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November 16, 2009

Pushing Health Reform When Job Losses Are Rising By Michael Barone

Barack Obama told the House Democratic Caucus before the roll call vote on health care on Nov. 7 that they would be better off politically if they passed the bill than if they let it fail. Bill Clinton speaking to the Senate Democrats' lunch on Nov. 10 cited his party's big losses in 1994 after Congress failed to pass his health care legislation as evidence that Democrats would suffer more from failure to pass a bill than from disaffection with a bill that was signed into law.

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November 15, 2009

Scots Outraged Over Bomber's Release By Debra J. Saunders

EDINBURGH -- Do not believe that Scotland was united behind Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's decision to grant "compassionate" release to the terminally ill convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi in August.

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November 13, 2009

'09 Elections: Some Parting Thoughts By Rhodes Cook

No doubt off-year elections can be overanalyzed. They are few in number. They sometimes give evidence of conflicting trends. And their predictive value for the midterm elections to follow has been rather conclusively debunked.

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November 13, 2009

Voters Want Green... In Their Wallets By Howard Rich

As the fallout continues to settle from the 2009 elections, among the more overlooked results was a ballot issue in Boulder County, Colorado that would have extended an existing sales tax to fund the acquisition of additional “open space.”

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November 13, 2009

Do You Recognize Your President? By Susan Estrich

There's an old saying that hard cases make bad law. The same rule, unfortunately, applies to presidential decisions.

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November 12, 2009

History Is Calling -- Will Obama Answer? By Michael Barone

Anniversaries are opportunities to reflect on the past and on what it might mean for the future. Monday saw the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, even if Barack Obama could not find time to travel once again to Berlin to attend the commemoration there. And Wednesday is the 91st anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I.

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November 12, 2009

Testing Next Year's Lies Today By Joe Conason

Within hours after the House of Representatives approved health care reform by a narrow margin, Republicans predicted retribution at the polls next fall. They promised to make every Democrat regret that historic vote as the first step toward the reversal of power in Washington.

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November 12, 2009

Casinos Take Money From States By Froma Harrop

In Las Vegas, house prices have dropped 55 percent since peaking in August 2006, and the foreclosure rate is seven times the national average. Gigantic new condo towers sit nearly empty (real-estate pros call them "see-through buildings"), and unemployment tops 13 percent. The recession has sent casino revenues plunging 20 percent from two years ago.

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November 11, 2009

The San Francisco Democrat By Susan Estrich

You've got to hand it to Nancy Pelosi. Love her or hate her -- and there are probably more people in the second category than the first -- you can't deny the enormity of her accomplishment. She did something very, very big.

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November 11, 2009

Hillary in 2012? By Tony Blankley

I write this week from New Orleans, where I am participating in the Bipartisan Policy Center's Inaugural Political Summit, organized by Tom Daschle, Howard Baker and Bob Dole and hosted by Mary Matalin and James Carville.

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November 10, 2009

The Shrink and the Terrorist By Debra J. Saunders

There have been two views on what happened last week when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on unarmed military colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 12 soldiers and one civilian. The politically correct version blames a lonely soldier's personal meltdown, precipitated by the fear of being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

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November 10, 2009

Two Dots Don't Make a Political Map By Froma Harrop

It is the duty of every pundit to be all-knowing on what the recent elections mean for the future of American politics. They may have only three dots to connect -- and two dots may have been state-level contests mostly about local issues -- but the confident ones plot detailed maps of political change.

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November 9, 2009

Freewheeling Young Voters Scare Both Parties By Michael Barone

In November 2008, 658,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 782,000 did so in Virginia. In November 2009, 212,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 198,000 did so in Virginia. In other words, young-voter turnout this year was down two-thirds in New Jersey and three-quarters in Virginia.

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November 8, 2009

D.C.'s 'Failure To Launch' National Health Care Policy By Debra J. Saunders

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee health care bill includes a provision that would allow parents to keep their children as dependents on their health care policies until age 26. Not to be outdone, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced last month that, as Congressional Quarterly reported, the House bill "will allow young people to stay on their parents' policies until age 27."

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November 6, 2009

Everything and Nothing By Susan Estrich

Everything and nothing happened on Tuesday. I could have predicted that. Whoever "wins" says it means everything. Whoever "loses" says it means nothing. That's how off-off-year elections work. History supports both sides.

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November 6, 2009

There Is No Honor; There's Only Killing By Debra J. Saunders

The Council on American-Islamic Relations sent out its usual roundup Tuesday of news stories alleging the mistreatment of Muslims in America. There was a story critical of the FBI harassment of Muslims in Queens, N.Y., in the wake of the arrest of a suspected terrorist. Another story concerned calls for an investigation into an FBI shooting that left Detroit Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah dead. There were also notices of CAIR banquets.

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November 6, 2009

Virginia, New Jersey Races Showing Voters Changing Course By Michael Barone

As the final votes were being counted, it was possible to draw some lessons from Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in Virginia and the close, three-way governor's race in New Jersey, never mind that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has taken to saying that the elections don't mean much.

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November 5, 2009

The GOP's Toxic Tea Party By Joe Conason

When Newt Gingrich warned Republicans that they were making a grave "mistake" by driving out moderates and enforcing the angry orthodoxy of the far right, the sober tone of his remarks was stunning.

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November 5, 2009

The Economics of a GOP Gubernatorial Sweep By Lawrence Kudlow

Against the backdrop of high unemployment and a public revolt against a Democratic health-care bill -- which would significantly increase taxes, slash Medicare spending, and massively raise health-care spending elsewhere in a government takeover of our leading growth sector -- the Republicans swept the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races.

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November 5, 2009

The Tea-Baggers Were Carpetbaggers By Froma Harrop

The Tea Party wing of the Republican Party had the perfect strategy for upstate New York's 23rd congressional district:

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