, the financial arm of Government Motors, formerly General Motors, another $3.8 billion in cash, acquiring a majority stake in that lending agency, which is laden with debt itself.

Ronald Reagan and the Ascendency of Conservatism
Robert Schlesinger

Until the votes were cast, the 1980 election was too close to call, with polls showing President Jimmy Carter leading Republican challenger Ronald Reagan. The former actor won comfortably, marking the conservative political ascendancy. Craig Shirley recently chatted with Robert Schlesinger about pivotal elections, today's GOP, and how close Reagan came to losing.

For Liberalism It's Hangover Time
Jonah Goldberg

A year ago this month, the air over American liberalism was thick with champagne corks. Barack Obama, the newly elected president, was poised to be inaugurated, and he in turn would inaugurate the long-prophesized new progressive era. A year later, the champagne corks are hardly flying, and if this is to be morning in America for American liberalism, it seems to have come with a pretty nasty hangover.

2010 Political Predictions: Sarah Palin Fades, Jeb Bush Returns
Paul Bedard

Heck, just two years ago, who even thought Barack Obama would be president? So we went to a few outsiders and contrarians for their predictions about the major political events that could occur in 2010.

Northwest Flight 253: Questions Must Be Asked But Not These
Leonard Pitts Jr

On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a student from Nigeria, tried to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit. He failed due to some defect in his explosives and the quick reflexes of passengers who subdued him. As you might expect, this close call has some of us asking hard, but necessary questions

Northwest Flight 253: Cheney vs. Obama in Renewed Terrorism Fight
Kenneth T. Walsh

Republicans are attacking President Obama for being weak on national security in the wake of the attempted bombing on Christmas Day of a Northwest Airlines jetliner en route to Detroit. And the Democrats are fighting back with a vengeance. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is leading the charge for the GOP

Northwest Flight 253: Where Does the Buck Stop
Jules Witcover

President Obama's pro-forma acceptance of responsibility for the latest failure to connect the dots in national security acknowledges Harry Truman's famous declaration that the buck always stops at the desk in the Oval Office

Northwest Flight 253: Obama's Wakeup Call
Jules Witcover

Nearly eight years after a failure to connect the dots contributed to the worst terrorist act against the United States in history, we're back to the same explanation -- or alibi -- for the close call in that flight approaching Detroit on Christmas Day.

Northwest Flight 253: A No-Fly List? Count Me In
Jonah Goldberg

The current debate over the underwear bomber is important and necessary, but it is detached from basic reality. To listen to the experts, the only relevant choice is between privacy and security. But people already understand that privacy is something you have to compromise to fly.

Terrorism: A War by Any Other Name
Cal Thomas

Suppose Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the Christmas Day underwear bomber, had succeeded and blown up Northwest Airlines flight 253, killing nearly 300 people on board and perhaps others on the ground? Would the response of the Obama administration have been different?

Before Boarding Plane Remove All Clothing
Bill Press

Welcome to the Friendly Skies. Now take off all your clothes. In the wake of the failed terrorist attempt over Detroit on Christmas Day, it may not be long before those scary words greet you upon arriving at the airport, just before you step into the full-body scan machine.

Lapse of Estate Tax Raises Doubts About Democrats
Alex Kingsbury

As tax season gets underway, congressional Democrats are facing criticism for their failure to renew the estate tax. The tax, a levy on the wealthiest Americans, expired on the first of the year because Democrats were unable to find support for even a temporary continuation of the tax while they debated a longer-term solution.

Evaluating Estate Tax
Reader Comments

It's easy to promote tax increases when you have over a billion dollars. For the average citizen being crushed by the burden of taxes, there is no relief in sight. It has been the politicians that have destroyed the future of what was the greatest country on the planet. Zero accountability, zero integrity and zero leadership.

Democrats Hiding Healthcare Details
Reader Comments

Having secret meetings about legislation that will affect every American is unconscionable. Also it makes just one more lie to what Obama promised about transparency

Thomas Fleming discusses Intimate Lives of Founding Fathers
Jessica Rettig

Tired of hearing about Tiger Woods and Mark Sanford? Historian Thomas Fleming has a few new names to add to the list of America's most famous playboys, including Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. Fleming exposes the little-known tales of the country's early figures in his latest book, The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers.

Question No U.S. Official Dare Ask: Overseas Bases a Mistake
William Pfaff

Has it been a terrible, and by now all but irreversible, error for the United States to have built a system of more than 700 military bases and stations girdling the world? Does it provoke war rather than provide security?

2010: Our Year of Decision
Victor Davis Hanson

Sometimes long-festering problems collide -- and explode -- in a single memorable year. We can go as far back as the fifth century B.C. to see this phenomenon -- and we may see it again in 2010. Events may come to a head and overwhelm the existing American-led global order

Death to the Death Penalty
Robyn Blumner

People tend to have hardened views about the death penalty. Me, I'm opposed to it and always have been. But I ask the indulgence of those of you who favor the death penalty to give this a read and see what you think.

Why 2010 Congressional Elections Won't Repeat 1994
Robert Schlesinger

You remember 1994. Voters were dissatisfied with a young Democratic president who had run as a centrist but governed as too much of a liberal. The electorate was worried about burgeoning deficits and soured on the president's attempt at healthcare reform. GOP victories in in Virginia and New Jersey were portents of things to come. The parallels are striking, but don't get carried away -- There are a number of important differences.

 

Critics Say Obama Lacks Emotion
Kenneth T. Walsh

President Obama is a cool customer. He doesn't seem to get really angry, depressed, or frustrated or to lose control of his emotions. And that's the problem. To some of his supporters, Obama is presiding over a passionless presidency. He seems too cerebral and personally disengaged from the problems of everyday Americans.

Dick Cheney's War on Obama
Jules Witcover

Former vice presidents in recent memory have done one of two things -- run for president or fade quietly into the sunset. Dick Cheney is doing neither of them. Instead, as a private citizen he has roared like a caged lion against President Obama. His wrath is aimed at ...

Meet the Real Barack Obama: Inside Obama's Brain
Jessica Rettig

According to Sasha Abramsky's latest book, Inside Obama's Brain, the president is too complex to be pigeonholed. Based on interviews with people who have known Obama throughout his career -- friends, neighbors, colleagues -- Abramsky paints a private portrait of the public icon, one that highlights just how multifaceted the man can be.

Obama Has Failed His Words
Jonah Goldberg

On his own terms, President Obama is a failure. Candidate Obama argued that his soaring rhetoric was more than 'just words'; it was a way out of the poisonous, partisan gridlock of yesteryear. The great irony of it all is that President Obama the outsider hasn't changed the way Washington works; he's worked Washington in a way that only an outsider with no respect for the place would dare.

Resolved: Tell the Truth
Cal Thomas

Congress might resolve to tell the truth in 2010. Most members probably know what truth is, but they cannot speak it for fear of offending groups that traffic in lies and fund their re-election campaigns. Lies usually raise more money than the truth. Which brings me to health care reform. Here's some memorable quotes from the 25-day health care debate. And there are some whoppers.

Senate Health Care Bill: Leave No Special Interest Behind
Arianna Huffington

The Health care bill took another step toward passage, prompting fresh rounds of public celebrations. Unfortunately, there are three faulty premises at work. First, that those who oppose the bill do so because it's not perfect. Second, that the bill is good. Third is the premise that this is as good a bill as we can get right now, and we can always go back and improve it later.

Jesus the Socialist
Cal Thomas

Apparently not content with his congressional majority that wishes to force Americans on a long march to health care disaster, President Obama has invoked the name of Jesus to broadcast his gospel of spreading the wealth around.

Year of Living Quotably: Quirky Quotes 2009
Clarence Page

You can tell a lot about a year from its great quotations. In the age of ubiquitous cell phone, surveillance and reality-TV show cameras, this was the year of living famously. Our cup of quirky quotes runneth over. A sampling:

2009: The Things I Want to Forget
Arianna Huffington

For some, the end of the year is a time to think back on all the memorable moments from the previous 12 months. I prefer to continue my contrarian tradition of performing a mental cleanse, removing from my internal hard drive all the things that should no longer be cluttering my mind. Here then is a list of the things I'd like to forget, circa 2009 ...

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend vs. Catholic Church on Health Reform
Bonnie Erbe

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is urging progressive Catholics to reject an aggressive power grab by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The conference is vehemently opposed to healthcare reform unless the final version contains a considerable expansion of anti-abortion verbiage. The group has lobbied heavily for an amendment to force private insurers to stop providing coverage for abortions if they want to participate in government plans

End of a Woeful Decade
Jules Witcover

Any way you slice it, the decade from 2000 through 2009 was on the whole about as bad a stretch for Americans as many of us have endured in our lifetimes

Northwest Flight 253: Targeting the Prime Enemy
Jules Witcover

The news of another foiled suicide attack on an American airliner in flight has triggered a new political headache for President Obama, on top of his already overloaded plate of challenges

New View of Ronald Reagan and End of the Cold War
Jules Witcover

Ever since Ronald Reagan left the White House in 1989, it has been debated whether he was indeed responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, or whether it just happened after his watch. In 'The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War,' author James Mann makes a persuasive case that Ronald Reagan actually played a part, intentionally or otherwise, in the Soviet Union's disintegration.

Avatar and the Faith Instinct
Jonah Goldberg

Avatar has been subjected to a sustained assault from many on the right as an apologia for pantheism. These criticisms hit the mark, but Avatar is not meant to be controversial and aimed at pleasing a wide audience. After all, we live in an age in which it's the norm to speak glowingly of spirituality but derisively of traditional religion.

I Survived the GOP Purity Test
Mary Kate Cary

Certainly, the media jumped on reports of a proposed Republican National Committee 'purity test' as only the latest example of GOP extremism. However, the actual content of the 10-point 'purity test' is pretty mainstream. So what is so outrageous ...

Obama Presidency
(c) M. Ryder

Top 10 Political Scandals of 2009
Paul Bedard

It might not have reached the heights of the Watergate and Lewinsky years, but the political scandals of 2009 had something juicy for everybody. Republicans went for sex, Democrats for money, and former Gov. Sarah Palin simply bailed out on Alaska

Socialized Medicine and 'Just War'
Ross Mackenzie

The jobs summit, the economy, Copenhagen and East Anglia, Tiger Woods -- in the news an abundance of the bizarre. And let us not overlook Tareq and Michaele Salahi, that other uncredentialed couple oddly winding up in the White House. Of the many issues before an astonished populace, two issues ... Socialized Medicine and 'Just War' ... stand at the forefront of American politics in 2009

President Obama's Inexperience Is Showing
Kenneth T. Walsh

On Afghanistan, healthcare reform, and more some say President Obama is showing his age. His job-approval rating has dropped about 20 points to 50 percent or lower. And his policies are increasingly unpopular, especially on healthcare legislation, taxes, and controlling the deficit. Just as important, Americans are deeply divided on Afghanistan

Abortion Debate Shows Catholic Bishops' Growing Influence
Dan Gilgoff

In recent weeks, Catholic Bishops have shown impressive political clout. Abortion is hardly the only example of the bishops' impressive political influence on a hot-button issue in recent weeks. These developments mark a newly aggressive political posture

Another Line Crossed
Paul Greenberg

Slowly but with increasing momentum, the great juggernaut of government continues to cross the line between life and death, good and evil, till all is moral murk

Liberals Should Keep Quiet About Obama
Robert Schlesinger

On issues like Afghanistan and healthcare, progressives are becoming increasingly restive as they discover that the spoils of victory are far less satisfying than victory itself. Liberals and Democrats will have chances down the line to judge their leaders, but those pols still deserve some latitude to get things done. A revolt now would limit what can still be achieved. All I am saying is: Give President Obama a chance.

Our Flip-Flopping Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan
Victor Davis Hanson

We don't hear all that much about Iraq these days, do we? The war at one point almost tore apart this country. But Iraq is hardly in the news anymore. So, why the silence?

Obama Administration: The Latest Incoherence
Paul Greenberg

The president and commander-in-chief had pledged to close the brig at Guantanamo by January 22. So what's he going to do with the prisoners there now? Turn them loose? Surely not. Instead, it's been decided to move the prison

The Rock Chunkers: Cast-the-First-Stone Politics
Paul Greenberg

It's cast-the-first-stone time in Washington. It happens every time a war or an economic recovery stalls. That's when the most immediate political need is for a scapegoat on whom to blame the country's troubles -- economic, military or any other kind. And out come the Rock Chunkers all ready to start throwing.

Where's the Old Obama Magic?
Clarence Page

Continuing disturbing trends reported by other recent surveys, a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds President Obama's approval ratings are down, public pessimism is up and faith in the Democratic-run Congress is on life support

How to Earn a Nobel Prize
Paul Greenberg

Not even Barack Obama could have thought he deserved the Peace Prize on the basis of his record, and was candid enough to say so. Yet he earned his Nobel in the very act of collecting it.

Can Obama White House Course-Correct in Time to Avoid Hitting 2010 Iceberg
Arianna Huffington

President Obama gave himself 'a solid B-plus' for his first year in office. But the midterm elections 'report card' is still 11 months away. At the moment, things are not looking great (President's and Democratic Congress' plummeting approval ratings). Luckily for them, there is plenty of time to course-correct. ...

Selling the Afghan War Surge
Jules Witcover

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has served notice that she is not going to ask like-minded Democrats to vote for the $30 billion or more for additional forces. Her message to Obama is clear: It's your surge; you defend it. In practical terms, however, Pelosi's stand is more a personal declaration of independence

Democrats' Joe Lieberman Problem
Jules Witcover

Senator Joe Lieberman's latest declaration of independence from the party that once gave him one of its highest rewards is again paying it back with another display of self-serving egotism.

Traitor Joe Lieberman
Bill Press

It's hard not to question the judgment, motives, and sanity of Joe Lieberman, who has single-handedly derailed any meaningful health care reform legislation.

America Through the Reality Lens
Jonah Goldberg

Culturally, this has been the decade of the reality show. And what do we have to show for it? Not much more than the contestants themselves.

Wars Could Jeopardize Obama's Domestic Agenda
Kenneth T. Walsh

Afghanistan is now President Obama's war, and the immediate question in Washington is whether his military escalation will succeed. But beyond that, it's very possible that Obama's controversial new plan may have the unintended effects of jeopardizing his domestic priorities and making coalition-building in Congress more difficult than ever.

Afghanistan: Questioning Obama's July 2011 Deadline in Afghanistan
Anna Mulrine

On Capitol Hill, there is little question that the funding for 30,000-plus new troops in Afghanistan will come through. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been careful to register their complaints about some of the more controversial components of the strategy

Afghanistan: GOP Questions Obama's Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal Deadline
Anna Mulrine

It was clear in a widely attended Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that one of the most controversial components of President Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan will be the July 2011 date he set for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Terror Trials a Risky Move for Obama
Kenneth T. Walsh

It's one of the most explosive decisions of the Obama administration so far -- prosecuting Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other suspected 9/11 terrorists in a civilian court in New York instead of a military tribunal. And it's a risky move both substantively and in political terms.

Obama's Trip to Copenhagen Climate Conference Is a Mistake
Vaughan C. Turekian and Paul J. Saunders

President Barack Obama's decision to attend the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen is a mistake. While apparently hoping to demonstrate his commitment to addressing climate change, the president is more likely to generate unrealistically high expectations for a binding global treaty. If he really wants to combat climate change, Mr. Obama should ...

The Young Presidents: Youth is a Double-Edged Sword for President Obama
Kenneth T. Walsh

Youth has always been a double-edged sword for America's presidents. It tends to inject the White House with fresh ideas and energy, but it can also lead to impetuousness and a disregard for the tried and true. So far, Barack Obama has demonstrated both the positive and the negative sides of the equation.

The Young Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant's Administration Plagued by Scandals
Kenneth T. Walsh

Ulysses S. Grant age 46 when he took office on March 4, 1869, was the youngest president up to that time. He served two terms. 'But his military background was not enough to equip him for the complexities of governing a huge and swiftly growing nation, and historians have judged him a failure as a president,' historian David C. Whitney writes in The American Presidents.

The Young Presidents: Bill Clinton's Lack of Savvy in Washington Showed
Kenneth T. Walsh

Bill Clinton, at 46, was the third-youngest president. He had been governor of Arkansas for 12 years, so he did have executive experience, but he lacked savvy in Washington, and it showed.

The Young Presidents: John F. Kennedy Learned From Early Mistakes
Kenneth T. Walsh

John F. Kennedy is remembered for his vigor and glamour. But he also committed one of the worst blunders of any new president by supporting the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

The Young Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt Was Ready to Act from Day One
Kenneth T. Walsh

Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest president in history. He was also one of the most innovative, brash, and vigorous. Roosevelt was picked to be William McKinley's vice president because his competitors wanted to bury Roosevelt in a do-nothing, isolated job. But when President McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, Roosevelt at 42 became arguably the most influential man in the world

Why We Should Be Worried That Washington Is the New Job Creator
Matthew Bandyk

While entrepreneurs have usually placed their business development first and foremost, there is some evidence that the increasing role of the federal government has forced many to emphasize lobbying, politicking, and jumping through administrative hurdles.

A Woman's Review of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin
Mary Kate Cary

I want to like Sarah Palin. She's got a houseful of kids, she was one of the nation's few female governors, and she's not my father's GOP. The Republican Party is in dire need of new leadership, and I think a conservative woman would be great. So I want to root for her.

Sarah Palin and the Future of Women in Politics
Robert Schlesinger

The 2008 presidential election measured not only how far women have progressed in politics but also what challenges remain according to Republican strategist and author Leslie Sanchez

Sarah Palin as a Leader for the Christian Right
Dan Gilgoff

Though most of the talk surrounding the release of Going Rogue revolves around how it affects Palin's standing as a political figure, including her chances of winning the White House, should she choose to run, the book is as much poised to heighten Palin's profile as a Christian leader.

Palin's 'Going Rogue' Review
Reader Comments

Going Rogue is a pretty quick read -- interesting when it comes to Sarah's personal life, but snotty the way she comments about the journalists and the campaign people

Sarah Palin: Palinpalooza Meets the Media
Clarence Page

Palin not only interrupted her book tour, dubbed 'Palinpalooza' by colorful headline writers, to speak to a roomful of those darned media, all gussied up in gowns and tuxedos but she black tie, but she held her own

The Real Fat Cat Party
Jonah Goldberg

One of the great frustrations of the libertarian-minded right is how Republicans got stuck being 'the party of big business.' The quotation marks around the term are at least somewhat necessary, because in many respects, it's not true.

White House Gate Crashers: Fame Bakes a New Upper Crust
Clarence Page

This Internet-age reasoning drives the fame junkies of our age, which apparently helps us to understand Michaele and Tareq Salahi, better known far and wide as the White House gate crashers, the couple who sneaked into President Barack Obama's first state dinner.

Obama: How to Create Jobs Without Really Trying
Cal Thomas

President Obama delivered his latest speech on job creation and the economy Tuesday at the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington. As with all of his speeches, this one was loaded with first-person references and blame of the Bush administration for America's economic troubles.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell: New Face for the GOP
Cal Thomas

Virginia's governor-elect, Bob McDonnell, may be the future of the Republican Party, if he can translate his substantial electoral victory into policy victories following his Jan. 16, 2010 inauguration as the state's first GOP governor in eight years.

Interview with Virginia Governor-Elect Bob McDonnell
Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas Interviews Virginia Governor-Elect Bob McDonnell

We Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
Victor Davis Hanson

High unemployment, the recession and a terrorist resurgence in Afghanistan are bad enough. But there are a number of problems on the horizon that could dwarf President Obama's first-year trials. Why the pessimism? In short, we are doing nothing to prepare for the crises to come.

John McCain's Top 10 Earmark Tweets
Paul Bedard

Top 10 lists are the rage, and now Sen. John McCain, the loudest whistle-blower on federal waste, has come out with his own Top 10 list of costly earmarks and put it out via Twitter.

Democrats Change Tune on Nuclear Energy
Kent Garber

During the 2008 presidential campaign, it was Sen. John McCain, not then Sen. Barack Obama, who touted nuclear power. Obama, for the most part, was noncommittal on the subject. But in the year since being elected, President Obama and congressional Democrats increasingly appear to be embracing nuclear power

Financial Crisis, Enron, Hurricane Katrina Examples of Leadership Gone Wrong
Tamara Lytle

The New Orleans masses who huddled in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina, the Enron retirees who lost their life savings, and the laid-off workers buried under the economic ruin of financial companies all live with a simple truth. Just as spectacularly as great leadership can spark success, failed leadership can bring down cities, businesses, and economies

Trouble Brewing for Obama and Democrats in 2010
Kenneth T. Walsh

The news media's mad dash to highlight the inflammatory passages of Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue, largely misses the point. Many Americans see her as a vehicle for their anger and disgust at Washington, and the Palin phenomenon is part of a larger trend of turning against the Establishment across the board.

Faith-Based Challenges Show a New Rift in the GOP
Dan Gilgoff

For political analysts, the lesson in Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman's loss last month in a special congressional election in New York is obvious: The right overreached. And yet many conservative activists are encouraged by the outcome of the race, which saw Hoffman take 46 percent of the vote. Here's why ...

David Axelrod on Obama's Presidential Style
Kenneth T. Walsh

Ferocious opposition from congressional Republicans won't deter President Obama from pursuing his ambitious agenda, nor will his adversaries' vitriol darken his sunny disposition. That's the word from David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser and Obama's chief strategist in last year's campaign

How to Play Both Sides of a Politcal Issue
Paul Greenberg

It's got to be about the oldest dodge in the book: When a politician casts a momentous vote on a major issue, and doesn't want to take responsibility for it, the pol minimizes its importance. The folks back home are told it was just a little ol' procedural vote, and they needn't worry their pretty little heads about it.

Only the Latest White House Hoax
Jules Witcover

Americans love a good hoax. That's why the outlandish stunt by those uninvited guests at the latest White House state dinner has amused as well as perplexed viewers rushing to network and cable news and the Internet for more details.

Republican Purity Test
Jules Witcover

The Republican Party that trusted its fortunes to its conservative base last year and paid the price in loss of the White House and Congress is now being pressured by its true believers to dig itself into an even deeper hole.

Washington Home of Intellectual Hypocrisy
Jonah Goldberg

If moral hypocrisy is saying what values people should live by while failing to follow them yourself, intellectual hypocrisy is believing you are smart enough to run other peoples' lives when you can barely run your own

New President, New Congress And the Same Old Mess
Joe Galloway

It is traditional to count our blessings this time of year but given the general state of affairs and Washington's whole lot of talk and no action it's hard to get into the holiday spirit.

On Foreign Policy Front Consider Obama Lucky So Far
Ian Bremmer

Barack Obama has had an exceptionally lucky first year. All newly elected U.S. presidents arrive in office hoping to avoid the unforeseen foreign-policy crises that upend their domestic agendas. President Obama has avoided the foreign-policy blowups that push an administration off balance. His luck isn't likely to last. Here's why ...

Missing Obama's Old Drama
Clarence Page

It's beginning to look a lot like the winter of President Barack Obama's discontent. Among other problems, his slow and steady slide in opinion polls is matching the nation's slow and steady rise in joblessness. That makes Democrats in Congress fearful of their own potential joblessness.

Sarah Palin: Den Mother to an Orphaned Movement
Clarence Page

What? Another Sarah Palin piece. A lot of people say they're tired of hearing about her. They think the media pay too much attention to Sarah Palin. Forget that. I think we need to pay more attention to her.

Will Unemployment Disaster be Obama's Katrina
Arianna Huffington

Just as Katrina exposed critical weaknesses in the priorities and competence of the Bush administration, the unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House.

Levi Johnston's 15 Minutes Are Up
Carl Hiaasen

Times are hard, but the pathway to fame in America has never been easier. No talent is required -- you can go on a shooting spree, give birth to octuplets or launch a homemade balloon from your backyard and tell the cops that your little boy is trapped inside. Exhibit A is Levi Johnston, who ascended to stardom by knocking up Sarah Palin's oldest daughter

Obama: Prisoner of the Past
Jules Witcover

For a man who as a presidential candidate campaigned on such an ambitious agenda for the future -- health care for all Americans, a purer environment, a world at peace and all the rest -- he has had to spend much of his time looking back

Obama Wise Not to Rush into Flawed Decision on Afghanistan
Joe Galloway

President Barack Obama has made no decision yet on where we are going and what we are doing in Afghanistan but if the flood of leaks this week is any indicator he has, at least, decided what he is not going to do. He is not going to be rushed into making so important a decision.

Do's and Don'ts for Sarah Palin's Going Rogue Book Tour
Kenneth T. Walsh

The charismatic conservative from the Far North has several goals -- selling her book, solidifying her status on the Republican right as a potential presidential contender in 2012, and changing perceptions among independents that she is intellectually shallow. Strategists for both parties mostly agree on the do's and don'ts for Palin in the next few weeks

Palinophobes Hate First, Ask Questions Later
Jonah Goldberg

Sarah Palin is neither savior (that job has been taken by the current president, or didn't you know?) nor is she satanic. She is a politician, a species of human like the rest of us. As it stands, my sense is that Palin is good for the Republican Party but not necessarily great.

Sarah Palin Looking Loony on Oprah Winfrey
Bonnie Erbe

I've lost interest in Sarah Palin -- a woman who has proven herself time and again to be not ready for prime time. But when she starts to exhibit signs of true lunacy, she gets a bit more interesting.

Sarah Palin: Politics, Patriotism and Sarah Palin
Reader Comments

For those who believe that Palin's brand of patriotism, or politics, or homespun world view represents some remarkably fresh approach to governing, I've got some bad news for you. Palin is much less interested in substantive, meaningful change than she is in glib self-promotion and monetary enrichment.

Sarah Palin Interview with Sean Hannity Fox News Channel: Going Rogue
Paul Bedard

Sarah Palin tells Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity that she thinks the Fort Hood slayings of 13 soldiers was an act of terrorism and that the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, should have been profiled.

The Sarah Palin Splash
Jules Witcover

She's back!!! That, of course, would be Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, former Republican vice-presidential nominee and continuing political celebrity, demonstrating her attention-grabbing talent if not her intentions for the future.

Political Book of the Year
Jules Witcover

Sarah Palin's cathartic tome may be flying off the shelves, but the best political book in years by far is 'The Audacity to Win,' the inside account of how Barack Obama won the presidency, written by one of the two chief architects of that historic achievement, campaign manager David Plouffe.

Woman's Place Is in the Republican Party
Mary Kate Cary

Only 13 Republican women have ever served in the Senate, and most of them were moderates. That's no accident. Women--especially moderate women--have a great message. They are outsiders in the halls of power. They hold tremendous appeal for independents, and most women have a nonideological way of getting along with others. They're not interested in being like Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

Obama Generation Continues to Make Waves
Amanda Ruggeri

When Barack Obama was elected to the White House, it was with the help of those voters so often overlooked by politicians: young adults. More under-30 voters turned out than had in a presidential election since 1992. A full two thirds voted for Obama.

Democrats and Republicans Grapple With Voters Message
Dan Gilgoff

Were the Republican wins in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races a rebuke to the Obama administration at the one-year mark? Depends on whom you ask.

Republicans and Democrats Must Avoid the Urge to Purge
Robert Schlesinger

Who gets to be in the club? That's a question Republicans and Democrats alike have grappled with in recent weeks. Their answers are sure to shape congressional elections in 2010 and beyond.

Buzz Over Obama's Bow to the Emperor of Japan
Reader Comments

Of all the controversies so far this month, perhaps the silliest must be the outrage over President Barack Obama bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito. Coming just months after a similar bow to Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, it is for many an overt sign of Obama's over eagerness to please foreign leaders.

Reagan, Obama and Legacy of the Berlin Wall
Kenneth T. Walsh

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a conclusive sign that the United States and the other Western democracies had finally won the Cold War. In the end, two presidents deserve much of the credit: George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Twenty years later there are plenty of lessons for President Obama's approach to foreign policy.

Hope From Abroad
Mitch Albom

It seems that, one year after his election, Barack Obama still remains an idea of an ideal in places overseas, including the parts I visited. I was amazed at the uniformity of the admiration of the man, as if it were something any sane person would agree on, no different than saying Shakespeare was a good writer or Mother Teresa had a good heart.

 

2009 Elections

Lessons for Democrats and Republicans From 2009 Elections
Tom Davis

The 2009 off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York's 23d Congressional District offer a small snapshot of the current views and motivations of the American electorate. While there may be a desire to extrapolate the events of Nov. 3, 2009 into a prediction of what will happen on Nov. 2, 2010, that is impossible.

Lesson Republicans Must Learn from Virginia and New Jersey: Finding the right issues
Mary Kate Cary

Election results in Virginia and New Jersey sent a clear message: to win elections these days, you have to win the independent vote and finding the right issues to appeal to an increasingly conservative country

2009 Elections: Referendum on Obama?
Jules Witcover

The great political debate in the wake of two gubernatorial elections and a special House election in upstate New York was whether or not they were a referendum on President Obama. The clear and definitive answer is: yes and no

2009 Elections: The Referendum on Obama That Wasn't
Bill Press

The entire panoply of political pundits, huddled with breathless anchors, providing the same wall-to-wall coverage you expect every four years for a presidential election. On the first anniversary of his winning the presidency, they struggled to offer in-depth analysis of what they all referred to as the national referendum on President Obama

2009 Elections: The End of an Era That Never Began
Jonah Goldberg

Obamaism is on the ropes. Congress is racing to pass health care reform because Nancy Pelosi and Co. know it is losing popularity, and they fear -- rightly -- that moderate Democrats will jump ship after reading the tea leaves of the Virginia and New Jersey blowouts. They also now know, thanks to Corzine's defeat, that Obama's personal popularity is not transferable

Exclusive Interview: President Obama on how he makes tough calls on Afghanistan, Healthcare, Economy, ...
Kenneth T. Walsh

President Obama sat down with Chief White House Correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh to discuss one of the most important and fascinating aspects of his presidency--how he makes decisions in a crisis. He was, as usual, methodical, cerebral, and dispassionate. Excerpts

Barack Obama's Challenges and Why Leadership Really Matters
Brian Kelly

The President is just completing his first year in office, and Barack Obama's presidency is verging on crisis mode. Not a full-blown crisis, to be sure, but an array of bedeviling issues on so many fronts that he might soon set some kind of historical record for facing the most bad-choice / worse-choice decisions

Still No-Drama Obama: Despite Number of Crises President Obama is unflappable
Kenneth T. Walsh

Face to face, President Obama seems even more unflappable, cerebral, and dispassionate than he appears on television. While many Americans admire these traits, they are not an unmitigated asset. Some Obama critics say he is too reserved, and they wish he would show more emotion and fire. A prominent Democratic strategist says this bloodless quality particularly bothers liberal activists.

How Obama handles everything from healthcare to the war in Afghanistan could define his presidency
Kenneth T. Walsh

Since his election, Obama has been forced by circumstances to deal with one calamity after another. He is the rare president whose fate was to be plunged immediately into a vast maelstrom of bad news, and for week after seemingly endless week, he never got a breather. There was the financial meltdown that almost paralyzed the economy

Obama Slower Than Bush to Confirm Justices
Alex Kingsbury

More than 10 months into President Obama's term in office, he and the Democratic-controlled Senate have been notably slow to confirm judges to the nation's courts, particularly when compared with recent administrations. To date, the president has made some 26 lower court nominations, yet only four have been confirmed by the Senate.

Obama's Partisan Balancing Act on Afghanistan
Kenneth T. Walsh

A time bomb for centrists, and the whole country, is the war in Afghanistan. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and other critics argue that President Obama should have immediately approved the request of his senior military commander, General Stanley McChrystal, for 40,000 more troops.

Obama's Honeymoon is Over: Many Questioning him on the Economy and Afghanistan
Kenneth T. Walsh

In his first few weeks, the new president took aggressive action. Initially, 70 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing, and his favorability ratings, which measure how much Americans like him, were even higher. As usual with modern presidents, however, the honeymoon did not last. A year later, much of Obama's initial luster has faded. His job approval ratings now hover at just over 50 percent, polarization in Washington is as bad as ever, and much of his agenda has stalled on Capitol Hill

Bush's Bad Speeches and Karl Rove's Disappointing Genius: Matt Latimer discusses Speech-less
Robert Schlesinger

The growing frequency of presidential speeches has necessitated staffs of White House writers to help presidents craft their messages. For Matt Latimer, writing speeches for President George W. Bush during the last two years of his administration was an exercise in disillusionment, as he recounts in his book Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor

Fox - White House Media War is Killing News
Anthony Rudel

When members of the Obama administration announced that they did not consider Fox a real news network, they were actually bringing attention to what has become the sad reality of real news gathering in this country: It's disappearing faster than contestants on Survivor

The War Obama Can't Win
Bill Press

No matter how many more troops he sends into battle, President Obama must understand that this is one war he can't win. No, I'm not talking about the war between American troops and the Taliban. I'm talking about the war between the White House and Fox News.

Obama Hopes to Paint Fox News Coverage as Biased. It's a Risky Strategy
Peter Roff

The news side of Fox, very likely having been tougher on Obama than its broadcast and cable competitors, has made itself a target for White House scorn. By arguing that Fox has an agenda, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs seems to believe he will, for a time at least, create a shield to deflect questions other news organizations might raise about things Fox reports. He is following in the footsteps of Nixon Press Secretary Ron Ziegler which is a risky strategy

Sarah Palin Book: Feminists Jealous of Sarah's Rise
Paul Bedard

Talk about timing. With former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin readying the release of her own 432-page campaign tell-all, Going Rogue: An American Life, now would be the perfect time to pop out another Palin book, and that's exactly what Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti has done with The Persecution of Sarah Palin

Dear Sarah: Keep Up the Great Writing
Carl Hiaasen

Thank you for turning in the manuscript so quickly. I thought only Stephen King could crank out 400 pages in four months! Seriously, there's some terrific material here, and all of us are thrilled to be publishing your life story. Before we move ahead, the fact-checking department has asked me to pass along a few notes and comments that may require some revisions on your part.

Nobel Peace Prize: Mixed Signals, Or 'Blessed Are The Cheesemakers'
Paul Kennedy

On hearing the surprising news of President Obama's award of the Nobel Peace Prize, I could only wonder at the Norwegian award committee's own very long track record of sending out mixed messages about its intentions and reasoning. There was always a great irony in the original founding of the Peace Prize, since Alfred Nobel made his fortune through the invention and production of dynamite.

Dick Cheney's Blurred Memory
Jules Witcover

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and a cooperative judge, the 28-page summary of the FBI's 2004 interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney on the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson has finally come to light. It shows him to have done the political imitation of a rope-a-doping Mohammed Ali

Viewing the Cost of War
Jules Witcover

President Obama's middle-of-the-night visit to Dover Air Force Base to view the return of 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan was a dignified recognition of their sacrifice. But it also was a reminder to him of the human stakes in his long deliberations on the course to take in the war triggered by the 9/11 terrorist attacks of eight years ago.

True Conservatives Just Want a Turn
Jonah Goldberg

If there's one thing liberal pundits are experts on these days it's the sorry state of conservatism. The airwaves and op-ed pages brim with more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger lamentations on the GOP's failure to get with President Obama's program, the party's inevitable demographic demise and its thralldom to the demonic deities of the right -- Limbaugh, Beck, Palin.

Can Civility in Politics Be Lost If It Was Never Found
Jonah Goldberg

Apparently, like Cupid with his arrow or a pixie with fairy dust, some magical sprite used to enchant America's political combatants, ensuring that all public discourse was full of beg-your-pardons and please-and-thank-yous. But we have offended our little leprechaun. He's taken his Lucky Charms and gone home, leaving Americans angry, cranky and rude.

The Best Politicians Money Can Buy
Carl Hiaasen

What's wrong with our American political system is that politicians can cuddle up to any big-talking hustler with a fat checkbook, and then scuttle for cover when he gets busted.

The Hate America Party
Bill Press

Today, the Republican agenda is clear. If it's good for America, they're against it. If it's bad for America, they're for it. You think I'm kidding? Just check out their recent record.

Obama One Year Later: The Audacity of Winning vs. The Timidity of Governing
Arianna Huffington

Plouffe's book arrives at a crossroads moment for the administration -- exactly one year after the election, and one year before the 2010 midterms. A lot has happened in that year, as the audacity of winning has given way to the timidity of governing.

Barack Obama Is Doing My Job; Why America Needs Him to Do His
Arianna Huffington

When it comes to dealing with Wall Street, President Obama seems to have traded in his position as our economy's commander in chief for a different role: pundit in chief. He and his top advisers are suddenly very big on urging, advocating, recommending, strongly suggesting and cajoling.

Why Joe Biden Should Resign
Arianna Huffington

Obama may be no drama, but Biden loves drama. And what could be more dramatic than resigning the vice presidency on principle? And what principle could be more honorable than refusing to go along with a policy of unnecessarily risking American blood and treasure -- and America's national security?

President Obama

Speeches Not Enough for Obama to Succeed
Robert Schlesinger

President Obama has a great fastball, but he needs other pitches. Presidents are like pitchers. Success requires doing several things well; they cannot rely on one political skill. Their effectiveness is ultimately a function of their ability to exercise all elements of presidential power. Which brings us to Barack Obama. Obama has ridden a single pitch -- speechmaking -- to the pinnacle of politics. He spoke his way to the White House and has hardly quieted since.

Partisan Superfans are Driving Average Americans From Politics
Marc Dunkelman

The widest chasm in American politics is not between Democrats and Republicans or even progressives or conservatives. The nation may be most split between those who are intensely engaged in the national debate and those who are not.

Democratic majorities in Congress are hindering rather than helping President Obama
Mary Kate Cary

Why Obama Needs a Big Republican Victory in 2010. A number of political analysts are predicting moderate to heavy Democratic losses in the 2010 House races. This is great news for Republicans, but it's also good for Obama.

Senior citizens are more opposed to Obama's healthcare plans than any other age group
Kenneth T. Walsh

One of President Obama's biggest challenges this fall will be persuading seniors to accept his healthcare proposals. Many elderly voters are deeply worried about 'Obama-care' because they fear that his plans will reduce their coverage and increase their costs. Seniors, in fact, are more opposed to Obama's healthcare ideas than any other age group.

Obama's Never Ending Healthcare Campaign
Kenneth T. Walsh

On issue after issue, every imaginable political organization, constituency group, and self-styled movement seems to feel it necessary not only to state its case but to wage an election-style campaign to advance its interests. The goal is to mobilize public opinion and take on the opposition, often by using hype, distortion, negativity, and name calling.

Media Coverage of Obama Grows More Negative
Nikki Schwab

Obama's positive press coverage has slipped from 59 percent to 43 percent. What happened to the media's crush on President Obama? In the second 100 days of his administration, the majority of press coverage was bad, with the president's policy proposals receiving more criticism than praise from reporters.

Afterthoughts from Obama U.N. Address
Jonah Goldberg

The United Nations is an odd venue to say such things. The Security Council is premised on nothing if not a balance of power, and the U.N.'s roots go nowhere if not deep into the chilled soil of the Cold War. It is odder still for the president of the United States of America to say such things

President Obama creates tension in a supposed search for civility
Mary Kate Cary

It's hard to imagine the president working behind the scenes for two years with leaders of the other party. I wonder what guys like Rostenkowski and Reagan would say about things these days. Take President Obama's recent address to Congress on healthcare reform ...

Nastiness Dominates Washington & the Anti-Obama Movement
Kenneth T. Walsh

Civility in public life seems to be fading fast. Take, for example, the insult hurled at President Obama during his address to Congress on healthcare. Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted, "You lie!" after Obama said his plan would not provide coverage for illegal immigrants. Wilson quickly apologized, but the House reprimanded him after Democrats argued that Wilson didn't show proper respect for the president

Politics: Incivility in Congress
Jules Witcover

There's a longstanding tradition on the floors of the House and Senate requiring members to address each other not only with courtesy but with extreme deference. That's why you will hear one address another as 'the distinguished gentleman' or 'gentlewoman.' The old rules of propriety came to mind the other night when a Republican House member, Joe Wilson of South Carolina, took it upon himself to call out, 'You lie!'

Obama's Pragmatism Will Strengthen Foreign Relations and National Security
Senator Evan Bayh

For the first time in almost a decade, we have an American president who approaches the security threats facing our country from a standpoint of pragmatism, not ideology. Barack Obama's young presidency has blended realism with fidelity to American ideals in a way that has not only kept us safe but represents a fundamentally better approach than the discredited unilateralism of the recent past.

Obama's Poor Choices Could Threaten Our National Security
Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon

The paramount duty of the president is to keep Americans safe. As President Obama continues his first year in office, surely he understands this awesome responsibility. The question facing Obama -- one that will be highlighted in the coming weeks -- is whether he will make the right policy choices across an array of thorny national security issues.

Campaign Finance Laws Under Siege
Robert Schlesinger

Remember campaign finance reform? A long time ago (way back in 2002), in a political world far, far away, Democrats and insurgent Republicans defied congressional rulers to pass the so-called McCain-Feingold law. It was signed, reluctantly, by a holding-his-nose President Bush. And then, the following year, the Supreme Court substantially upheld it in McConnell v. FEC. Quietly, but with gathering force, opponents of campaign finance laws have laid siege to the election funding system that has been constructed to combat the corrupting influence that money can have in politics.

Welcome to the United States of Plutocracy
William Pfaff

The United States has for practical purposes been a plutocracy for some years now. American national elections usually function more or less correctly, except that they have become all but completely dominated by money.

All U.S. Presidents Need a War to Call Their Own & Obama Has His
William Pfaff

The more one hears the discussion among Democrats about the war in Afghanistan, the more one feels that it is a serious handicap that Barack Obama has no personal experience of international relations or of foreign policy or military service, beyond such experience as one gains as a first-term U.S. senator.

Rep. Charles Rangel -- Sign of the Times
Victor Davis Hanson

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, is becoming a metaphor for almost all the sins of our age. Let us count the ways.

No Rules in the Arena (of Politics)
Victor Davis Hanson

Over the last three decades, we saw vicious attacks on Ronald Reagan and on Bill Clinton, and their tough replies in turn. But recently the vicious rhetoric has escalated far beyond anything in the past. The smears seem reminiscent more of the brawling on the eve of the Civil War, or the nastiness during the 1960s that took decades to heal.

Politics: Joe Biden Peripatetic Veep
Jules Witcover

At the outset, Vice President Joe Biden stipulated that he wanted to be a sort of minister without portfolio -- that is, without a specific agency or other narrow bureaucratic responsibility. Instead he wanted to be Obama's adviser-in-chief across the broad range of his presidential responsibilities

Pragmatic Look at Obama's Pragmatism
Jonah Goldberg

Obama came into office swearing he was a pragmatist who would support any approach that worked. That spirit has been woefully lacking in Obama's presidency so far. During the campaign, Obama's top domestic priorities were reform of health care, education and energy. When an economic crisis that is -- according to Obama, at least -- second only to the Depression exploded in front of him, Obama the alleged pragmatist concluded that his year-old agenda was the perfect solution.

Trouble in Liberal Land
Cal Thomas

As the first elections since President Obama's presidential victory approach, liberals are getting nervous that all this exposure is leaving them naked before an increasingly skeptical and angry public. The latest Rasmussen poll shows President Obama's approval rating has dropped to 46 percent, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, 'demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries.'

The Reason for Our Discontent
Cal Thomas

The arrogance of power and disdain for average Americans is what fueled much of the dissent expressed in town hall meetings. Growing numbers of people see a small cadre of government, academic and media elites caring nothing about them, except when it comes to their tax dollars. Many, especially those who are conservative and even worse, religious, are viewed by these elites as enemies of progress and sophistication.

Glenn Beck Explained
Cal Thomas

Radio and TV commentator Glenn Beck was mentioned three times in separate opinion columns on the same day and in an article the next day in The New York Times, possibly a record for someone who does not hold elective office. He's everywhere. Beck is also the Left's latest explanation for what is wrong with America.

Glenn Beck: Joe McCarthy Lives!
Bill Press

There was a time, not so long ago, when calling the president of the United States a "racist" on national television would get an anchor fired. But that was before Fox News. At Fox, archenemy of President Obama, Glenn Beck was not only not fired he was treated like a folk hero -- even though some 60 major corporate sponsors stopped advertising on his program in protest.

Thank You, Glenn Beck!
Arianna Huffington

Thank you, Glenn Beck. By helping force the resignation of Van Jones, you have done a great service to your country. But in the exact opposite way than what you intended. Your vile and vicious smear campaign has helped reverse one of the worst examples of miscasting since John Wayne took on the role of Genghis Khan in 'The Conqueror.'

On Race: Carter v. Obama
Bill Press

The White House is never happy when a former president upstages the current president -- which explains why the Obama White House is not happy with Jimmy Carter. With one casual remark, Carter managed to steal all the headlines and turn today's battles over health care, energy reform, or economic recovery into a raging debate on race

In Defense of ACORN
Bill Press

It is a dangerous organization, indeed. Just look at what ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- has been up to since its founding in 1970. Today the largest community organizing operation in the nation, ACORN has long been fighting for free school lunches, better housing, safer streets, urban parks, childcare centers, health-care clinics, jobs, and higher wages. It also conducts voter registration drives and has led several successful efforts against predatory lending practices by banks

Obama Faces a Chilly Fall
Clarence Page

Watching President Obama's poll numbers slide in recent weeks takes me back to the worst moments of the presidential campaign. I'm not thinking of Obama's presidential campaign. I'm thinking five years ago to Sen. John Kerry's losing campaign. And I am wondering, as I did with Kerry, why didn't Obama see it coming

Obama - There's More Than Miles That Separate Us
Leonard Pitts Jr.

Last year, Barack Obama was elected president. If this was regarded as a new beginning by most Americans, it was regarded apocalyptically by others who promptly proceeded to lose both their minds and any pretense of enlightenment. These are the people who immediately declared it their fervent hope that the new presidency fail, the ones who cheered when the governor of Texas raised the specter of secession

Luster is Off Obama's 'High Moral Ground'
by Leonard Pitts Jr.

Back in April, the U.S. government snatched Raymond Azar out of Afghanistan. His waist, wrists and ankles were shackled, he was stripped naked and photographed, made to wear headphones, blindfolded, hooded and stuffed into an executive jet and flown to the United States.

You Can't Blame Obama for American Stubbornnes
William Pfaff

There was a telling caption to a recent French commentary on the American political situation. It read: 'Obama, the man who thinks he's president.

The Latest Tale From the 'War on Terror' Dark Side
William Pfaff

Little mainstream comment seems to have appeared on the latest revelations of incompetence and sadistic fantasy that have been published this week about the ways in which the American nation lost its honor and international reputation because of the Bush administration's infatuation with torture.

Our Road to Oceania
Victor Davis Hanson

In Orwell's Oceania, there is a compliant media that offers 'Newspeak' -- recycled government bulletins from the Ministry of Truth. 'Doublethink' means you can believe at the same time in two opposite beliefs. America is not Oceania, but some of this is beginning to sound a little too familiar. We see Barack Obama's smile broadcast 24/7, in a fashion we have not seen previously of earlier presidents.

Obamamania: Going Ga-Ga Over - Well, Let's See...
Ross Mackenzie

What's Obamamania? Domestically, it's a heart beating hotly for throttling American industry in the name of a cleaner environment. In matters foreign, it consists in going ga-ga over - well, let's see....

Republicans vs. Science
Robyn Blumner

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like without scientists? Ask the Republican Party. It lives in such a world. Republicans have been so successful in driving out of their party anyone who endeavors in scientific inquiry that pretty soon there won't be anyone left who can distinguish a periodic table from a kitchen table.

Guns That Talk
Robert C. Koehler

It's like truth or dare. And it's legal. Get your permit or whatever and you, too, can bring an assault rifle to the next presidential speech you attend. There's nothing the police can do -- amazing! If only the Democrats, back when George Bush was president, had known there was a safe, legal way to protest presidential policy and register discontent with the direction the country was headed.

Senator Ted Kennedy Another Name to Remember
Paul Greenberg

Now let the trumpets blare and the obsequies begin, as full of bombast as some of Ted Kennedy's own orations. Let us begin in the spirit of nil nisi bonum: Speak nothing but good of the dead. Let us recall Senator Kennedy's work

Losing Touch: the President and the People
Paul Greenberg

It's nothing new for president and people to drift apart. Any more than there's anything remarkable about the ebb and flow of fickle American public opinion in general. It can swing from left to right and back again with the regularity of a metronome. What impresses about this latest shift, which is easier to feel than to measure in the polls, is the speed with which it is occurring. President Obama hasn't been in office a year yet he seems to grow ever more distant.

Obama Another Promise Broken -- in Record Time
Paul Greenberg

Remember those days of yore, namely the presidential campaign of 2008, when Democrats regularly accused the Bush administration of politicizing the Justice Department?

How Ethics Disappear in Politics
by Paul Greenberg

Gosh, what a surprise: A committee of their fellow senators has decided that Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad did nothing unethical when they took out loans from Countrywide Financial on the kind of favorable terms not available to us mere mortals without their financial or political standing -- or a personal connection to the head of Countrywide.

Cheney Out in the Open
by Jules Witcover

There was a time when an American vice president was seldom heard from when in office, and never heard from again after leaving it. No longer, with Dick Cheney taking on the role of avenger against the critics of the previous eight years.

A Tell-All Cheney Memoir
by Jules Witcover

Word that Dick Cheney, closed-mouthed as the Sphinx during their eight-year run of power, is preparing to spill out his deepest dissatisfactions in his own memoir should guarantee him a major best-seller.

Could Health Care Be 'Obama's Iraq'
by Clarence Page

Obama's proposed health care overhaul is taking a beating in the polls. Town hall meetings have been disrupted by angry voices, only some of whom were paid to be there. As Obama fights to get back in front of a signature issue of his presidency, he should find no comfort in how much his troubles remind one former White House aide of George W. Bush's biggest overseas headache: Iraq

Politicians - Hate the Job, But, Oh, Those Fringe Bennies
by Carl Hiaasen

We hear the question all the time: Why would anyone in their right mind go into politics? Campaigns are brutal, and once you're elected your work hours are long and the pay is lousy. But let's consider some of the fringe benefits, which are on display last week in two criminal cases at opposite ends of Florida. Rep. Ray Sansom ran up $173,000 on an American Express card issued to him by the state Republican Party. Meanwhile, suspended Monroe County School Superintendent Randy Acevedo was being prosecuted in another case of dubiously extravagant fringe benefits.

Obama Shines in Character Department: Despite falling job approval numbers
by Kenneth T. Walsh

Despite setbacks on the political front, President Obama is succeeding where many other politicians have failed -- in the character department. He has become a role model for the kind of traditional values that Americans have long celebrated. For years, the Democrats have been criticized by conservatives for lacking "family values." But today, it is Obama, a Democrat, who has emerged as the paragon of personal virtue, and even Republicans see it as a source of political strength.

Obama Not Overexposed, but Flaws in His Healthcare Reform Have Been
by Clark S. Judge

From network reporters to online commentators, the story of the day about White House communications is that President Obama getting overexposed. That's why, media critics say, the President's approval numbers have dropped so low and his healthcare package isn't selling. But they are wrong. Something very different is happening, and it has to do not with style but with substance.

Frustrated Baby Boomers Alienated from the Political Debate
by Mary Kate Cary

There's a big disconnect in politics right now. The older baby boomers, the ones in their 50s and 60s, are increasingly left out of the political discourse. That crowd is part of the biggest demographic segment of our population -- more than a quarter of our citizens. They're dismayed that their local newspaper -- if it still exists -- places more emphasis on obituaries and local real estate news. Any national news is buried somewhere far from the front page. They feel like they can't get issue-oriented policy news anymore and are ...

Senator Kennedy
(c) Paul Tong

Senator Kennedy's Legacy of Legislative Success
Amanda Ruggeri

Senator Ted Kennedy left behind a career as one of the most effective leaders in Congress. During his 46 years as a senator, the third longest of any senator in history, he helped craft legislation that profoundly reformed everything from the country's racial makeup to the federal government's role in education. That's not to say that he should be given all the credit, as much of his legislation was undertaken with Republicans in power. Some of his most important legislative accomplishments ...

Conservatives Try to Catch Up in Online Activism
Nikki Schwab

Recent dueling political gatherings drew activists and bloggers here and offered a glimpse into how conservatives and liberals planned to use the web next to promote their policies and politics.

Finding a Better Way to Prosecute Terrorists
by Queenie Wong

At the center of the controversy surrounding the closing of the Guant�namo Bay detention center is what to do with the suspected terrorists once the prison camp shuts in January. Trying detainees before military commissions or in federal courts isn't the solution, argues Capt. Glenn Sulmasy ...

Obama Caught Up in the Washington Blame Game
Kenneth T. Walsh

No matter how much politicians say they want to get along, a dominant feature of the political landscape in Washington is still the blame game. And it will intensify next month when congressional Democrats and Republicans return from their summer break to do battle on healthcare, the economy, climate change, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Vocal Protests
(c) William Brown

Democrats' Fear Is Showing on Health Care
Jonah Goldberg

The Democratic Party is panicking, lashing out like a cornered animal, all because its effort to take over the health care industry is coming apart like so much wet toilet paper.

Nancy Pelosi, who will get her own bound volume in the annals of asininity, has outdone herself.

 

The Tea Baggers Are Back -- Crazy as Ever
by Bill Press

In health care reform forums held across the nation organizers bus in professional protestors and arm them with instructions on how to take over meetings, shut down discussion, shout over any pro-health care reform speakers, and then post video of the resulting chaos on YouTube. It's mob rule, pure and simple

On Birth, and the Death of the Conservative Movement
by Leonard Pitts Jr

The 'birthers' movement -- people who claim Obama cannot be president because he isn't a citizen -- has proved hardier than cockroaches in its ability to survive the passage of time and repeated collisions with reality. It is, if anything, more visible now than at any time in the year or so since first it surfaced. It even includes a handful of GOP lawmakers.

Dick Cheney Needs to Fade Away
Robyn Blumner

Dick Cheney was the ultimate puppet master. The former vice president had a direct hand in the administration's most unconscionable decisions. But as large as Cheney once loomed, that is how small he has since shrunken. Like an old man left to toot his own horn to a dwindling group of listeners, Cheney is trying to defend his legacy, even as evidence mounts that he led this country in tragic directions without enhancing our safety.

Orders Are Easy to Give, Just Hard to Carry Out
Paul Greenberg

On his first day in the Oval Office last January, our still new president issued an executive order closing down the military prison at Guantanamo, where hundreds of the enemy in this never-ending war on terror are being held. With a stroke of his pen, Barack Obama had wiped out years -- indeed, centuries -- of military law that had once provided the country with a way of dealing with enemy combatants through the well-established precedents of military law

What's the Matter With Fort Leavenworth
by Mary Sanchez

Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, both Republicans, went berserk when it was leaked that the Obama administration was eyeing Kansas, home of the U.S. military's only maximum-security prison, as a likely site for transferring the Gitmo detainees. Envisioned is a courtroom in a prison set-up where the remaining detainees can be held and put on trial, finally lifting the human rights stain the abuses at Guantanamo Bay brought upon the United States.

President Obama's Healthcare Reform Sales Pitch
Paul Greenberg

President Obama's press conference to sell his health-care plan brought to mind nothing so much as the last time a car salesman urged me to sign on the dotted line right now, before I left the lot, because this was a great deal, time was of the essence, and wouldn't I like to add a few more expensive accessories on easy credit.

The Clintons Again
Jules Witcover

Well, after all the domestic criticisms of Bill and Hillary Clinton, it seems the old bargain of the 1990s -- two for the price of one -- is back, this time on the international stage. gainst last year, is like the return of an old vaudeville act, playing the Palace with renewed luster. This time, however, it's without all the negativity that has often cast the Clintons as a pair of blindly ambitious self-seekers muddling through personal scandal and miscalculations.

Careless Talk in High Places
Jules Witcover

Joe Biden, move over and make room for Barack Obama in the doghouse of the quick and errant jibe. Obama was the one most hurt by his hasty, harshly judgmental comment without knowing all the facts, that the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department 'acted stupidly' in the arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Lewis Gates Jr. The famous Obama 'cool' was AWOL on that one. The public reaction was so immediately negative that the president was obliged to back off, though short of an apology

Obama's Brew-ha-ha
by Clarence Page

President Obama's got his hands full with health care, two wars and the economy. But he put all that aside to have a beer in the Rose Garden with a friend and the cop who arrested the friend in the friend's own home. Out of earshot, journalists focused on Job One: what to call this historic media event.

 

If Biden wants to diminish the office,
so be it (c) Jack Ohman

Joe Biden Restoring the Vice Presidency
Jules Witcover

Six months ago, embarking on the vice presidency, Joe Biden listed among his top priorities 'restoring' the office to its proper constitutional role in the wake of the eight-year tenure of predecessor Dick Cheney. It's early to attempt a reliable assessment of his achievement of that goal. But at the half-year mark, Biden has from all appearances made a good start

 

(c) Walt Handelsman

Still a Good Question: Why Biden
by Jonah Goldberg

Obama said he picked Biden for his unparalleled foreign policy experience and, 'above all,' because Biden was 'ready to step in and be president.' Six months later, it's doubtful anyone is any more keen on the prospect of Biden becoming president. Still, Biden does have a strange new respect from many on the right as the administration's unwitting 'truth-teller.'

The God Who Bleeds
Jonah Goldberg

All presidents go through rough patches, and Obama's no exception. On almost every domestic issue, polls show that support for Obama and his agenda is plummeting, and that the Democratic Party's advantages over Republicans on the economy, taxes, the deficit and health care have been erased or severely reduced.

Obama Haters' Disorder - The Birthers
Clarence Page

As congressional lawmakers return to their home districts for August recess, they could find a creature from Washington's silly season waiting for them: the 'birthers.' That's the nickname given to the odd activists who refuse to believe that President Barack Obama qualifies as a 'natural-born citizen.'

Born in a Manger in Honolulu - The Birthers
Bill Press

Yes, they actually call themselves that: 'Birthers.' That name alone proves they're crazy. According to the Birthers, Barack Obama is not the legitimate president of the United States because there's no proof that he was born in the United States. Of course, neither was John McCain, but why compound one conspiracy with another

Charlie Crist: And the Bucks Keep Flowing In
Carl Hiaasen

Unlike Sarah Palin, Charlie Crist has chosen not to quit his governorship early. Florida's own one-term wonder is using his remaining time to ingratiate himself with as many deep-pocket interest groups as possible.

Obama's Great Race to Change America
(c) Matt Wuerker

Obama's Great Race to Change America
by Victor Davis Hanson

Why does President Obama want to implement all at once radical changes in American foreign policy, environmental policy, education, health care and the tax code? The answer is easy: If he does not achieve these initiatives soon, he never will. Almost none of Obama's proposed policies any longer enjoy majority support among voters

Big Government Medicine
(c) Dick Locher

Big Government Medicine
by Victor Davis Hanson

Big new taxes. Big new spending. Big new government. This seems to be the proposed cure for the Wall Street-inspired recession. The government now runs major banks and companies, and plans to take control of the American health-care system. And it aims to tax how energy in the United States is used to monitor carbon use. But wait ...

The Growing Divide in American Politics
(c) Mark Weber

Polarization is the New Political Bipartisanship
by Mary Kate Cary

Gone are the days of Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan's famous friendship; George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton's joint humanitarian efforts seem like a relic from a different era.

 

Democratic 'Blue Dogs' Flex Their Muscle
by Anna Mulrine

After another day wrangling over healthcare reform, it was no small amount of frustration that inspired Rep. Henry Waxman to stand in front of a press gathering and not-so-subtly accuse the 'blue dog' Democrats of being party turncoats

Senator Jim DeMint Explains His Fight Against Obama and Socialism
by Andrew Burt

South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint has emerged as one of President Obama's most visible critics, comparing the United States to 'where Germany was before World War II' and saying that healthcare reform could be the president's 'Waterloo' and could 'break him.' Senator DeMint shares his perspective in this recent interview with Andrew Burt

GOP Gaining Traction Against Obama
by Kenneth T. Walsh

it looks as if the GOP has gotten its act together, at least in terms of public relations, playing upon public doubts about Obama's policies. Its new strategy seems to be based not on a compelling alternative to Obama's agenda but on the fact that many Americans are increasingly nervous about Obama's big-spending, activist-government policies.

Obama's Comments on Gates Arrest Stir Controversy
by Kenneth T. Walsh

President Obama has stepped into the minefield of racial politics, spawning a furor and inadvertently raising fresh doubts that America is anywhere close to being a post-racial society.

Why Jimmy Carter's Malaise Speech Should Have Changed America
by Robert Schlesinger

In the summer of 1979, America faced an energy crisis punctuated by long gas lines and frayed national nerves. President Jimmy Carter was scheduled to address the nation about its problems on July 5, 1979. But he canceled the speech on the day before and sequestered himself at Camp David for 10 mysterious days, communing with Americans from different walks of life in a 'domestic summit' that culminated in his famous 'malaise' speech

Presidents Aren't What They Used to Be
by Victor Davis Hanson

From 1933 to 1960, America had nearly three decades of fairly successful presidencies -- through the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the threat of nuclear Armageddon. Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower were all re-elected. While contemporaries were critical of all three, they proved successful, stable executives.

Michael Steele & The Republican Blame Game
by Jules Witcover

Republican National Chairman Michael Steele has finally found the answer to the world of foes that has descended on his party ever since its loss of the White House last November.

Dick Morris Discusses Obama Catastrophe
by Robert Schlesinger

Fox News opinionator Dick Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, are infuriated by Barack Obama. And they've turned that ire into a new book, Catastrophe, detailing their grievances.

Joe Biden Workhorse Vice-President
by Jules Witcover

While President Obama was abroad last week dealing with his self-assigned mission to restore respect for America in the international community, Vice President Joe Biden was occupied on the home front cheerleading for the administration's domestic agenda.

The Sonia Sotomayor Show on Capitol Hill
by Paul Greenberg

Call it The Sonia Sotomayor Show, or maybe An Invitation to a Confirmation. The pageant opened before the Senate Judiciary Committee with all rites observed in full. The nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court conducted herself with dignity and spoke of her devotion to impartial justice. And the politicians were, in a word, political. Especially when they were self-absorbed, self-promoting and self-serving.

 

 

Young Republicans & the Death of Prosperity
by Chris Thomas

Normally, the election of the president of the Young Republicans is not a matter of great consequence. But it is worth focusing on here not for what it is in and of itself, but for its larger implications on the nation's future. The mainstream media has covered ad nauseaum the decline of the Republican party over the last few months. While some of the coverage has gone too far, the reality is that GOP Decline is the story that keeps on giving. Had the supposed conservative party just lost the election last fall, we would have moved on to something more politically interesting at this point.

Obama's Secret Dinner With Presidential Historians
by Kenneth T. Walsh

The dinner President Obama recently hosted at the White House for nine of America's most distinguished presidential historians and scholars provided rare insight into Obama's intellectual curiosity, how he views his job, and, most important, his belief that he has a remarkable opportunity to bring transformational change to America.

Republican Sex Scandals Sign It's Time to End Family Values Wars
by Robert Schlesinger

The phrase "family values" first entered the political lexicon in the 1976 Republican platform. But, coinciding with the rise of the religious wing of the Republican Party, the term came into its own in the 1980s, with the Bushes and Quayles gathering together on stage to cap off the 1988 GOP convention with an illustration of their support of traditional families (not like those godless, family-hating Democrats) ...

Republican Leaders Debate Reagan's Relevance
by Kenneth T. Walsh

Ronald Reagan still stands larger than life -- 7 feet tall and full of vim and vigor. Actually, it's a bronze statue of the 40th president, unveiled in the Capitol Rotunda with much fanfare in early June. But to his admirers, the ceremony and the statue were reminders that Reagan can still teach the country lessons about leadership and charisma. Beyond the true believers, however, political leaders are increasingly debating Reagan's relevance.

Sarah Palin: Being Led Down the Garden Path
by Brian Lowry

With the latest turn in the spectacle surrounding Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the crown for cinematic prescience might have passed to 'Being There,' Jerzy Kosinski's screenplay about a platitude-spouting gardener, Chance, whose green-thumb observations are eagerly mistaken for political brilliance.

 

 

Congressional Lobbyists
(c) Nancy Ohanian

Lobbyists on a Roll: Gutting Reform on Banking, Energy & Health Care
Arianna Huffington

Remember all that change Americans voted for in November? Well, there's been a change in the plans for change. The detour has come courtesy of a familiar nemesis: DC lobbyists who, this year alone, have watered-down, gutted or out-and-out killed ambitious plans for reforming Wall Street, energy and health care.

Pork: It's for Everyone, Including Obama
by Jonah Goldberg

More and more, it seems the Obama administration has just that attitude toward the economic crisis: doling out pork for as long as possible.

 

We've Gone From Saving Wall Street in Order to Save Main Street to Just Saving Wall Street
Arianna Huffington

Remember how, when taxpayers were being asked to fork over billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street, we were told it was essential to saving Main Street? Well, in just a few months, we've gone from saving the banks in order to save the economy to just saving the banks. It's the opposite of mission creep.

Suddenly Democrats have 60 Filibuster-Proof Senate Votes and No More Excuses
by Bill Press

It took 239 days, but the Minnesota Supreme Court finally declared Al Franken the winner over Norm Coleman. And suddenly Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate -- and no more excuses. For six months, we've heard nothing but complaining from Democrats: Our hands are tied, they insisted

Obama's Iran "Crisis"
by Jules Witcover

Rather than leaping in with breast-beating bravado of the sort too often associated with his departed predecessor, Obama has responded with measured and gradually escalated criticism of the Tehran regime's repressive measures to deal with the street protests of the recent election. This controlled reaction, not surprisingly, has been met with overheated squawks from conservative Republican hard-liners

Obama's Honduras Predicament
by Cal Thomas

President Obama immediately "meddles" in the affairs of Honduras, denouncing a military coup, the intent of which is to preserve the country's constitution, but when it comes to Iran's fraudulent election and the violent repression of demonstrators who wanted their votes counted, the president initially vacillates and equivocates. Are we expected to accept this as a consistent foreign policy

Sarah Palin's Resignation Leaves GOP Searching for New Leader
by Kenneth T. Walsh

To be sure, many core Republicans don't want her to pass from the scene. The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee remains the subject of intense public fascination as a vibrant, unorthodox conservative willing to take on the party establishment. Critics, however, say that she lacks knowledge of issues and is too harsh and divisive to extend her appeal beyond the hard-core right.

A Letter to Sarah Palin
by Jonah Goldberg

Dear Governor Palin, You're blowing it. We haven't met, but you might remember I was one of the first columnists to tout you for John McCain's running mate. There's a reason why the left and much of the media establishment hated you from day one.

Ghosts of 1994 Loom for Obama and Democrats
by Robert Schlesinger

Everywhere I look, I see the ghosts of 1994. There's the young Democratic president with an ambitious agenda, seemingly intent on doing it all at once. The Democratic president faces a Republican Party thirsting for a return to power.

Future Of The Federal Reserve - Exclusive Conversation With Ron Paul
by Matthew Bandyk

The person in Congress with perhaps the most unconventional point of view on these issues in American politics is Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX), a longtime critic of the very institution of the Fed and fractional reserve banking. He recently sponsored a bill that would audit the Fed.

Governor Mark Sanford's Argentina Affair
Please Cry For Me, Argentina
by Bill Press

Governor Mark Sanford's fall from grace may be the most bizarre of all. When Lt. Governor Andre Bauer first reported his absence from the state, Sanford had already been missing in action for five days, over Father's Day weekend. He told no one where he was going. He left no one in charge. He did not phone or email. And nobody knew where he was. Not his staff. Not the Lt. Governor. Not even his wife and kids.

HBO's Shouting Fire Is More Congratulatory Than Analytical on Free Speech Issues
by Andrew J. Rotherhamis

Despite frequent admonitions from our political leaders to do so, it sure is proving hard to move past the last eight years. Add to the retrospectives Oscar-nominated director Liz Garbus' Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech. Through accounts of flashpoints since 9/11 about the freedoms Americans enjoy under the First Amendment, the documentary film is intended as a sobering check-in on what's happening on the ragged edge of free-speech debates.

Former President George W. Bush Speaks
by Jules Witcover

In a closed-door talk to businessmen in Erie, Pa., former President George W. Bush according to the Washington Times jumped into the Republican-led argument that President Obama's sweeping and expensive government interventions into the private sector are steering the country into "socialism."

Et Tu, Big Business?
by Jonah Goldberg

It certainly seems a fitting declaration as the coup de grace of capitalism's murder is at the hands of its most successful child: big business

President Obama's Iran News Conference
by Cal Thomas

For the first time in a long time, the president was challenged about his positions on Iran, health care and his "occasional" smoking. This may be due to the heavy criticism the media have been getting from commentators who have accused them of not doing their jobs with coverage that has bordered on the worshipful.

Barack Obama, We Hardly Know Ye
by Joseph L. Galloway

Who stole our change? What happened to Barack Obama on his way to the White House? The Republicans have been so busy trying to paint President Obama as a socialist, as a radical, as a Marxist, as a Muslim, as the Devil, that they haven't even noticed that he has become one of them.

Ailments in Our Health Care Debate
by Clarence Page

As debate over President Obama's health care proposals kicks off, his opponents are lining up in a predictable way. On one side, conservatives call Obama a "socialist." On the other side, left-progressives wish that he were

Obama - A Plea for Public Patience
by Jules Witcover

The latest public-opinion polls indicate President Obama's personal popularity remains very high after five months in office. But the same doesn't go for Obama's mammoth spending plans, including the bailouts of Wall Street and Detroit

Government Intervention & Economic Risk
by Ian Bremmer and Sean West

It's no secret that politics affects economic markets. But in response to a financial crisis or economic downturn, political risk impacts markets much more broadly than just isolated policies and individual stocks.

Whistling Past Economic Graveyard: Audacity of Misplaced Hope
by Arianna Huffington

When Tim Geithner unveiled the Public Private Investment Program, he said that dealing with these assets was a "core" part of solving the financial crisis. But the banks would much rather keep pretending that their toxic assets are not that toxic, and worth much more than they really are -- a risky charade the relaxed mark-to-market rules allow them to continue to pull off

Judges and Justice Should Not Be for Sale
by Carl Hiaasen

If Sonia Sotomayor becomes the next member of the U.S. Supreme Court, she'll take a seat among colleagues who are divided into predictable camps that rarely agree on anything. The differences go way beyond judicial philosophy. It's political ideology gussied up as constitutional rumination -- the court's conservatives battling the moderates and liberals.

Reagan Unveiled
by Cal Thomas

Many Republicans, and even some conservatives, think Reagan's ideas are passe. Before moving on, Republicans, and those conservatives who don't want to live in the past, should be asked what better ideas they have to offer.

Republicans at Crossroads
Must Find Political Compass or Go Way of Whigs
by Jamie Stiehm

The GOP needs to find the old political compass or fade like the party it replaced. It's very simple: Good old-fashioned Republicans must come to the aid of the party or it will go the way of the Whigs, a major political party from whose own ashes it rose.

Everyone Agrees We Need Wall Street Reforms ...
by Arianna Huffington

Everyone agrees that we need reform of our financial system. Even Wall Street knows it is inevitable. So the question becomes: Are we going to get real reform or are we going to get the D.C. version of "reform"?

We've seen this before. Back then it was Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing and WorldCom.

After their orgy of greed and fraud was exposed, everyone suddenly demanded reform. But what we got instead were window-dressing changes and Band-Aid legislation. And the prevailing philosophy that the free market would regulate itself was, in effect, allowed to remain in place. Indeed, it was given even freer rein. So now it's deja vu all over again.

Is America Premodern or Postmodern?
by Victor Davis Hanson

Brilliant engineers may have designed our laptops, cell phones, online commerce and 1-800 call lines. But someone still has to answer the phone, enter data into computers and assist customers who fall through the electronic cracks. And such human audit of the growing power of computerized commerce requires more, not less, educated workers than ever before. And here is where problems arise. Too many of us are growing more illiterate -- reading less and watching television more.

Rating President Obama's First 100 Days in Office
by Robert Schlesinger

Two competing, contradictory bits of conventional wisdom regarding president's 1st 100 days in office often connected: A president's 100 days are a critical window into character of administration, but historians argue that it is too short a time period to draw meaningful conclusions.

There's No Place Like Home
President & First Lady Making Themselves Comfortable in Washington
by Amanda Ruggeri

He's striving to save the country from a second Depression, wind down two foreign wars, and fight climate change. So it wouldn't be a surprise if President Barack Obama skipped Friday-night dates with the first lady. Just a few months into office, the first couple have left their mark not only on domestic policy and domesticity but on the city beyond their doors. That's in stark contrast to most previous administrations, insiders say.

A New Role for Religion
by Dan Gilgoff

Faith has played a larger role in Obama's white house in the first 100 days than in any other president's The conventional wisdom was that George W. Bush was the most faith-based president in recent history, by a long shot. Citing Jesus as his favorite philosopher and Billy Graham as a mentor, Bush won evangelical voters in numbers not previously seen.

Democrats & The Nancy Pelosi Torture Smokescreen
by Chris Thomas

Editorial Cartoon by Dan Wasserman

What we have witnessed is a Left Wing that has become obsessed with using its new found political power to not just change previous government policy, but to criminalize and destroy the reputations of those who formulated that policy.

Pelosi and her henchmen, showing their true, authoritarian colors, want to not just discredit Bush administration officials: they want them jailed, preferably for a very long time.

 

 

Incompetence is Not a Crime
by Leonard Pitts Jr.

If incompetence was a crime, you might have a case. Heck, if arrogance was a felony, you could put them on death row. But these things are not against the law, so forgive me if I'm not sold on the argument that we should launch investigations into the failures of the Bush years. It's a view advanced by many, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, who wants to empanel a "truth commission," and CNN commentator Jack Cafferty, who wants a special prosecutor.

A Failure of Leadership
by Mary Sanchez

The American public is owed forthrightness from elected officials on matters as serious as the use of torture. But in Washington simple questions do not get straightforward answers. So now the public is presented with merry-go-round of accusations and denials on the question of whether Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi knew about enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, and whether she acted upon that information appropriately.

Can CIA Really Be Trusted on Briefing Flap
by Robyn Blummer

All this faux patriotic indignation over the suggestion that the CIA misled Congress in briefings over detainee treatment is just raw political theater. House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and other congressional Republicans are relishing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's tiff with the CIA regarding what she knew about waterboarding and when she knew it. Now they want an investigation -- a ploy to keep the issue in the news, no doubt.

 

Obama Calls for Extreme Makeover of Our Culture
by Arianna Huffington

In his masterful commencement speech at Notre Dame, President Obama took his campaign theme of Change to a whole new level, telling the graduates -- and the rest of us -- that we find ourselves at "a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise."

Don Wright

What Does the Future Hold for GOP?
Future of the Republican Party by Jonah Goldberg

Compare and contrast Jack Kemp, one of the architects of the Reagan Revolution, who passed away last weekend at the age of 73; and Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania senator who switched parties.

Kemp's death should be cause for deep reflection about what the Republican Party is about. Specter's defection is much less significant.

 

We Need a Hero
Future of the GOP & Conservatives by Jonah Goldberg

We conservatives are having one of our grand, knock-down, drag-out fights over the future of conservatism and the GOP. Should conservatives compromise on gay marriage or abortion rights? Should we jump on the environmental bandwagon? Are there ways to reform health care without abandoning our principles? What would Reagan do?

Frankly, I love these arguments. I think they are healthy and good for conservatism and the country. One of the things I love about conservatives is that we have these internal debates more often than the Five Families went to war in "The Godfather."

The Jack Kemp I Knew
by Cal Thomas

Many have commented on the life and legacy of Jack Kemp -- the former Buffalo, N.Y., congressman, former vice presidential candidate, former HUD secretary, former professional football star and a friend for life to all those who knew him. Next to Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp was probably the most optimistic Republican I knew.

We Are What We Are
by Garrison Keillor

When I heard former Vice President Cheney talk about the meaning of Republicanism the other day -- "We are what we are," he said -- I felt drawn to the simplicity and dignity of that. And I have never been a Republican, just as I've never been to South America, and that makes it tempting.

Once Upon a Time in 2002
by Victor Davis Hanson

Opportunism, not principles, guides most in Washington. Consider also the dexterous Obama administration's own about-face. It still finds it useful to damn the old Bush government's embrace of wiretaps, military tribunals and renditions -- even as it dares not drop or completely discount these apparently useful Bush policies, albeit under new names and with new qualifiers.

Obama's Moment in South Asia

Fighting Extremism with Democracy in Pakistan

Cambodia Deja Vu: The Invasion of Pakistan

President Obama's First 100 Days

The Good, The Bad & The Geithner
Arianna Huffington

It's hard to believe that President Obama has only been in office for such a short time, but sometimes 100 days feels like more than 100 days. So how's it going? According to the American people, pretty darn good.

 

 

Our Jekyll & Hyde President
Victor Davis Hanson

In matters of foreign policy during the president's first 100 days, we have seen two Barack Obamas. So which Obama persona is the real president -- Obama I, more radical than Jimmy Carter, or Obama II, a smoother centrist than Bill Clinton?

Obama's Liberal Arrogance Will Be His Undoing
Jonah Goldberg

The most remarkable, or certainly the least remarked on, aspect of Barack Obama's first 100 days has been the infectious arrogance of his presidency. There's no denying that this is liberalism's greatest opportunity for wish fulfillment since at least 1964. But to listen to Democrats, the only check on their ambition is the limit of their imaginations.

 

Obama's Foreign Policy Challenge
by Henry Kissinger

The first overseas trip of a new president always has a significance beyond its itinerary.

The president has an opportunity to test the impact of his policies; his interlocutors begin to assess the leader with whom they will have to deal over at least four years.

 

Financial Outrages Past, Present & Future
by Arianna Huffington

Michael Osbun

Reading the business section these days is not for the faint of heart -- or those hoping to drift off to sleep.

Instead, you end up like Scrooge, visited by the ghosts of outrages past, present and future.

As a public service (I toss and turn all night so you don't have to) -- and also to make sure you haven't succumbed to outrage fatigue -- I've decided to distill some of the more infuriating recent lowlights. Warning: If you are reading this after 10 p.m., you might want to hold off until morning.

 

Roving Towards Irrelevancy: The GOP in the Obama Era
by Chris Thomas

Dick Locher

Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, once wrote that one of the features of western civilization that gave it a leg up on other cultures was the concept of self-audit, or the capacity for us to critique ourselves and our institutions.

Which brings us to the Republican Party of 2009 which has fallen.

Unfortunately the GOP is currently incapable of embracing Hanson's concept of self-audit.

 

Victory at Sea
by Paul Greenberg

Home is the sailor, home from sea. Capt. Richard Phillips, his five-day ordeal happily concluded, has been rescued in the finest tradition of the United States Navy, and his captors dealt with. Effectively and summarily.

Some Good News About Banking
by Arianna Huffington

Nancy Ohanian

And now for something completely different: some good news about banking.

Yes, I know that an upcoming analysis by the IMF reportedly says that, when all is said and done, toxic debts on the balance sheets of banks and insurers could go as high as $4 trillion. And I realize that last weekend saw the FDIC take over two more banks -- the 22nd and 23rd takeovers of the year.

But, It's not all doom and gloom.

 

Obama Economic Team's Flawed Cosmology:
Still Believing Universe Revolves around Banks
Arianna Huffington

A series of recent meetings with members of Barack Obama's economic team leading to a spirited back-and-forth that made me feel like I was back at Cambridge, debating the smartest kid in the class), left me with a pair of indelible impressions:

First, these are all good people, many of them brilliant, working incredibly hard with the best of intentions to solve the country's financial crisis.

Second, they are operating on the basis of an outdated cosmology that places banks at the center of the economic universe.

On the Road to Buenos Aires
Even the United States can Manage Itself into Irrelevance
Chris Thomas

America has been the greatest of all nations for a long time. But we should not forget.