What is most striking about the showdown over contraceptive freedom is not the political victory that President Obama earned by standing up for women's reproductive rights, although his Republican adversaries are certainly helping him to make the most of it. Those adversaries don't seem to realize they have fallen into a trap, whether the White House set them up intentionally or not.
Believers in central planning should take a look at Washington's Metro rail transit system. While they will find many things to like, they will also see examples of how central planners -- and especially rail transit planners -- can get things disastrously and expensively wrong.
President Obama said in his State of the Union speech, "We've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings."
One item in the annals of American exceptionalism is how exceptionally badly behaved American children are. We who hang around international airports often marvel at how European toddlers wait calmly while their American cohorts run down the halls or lie sprawled on the floor in a screaming tantrum.
Rick Santorum won big victories in three small contests in the Republican presidential race last Tuesday. In doing so, he reshaped the oft-reshaped nomination battle once again. But he has not installed himself as the favorite, and neither he nor Mitt Romney has established himself as the candidate who can do best in the general election.
If the Conservative Political Action Conference can be expected to accomplish anything more than angry bellowing, it is to reliably embarrass every decent and sane conservative in America. Sometimes the problem is a conspiratorial extremist co-sponsor, like the John Birch Society; sometimes the problem is a certifiable kook giving the keynote address, like Glenn Beck; and sometimes the problem is just vicious bullying of gay conservatives, who have been officially expelled from the conference.
Every sports fan knows that close contests are often decided by mistakes rather than heroics. In this year's Super Bowl, Tom Brady threw just one interception, but Eli Manning didn't throw any. Manning's team won. What's especially disheartening for fans are unforced errors. Right now, President Obama's fans have reason to worry about a substantive unforced error that threatens his support among Catholic voters.
My, how you've changed, Big Brother. What happened to the sourpuss in "1984," George Orwell's grim novel about a thought-controlled future? Gone are the piercing eyes and the perennial threat: "Big Brother is Watching."
You've had quite the fashion update. I like how you dress in T-shirts and sweats, just like the proles. I like your boyish grin. No longer a tyrant without a name, you're now Facebook's founder and supreme leader, Mark Zuckerberg.
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson called the pursuit of happiness an unalienable right. This was a radical idea. For most of history, most people didn't think much about pursuing happiness. They were too busy just trying to survive.
The blowup at Susan G. Komen for the Cure set off a political alarm that Republicans dare not ignore. The leading breast cancer group, Komen tried playing Republican-base politics by cutting its funding to Planned Parenthood for breast-health services. The sisterhood and its allies exploded, and Komen reversed course with abject apologies.
It's unusual when a reporter sympathetic to a politician writes a story that makes his subject look bad. But Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker has now done this twice.
The first time was in an article last April on Obama's foreign policy in which he quoted a "top aide" (National Security Adviser Tom Donilon? It sounds like him) saying that the president was "leading from behind" on Libya. Not what most Americans expect their presidents to do.
Now, in an article based on leaked White House memos marked up by Obama, Lizza has done it again.
Back in September, the Crystal Ball examined the possible electoral impact of state-by-state unemployment figures because, after all, presidents are elected in 51 individual battles (50 states plus Washington, D.C.)
The moon over Miami was a blue moon for Newt, a bad moon rising for Gingrich. This moon’s shine was all for Mitt Romney, illuminating a moon river that seems set to eventually carry Romney to the Republican presidential nomination.
While much of the focus these days is on the fight for the Republican presidential nomination, there are some developing trends that are likely to have the man already in the White House smiling. Only 29 percent of voters nationwide believe the United States is currently heading in the right direction, while 64 percent believe the nation has gotten off on the wrong track. Those aren't great numbers for a president seeking re-election -- but that 29 percent is up from 24 percent a month ago and 16 percent the month before that.
Mitt Romney's convincing victory in the Florida primary erased his earlier defeats and perhaps any serious obstacle to his nomination. The question that still troubles party leaders, however, is the damage he will sustain before returning to Tampa in September for their convention.
Two of the hottest topics on the political circuit are illegal immigration and "Obamacare." They can come together into a third steaming discussion: How the Democrats' Affordable Care Act of 2010 would hasten America's journey toward a more orderly immigration program.
Mitt Romney's impressive victory Tuesday makes it very likely that we will look back on the Florida primary as the contest that determined the 2012 Republican nomination.
To be sure, the campaign fight will go on, and Romney is by no means assured of a sweep of the relatively few February contests.
With an election approaching and at least some Americans upset about irresponsible spending, the president has finally expressed a political interest in cutting something. He says the Pentagon will spend "only" $525 billion next year. That's slightly less than the current $531 billion.
Celebrity chef Paula Deen lustily massages salt into "a mighty fat hog," as the dogs circle the cooking island. For the yams, "I'm only using half a stick of butter," she drawls before breaking into high laughter. Deen's popular Food Network show does Southern cooking with no brakes on the pork fat, butter, sugar or other dietarily incorrect ingredients.
We got mixed signals from a turbulent political week. Barack Obama seems to be enjoying an uptick in polls -- up toward, but not quite at, 50 percent approval. It's a reminder that he can expect to benefit from Americans' desire to think well of their presidents and from the reluctance of many voters to be seen as rejecting the first black president.
