Buying the Votes of Senior Citizens By Debra J. Saunders
It's hard to instill confidence in the U.S. economy when Washington keeps finding new and creative ways to spend money it doesn't have.
Political Commentary
Most Recent Releases
October 20, 2009
October 19, 2009
Unlike Obama, Americans reject European model By Michael Barone
An interesting paradox. Last year, America elected a president who, in attitudes and policies, is closer to the elites of Western Europe than any of his predecessors. Yet in the nine months that he has been in office, ordinary Americans have been moving away from those attitudes and policies and have increasingly embraced positions that over the years have made Americans distinctive from those in other advanced Western democracies.
October 18, 2009
Bipartisan Facade Can't Hide Health Plan's Flaws By Debra J. Saunders
If the Democrats' health care package is so great, why are President Obama and Dem congressional leaders so hungry to share the credit for its passage with a Republican?
October 16, 2009
The Bay Area Bridge That Time Forgot By Debra J. Saunders
On Oct. 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a chunk of the upper deck of the Oakland-Bay Bridge onto the lower deck. Anamafi Moala Kalushia, 23, of Berkeley died. Twenty years later, some 280,000 cars use the bridge daily -- and it still isn't safe.
October 16, 2009
A Big Difference for Science and Medicine By Susan Estrich
Dr. Carol Greider may be the only Nobel laureate to have been folding laundry when she got the call. She was up early, and there was a lot of laundry. After the phone call, she woke up her two children and told them she had won the Nobel Prize.
October 16, 2009
Storm Clouds Gather as Dow Hits 10,000 By Lawrence Kudlow
Dow Jones 10,000 arrived on Wall Street Wednesday for the first time in a year. It's a milestone of sorts, and it certainly represents a vote for investor confidence in economic recovery. Blowout profit reports from Intel and JPMorgan helped fuel the day's 145-point gain. So did a retail sales report that excluding Cash for Clunkers was actually quite strong.
October 15, 2009
Science and the Female Brain By Froma Harrop
The recent award of Nobel Prizes in biology and chemistry to three women dredges up Larry Summers' suggestion in 2005 that differences in the female brain may account for the dearth of top women scientists. Now President Obama's economic adviser, Summers was then speechifying as president of Harvard.
October 15, 2009
A Nobel for Defeating Cheneyism By Joe Conason
Outraged babble and sanctimonious tut-tutting over President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize will pour forth until the very evening he accepts the prize in Oslo, and then for years afterward. His critics are infuriated, they say, because he didn't earn the prestigious award, or because he didn't refuse it -- or just because those left-wing Norwegians have a lot of nerve. How dare they insult us by bestowing their highest honor on the president of the United States and inviting him to deliver a lecture?
October 15, 2009
The Trouble With Health Care Is Paying for It By Michael Barone
The legislative process can also be a learning process, and as Congress considers health care legislation -- the latest act being the Senate Finance Committee's vote in favor of Chairman Max Baucus' bill, or "conceptual language" -- we have been learning something useful. It's that legislators would like to provide generous, even gold-plated health insurance coverage to almost all Americans, but that no one wants to pay for it.
October 14, 2009
Obama's Middle Class Betrayal By Howard Rich
As much as the Beltway chattering class refuses to admit it, Barack Obama's electoral victory last year had nothing to do with his oft-repeated, generic pledge to bring "hope and change" to Washington, D.C.
October 14, 2009
Washington Is Nuts By Tony Blankley
Want to hear a real laugher? Despite the current disharmony in politics, there's one policy on which all of Washington agrees. Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, president and Congress all agree that after last fall's financial crisis, the federal government has to regulate the financial industry more closely to protect our economy from risk of systemic financial collapse.
October 14, 2009
The Promise of Peace By Susan Estrich
OK, so President Barack Obama hasn't accomplished enough to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize under the conventional approach.
October 13, 2009
Pessimism: Obama's Political Ally By Dick Morris
President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, but nobody thinks he deserves the Nobel in economics. Despite $800 billion of economic stimulus and the accumulation of a $1.4 trillion deficit, he has been unable to lower the unemployment rate below 9.8%.
October 13, 2009
Weary of Culinary Spectacle, Spending and Sport By Froma Harrop
I must be the only "foodie" who didn't love "Julie & Julia," the movie about Julia Child and the office worker she inspired, Julie Powell. Am I allowed?
October 13, 2009
What Happened to Global Warming? By Debra J. Saunders
"What happened to global warming?" read the headline -- on BBC News on Oct. 9, no less. Consider it a cataclysmic event: Mainstream news organizations have begun reporting on scientific research that suggests that global warming may not be caused by man and may not be as dire and eminent as alarmists suggest.
October 12, 2009
'Conceptual Language' Hides Health Care's Costs By Michael Barone
Some of the headlines in recent days are not worthy of belief. No, I'm not referring to the headlines that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, however odd that many seem to many (including, it seems, Obama himself). I'm referring to the headlines earlier in the week to the effect that the health care bill sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will cut the federal deficit by $81 billion over the next 10 years.
October 11, 2009
Lose at the Ballot, Push! for Payback at the Bench By Debra J. Saunders
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker opened the gates to hell this month when he ruled that strategists for Proposition 8 -- the 2008 ballot measure, passed by 52 percent of California voters, that limited marriage to a man and a woman -- must release internal campaign documents to measure opponents.
October 10, 2009
Weak Himself, Obama Draws Strength From Bush By Michael Barone
In trying to understand what is happening in the nation and world, we all employ narratives -- story lines that indicate where things are going and what is likely to happen next. We can check the validity of these narratives by observing whether events move in the indicated direction. If so, the narrative is confirmed. But if things seem to be moving in an entirely different direction, it's time to discard the narrative and look for another.
October 10, 2009
Dems Change Stance on Military and Afghanistan By Debra J. Saunders
At the Democratic National Convention in Denver last summer, then-Sen. Barack Obama pledged to "finish the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan."
October 9, 2009
The President's Choice By Susan Estrich
Afghanistan used to be a great issue for Barack Obama. As a candidate, he repeatedly argued that George W. Bush and his Defense Department had lost their way, focusing too much attention (and troops and resources) on Iraq while shortchanging the more important mission in Afghanistan.
