For Mitt Romney, the president's greatest vulnerability seems to be that Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton -- and he is seeking to exploit that perception in his public speeches attacking the incumbent. On Tuesday, the presumptive GOP nominee drew the contrast for an audience in Iowa, harking back to a famous Clinton speech in 1996.
The entire debate is clouded by a refusal of political leaders to talk honestly about spending. The air is filled with talk of brutal spending cuts in financially troubled Europe, but Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center, a pro-free market U.S. think tank, has shown that to be a lie.
Instinctively, we look for people's motives. We need to know whom we can trust and whom we can't. We're especially skeptical of business because we know business wants our money.
We recently saluted Leslie Sabo for giving his life to save fellow soldiers in Vietnam 40 years ago. Injured after shielding a comrade with his body, the Pennsylvanian grabbed his grenade and stormed the foe's bunker. He died in the explosion. For his selflessness, America awarded Sabo the Congressional Medal of Honor.
A surprising fact: Gamblers spent more last year at commercial casinos in Indiana than they did at non-Indian casinos in all but three other states -- not surprisingly, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The 11 casinos and two racinos (horse racing tracks with slots) are the Hoosier State's third-largest source of tax revenues.
In the run-up to this weekend's G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European "austerity" with Barack Obama's economic policies.
We all think we know which states are the pivotal players in the Electoral College. The Crystal Ball 's most recent look at the map showed that there are seven "Super Swing States:" Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia.
In the beginning, there was the Etch A Sketch.
For honoring his conscience on the issue of marriage equality, President Obama earned angry rebukes from all quarters on the right, including the Uncle Toms of the Log Cabin Republicans, who said he was "a day late and a dollar short"; teenage mom Bristol Palin, who mocked him for invoking his daughters in changing "thousands of years of thinking about marriage"; and 50-year-old virgin Ann Coulter, often engaged but never wed, who called his decision "a sign of desperation."
Mitt Romney has pulled a point or two ahead of President Obama in polls of likely voters. In polls of registered voters, Obama has the advantage. The president's job approval ratings are hovering in the upper 40 percent range, which suggests a close race.
