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May 15, 2009

The Speaker Speaks By Susan Estrich

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now claiming that intelligence officials misled her about the use of waterboarding when she was briefed in 2002. Previously, it was reported that she, as the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee at the time, had been told about waterboarding as an interrogation technique and had raised no objections to it -- a claim that obviously called into question the speaker's support for a "truth commission" to find out who (else) took that position.

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May 15, 2009

Obama's 'Public' Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation By Lawrence Kudlow

Does anybody really believe that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money? About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least.

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May 15, 2009

Hot House 2010 By Larry J. Sabato, Isaac Wood and Paul Wiley

We are barely into the two-year term for the current House of Representatives, but you can be sure that the 2010 contests have already begun. That is especially true for members of the House who are in two-party competitive districts. For them, it is a permanent campaign.

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May 14, 2009

Illegal Immigration in Tough Times By Froma Harrop

While the recession has rattled every rung of economic ladder, it has ravaged the bottom bars. Unemployment stands at just over 4 percent for college graduates but at nearly 15 percent for those lacking high-school diplomas. In poor black neighborhoods, it's around 30 percent and approaching Great Depression levels.

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May 14, 2009

Republicans Wonder How To Sell a Toxic Brand By Joe Conason

Uplifting as it was to see insurance executives, pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospital officials and doctors gather at the White House on May 11, pledging cooperation toward health care reform, nothing they said or did was inconsistent with precisely the opposite objective. According to the famed pollster who is helping Republicans in Congress to block reform, in fact, the first critical step toward stopping real change is pretending to support it.

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May 14, 2009

Obama Offers Security at the Expense of Liberty By Michael Barone

Republicans and conservatives are trying to grapple with the Obama administration's $3,600,000,000,000 federal budget -- let's include the zeroes rather than use the trivializing abbreviation $3.6 trillion -- and the larger-than-previously-projected $1,841,000,000,000 budget deficit.

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May 13, 2009

Funny and Not Funny By Susan Estrich

The president was funny at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Wanda Sykes, the host, was not.

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May 13, 2009

Arabs Pressure Obama for Quick Peace Accord By Tony Blankley

Last Sunday, the British newspaper The Times published an interview with Jordan's King Abdullah II, in which the maturing king demonstrated a deft touch in putting pressure both on the new prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and on President Barack Obama.

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May 12, 2009

The United Fiefdoms of America By Howard Rich

Lost in last week’s barrage of Barack Obama “spending reform” coverage was a USA Today story that should send chills down the spine of any state official – or taxpaying citizen, for that matter.

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May 12, 2009

Oversharing, Exhibitionism, Loneliness By Froma Harrop

It pains me to take Elizabeth Edwards to task for anything. She is suffering from terminal cancer and from assertions that her cheating husband fathered a child with a party girl. So my first instinct is to totally lay off. The only rap against her, it seems, is that she knew of an affair after John Edwards announced his presidential run and that she kept it secret.

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May 12, 2009

To Edwards and Palin: Cork it By Debra J. Saunders

Elizabeth Edwards always seemed like the yin -- a genuine human being -- to her smarmy husband's too-slick yang. No more. With the release of her memoir "Resilience" and self-flagellation book tour about her life with her cheating hubby, Mrs. E now seems about as believable as her husband. That is: Add the prefix "un."

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May 11, 2009

On Guns and Climate, the Elites Are Out of Touch By Michael Barone

Many years ago, political scientists came up with a theory that elites lead public opinion. And on some issues, they clearly do. But on some issues, they don't.

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May 10, 2009

The Democrats' Dictionary By Debra J. Saunders

Doublespeak is alive as Democrats pull the strings in the White House and Congress 24 years after 1984. What do they mean when they engage in Democrat-speak?

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May 9, 2009

A Mother's Job By Susan Estrich

"You have so much responsibility. It's just hard work all the time," said Bristol Palin, the new spokeswoman for the Candie's Foundation to prevent teen pregnancy, at an "Event to Prevent" town hall on Wednesday.

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May 8, 2009

Health Care: Will Democrats Ride Camel or Horse? By Froma Harrop

A camel, the old saying goes, is a horse made by committee. We don't want camel health reform. We don't want Washington lawmakers debating whether it should have one hump or two. We want a horse -- a sleek machine that performs with efficiency.

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May 8, 2009

Huge Crack in System of Drug Prosecution By Debra J. Saunders

When Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986, proponents boasted that stiff mandatory minimum sentences would be bad news for major drug traffickers. Ha. Over time, drug kingpins learned that they had little to fear from the law -- especially if they were dealing crack cocaine.

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May 8, 2009

Presidency 2012: The Invisible Primary Begins By Larry J. Sabato

We at the Crystal Ball must beg your forgiveness. With fewer than 1,300 days left until the next general election for President, we have failed to offer a single analysis of this historic upcoming battle. With humility, and hoping for mercy, we submit this first update on 2012.

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May 7, 2009

Jack Kemp's Big Ideas By Lawrence Kudlow

When I first visited with Jack Kemp in his congressional office in Washington, D.C., in the late 1970s, I couldn't help but notice the row of books on his desk. There was Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Benjamin Anderson and Milton Friedman. And of course there was Jude Wanniski's "The Way the World Works."

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May 7, 2009

Those Brand-New Humble Republicans By Joe Conason

Hoping to re-brand their declining party, a group of prominent Republicans recently launched a national "listening tour," presumably as an exercise in market research. They would like to know why voters -- and especially younger voters -- increasingly reject the GOP.

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May 7, 2009

White House Puts UAW Ahead of Property Rights By Michael Barone

Last Friday, the day after Chrysler filed for bankruptcy, I drove past the company's headquarters on I-75 in Auburn Hills, Mich. As I glanced at the pentagram logo, I felt myself tearing up a little bit. Anyone who grew up in the Detroit area, as I did, can't help but be sad to see a once great company fail.

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