The aging of the baby boom generation has not improved its reputation. Having brought immense positive change to this country, the postwar population wave is frequently castigated as a self-seeking and even selfish cohort by members of the generations that have followed, who worry that those nearing retirement will cost too much to maintain amid dimming economic prospects.
Everything we really need to know about the character of Donald Trump was revealed when the wannabe president frivolously accused Barack Obama's late grandparents of committing fraud with his birth announcement. Trump told CNN that they had placed the Aug. 13, 1961, announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser because they wanted to get "welfare" and other benefits. But this casual falsehood revealed only the tiniest hint of the truth about Trump that Americans will discover if he actually runs for the White House.
Having hesitated to fully enter the fiscal fray, President Obama has at last delivered a plausible, principled response to the budgetary flim-flams of the far right. But one speech, even a very good speech, won't fulfill his obligation in this fateful argument.
What the meteoric career of Paul Ryan demonstrates is how easily impressed we are whenever a politician purports to restore solvency by punishing the poor and the elderly (while coddling the rich).
Scarcely any news story induces sleep as swiftly and surely as congressional budget negotiations -- a topic that features politicians bickering loudly over huge dollar amounts that lack meaning for most people, while their public posturing reflects little of what is actually going on in the back channels.
Deciding whether to intervene in Libya, the United States and its allies confronted a terrible situation: the immediate imperative -- to prevent a promised massacre by the country's dictator, versus the many long-term reasons to stay away, from the uncertainty of success to the very question of what success would mean. On balance, we could not stand by and allow Moammar Gadhafi to carry out his grotesque threat.
While there is much stupid behavior to be found among politicians on both sides of the aisle during the embarrassing budget debate, few incidents have been more revealing than the latest Republican attempt to defund National Public Radio.
Despite the dubious credentials of Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., as an opponent of terrorism, owing to his years fronting for the Irish Republican Army, his controversial hearings on the "Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response" might still have proved useful. Had they included testimony from real experts, officials who are responsible for counter-terrorism and actual leaders from the Muslim community, the proceedings could have revealed fresh and important information.
If you are a normal, trusting consumer of American journalism, you might well have gotten the impression by now that the current attempt to break public-sector unions -- with its epicenter in Wisconsin -- is overwhelmingly supported by the nation's voters.
"There was once a need for unions, but they've outlived their purpose," said a nice lady interviewed on the radio in Tennessee just the other day. Annoyed by the spectacle of tens of thousands of teachers, firefighters, cops and other public employees rallying to protect their rights in Wisconsin, she was saying what more than a few Americans think about the labor movement.
Among the mysteries of modern politics in America is why so many of our leading pundits and politicians persistently seek to undermine Social Security, that enduring and successful emblem of active government. In the current atmosphere of budgetary panic, self-proclaimed "centrists" are joining with ideologues of the right in yet another campaign against the program -- and yet again they are misinforming the public about its purposes, costs and prospects.
As America approaches the deadline for increasing the statutory national debt -- or risking a catastrophic default on our obligations to creditors and citizens -- there is no shortage of stupid ideas to restore fiscal order.
To his fellow Egyptians and to most observers across the world, Mohamed ElBaradei looks like a hero -- an international diplomat who might well have lived out his days in the comforts of Geneva and New York, but returned home to provide leadership despite serious personal peril. But to leading figures on the American right, ElBaradei is a figure to be mocked, scorned and dismissed as a stooge of darker forces in Egyptian politics and the Mideast.
Complaints about President Obama's State of the Union address on both sides of the political divide (which was obscured but not obliterated by the evening's novel seating arrangements) seemed to miss its point and purpose
Facts always matter, but never more so than when politicians deal with issues of real consequence, like health care and budget deficits.
The deranged expression on the face of Jared Lee Loughner in the mug shot released by the police -- taken within hours after he allegedly killed six innocent people and wounded 14 more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords -- suggests that we may never fully understand whatever illness afflicts him. The law requires us to assess his mental state and motivations, but we might do better to analyze our own craziness.
To understand the depths of shame and cynicism in the partisan stalling of health legislation for 9/11 first responders, it is only necessary to recall how eagerly Republican politicians once rushed to identify themselves with New York City's finest and bravest.
It isn't the earmarks, stupid. Bullying Republican Senate leaders into a "voluntary" ban on earmarks may represent a political triumph for the tea party movement, but as a measure to reduce the federal deficit it is a meaningless substitute for real action.
Overstating the importance of a midterm election is understandably tempting for politicians and pundits, especially when the partisan turnover reaches historic proportions, as it indisputably did on Nov. 2. It is a temptation to which Republicans and conservatives seem particularly vulnerable.
The urge to punish politicians is understandable no matter who is in power, because they inevitably disappoint the fond hopes of their admirers and raise the hackles of their detractors -- and yet that same urge is almost never satisfied for long.
