One of the services of the Simpson-Bowles Commission was to set out a path for tax reform, with lower income tax rates and removal of many tax preferences -- or, to use the commission's term, tax expenditures.
The consensus on Barack Obama's acceptance speech Thursday night, and in effect on the Democratic National Convention as a whole, is that it was a bust.
One reason may be optics. Obama was scheduled to deliver the speech in a stadium seating 64,000 people. But on Wednesday, after Charlotte, N.C., had been pummeled by periodic rainstorms all week, organizers moved the event to the convention hall.
"One question, Mr. President," read the words on the front cover of this week's Economist, behind a silhouette of the back of Barack Obama's head, "just what would you do with another four years?"
The 40th Republican National Convention is now history, and political strategists and pundits are poring over the poll numbers to see whether Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are getting a post-convention bounce in what have been very closely divided polls.
TAMPA, Fla. -- The Republicans who are assembled here have been told time and time again that Barack Obama's great advantage over Mitt Romney is likability.
Today, the 40th Republican National Convention assembles in hurricane-threatened Tampa, Fla. Seven days later, the 46th Democratic National Convention will assemble in presumably non-hurricane-threatened Charlotte, N.C. Thousands of delegates, many thousands more press personnel and even more political enthusiasts will be on hand.
Readers with long memories may recall that Charles E. Wilson, president of General Motors and nominee for secretary of defense, got into trouble when he told a Senate committee, "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country."
Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan was supposed to be a problem for the Republicans. So said a chorus of chortling Democrats. So said a gaggle of anonymous seasoned Republican operatives. All of which was echoed gleefully by mainstream media.
On the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk harbor, a coatless Mitt Romney named a tieless Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee.
Traumas suffered by a society generations ago can still have a negative effect centuries later.
Americans keep behaving in ways that baffle the liberal mainstream media. Two examples figured prominently -- or should have -- in last week's news.
"Answered prayers," Saint Teresa of Avila is supposed to have said, "cause more tears than those that go unanswered." Especially, I fear, the answered prayers of political scientists.
Does the 2012 campaign look a lot like the 2004 campaign? Many Democrats think so.
Only a few lonely media outlets responded to the Aurora Mall murders by calling for stricter gun control measures. President Barack Obama and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper made eloquent statements, as did Mitt Romney, but neither the two Democrats nor the Republican called for changes in gun laws.
This is a tale of two cities. No, not Dickens' phlegmatic London and passionate Paris. Nor the two neighborhoods Charles Murray contrasted in his recent bestseller "Coming Apart" -- prosperous but isolated Belmont (actually, Mitt Romney's home for decades) and needy and disorganized Fishtown.
Perhaps the rain made the teleprompter unreadable. That's one thought I had on pondering Barack Obama's comments to a rain-soaked rally in Roanoke, Va., last Friday.
1776 is a number with great resonance for Americans, but not one you expect to be featured on a British government website.
The best view of London's Olympic Park is from the picture windows at the top floor of the John Lewis department store in the vast Westfield Stratford mall five miles east of the Tower of London.
"A step in the right direction." That's what Barack Obama said in Poland, Ohio, about Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment report, which showed only 80,000 net new jobs and unemployment remaining at 8.2 percent.
That's more or less what happened last Sunday in Mexico, at least as far as most American journalists (including me) are concerned.
