After NSA leak, Obama finally admits security-liberty choice
June 15, 2013
Thirty-five years ago in United States v. Choate, the courts ruled that the Postal Service may record "mail cover," i.e., what's written on the outside of an envelope — the addresses of sender and receiver.
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Obama's Dorothy Doctrine
May 31, 2013
"This war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises …"
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There's a fly in my soup
May 28, 2013
WASHINGTON – "Horrible customer service." That's what the newly fired IRS commissioner averred was the agency's only sin in singling out conservative political groups for discriminatory treatment.
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Redacted truth, subjunctive outrage
May 19, 2013
Note to GOP re Benghazi: Stop calling it Watergate, Iran-contra, bigger than both, etc. First, it might well be, but we don't know. History will judge. Second, overhyping will only diminish the importance of the scandal if it doesn't meet presidency-breaking standards. Third, focusing on the political effects simply plays into the hands of Democrats desperately claiming that this is nothing but partisan politics.
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Pink line over Damascus
May 10, 2013
WASHINGTON -- You know you're in trouble when you can't even get your walk-back story straight. Stung by the worldwide derision that met President Obama's fudging and fumbling of his chemical-weapons red line in Syria, the White House leaked to The New York Times that Obama's initial statement had been unprepared, unscripted and therefore unserious.
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Obama: the fall
May 6, 2013
WASHINGTON -- Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination.
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After sequester, Syria, Boston, Obama's Big Mo goes missing
May 5, 2013
Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination.
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The Bush legacy
April 26, 2013
WASHINGTON -- Clare Boothe Luce liked to say that "a great man is one sentence." Presidents, in particular. The most common "one sentence" for George W. Bush (whose legacy is being reassessed as his presidential library opens) is: "He kept us safe."
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The language of terror
April 19, 2013
WASHINGTON -- Terrorism is speech -- speech that gathers its audience by killing innocents as theatrically as possible. The 19th-century anarchist Paul Brousse called it "propaganda by deed." Accordingly, the Boston Marathon attack, the first successful terror bombing in the U.S. since 9/11, was designed for maximum effect. At the finish line there would be not only news cameras but also hundreds of personal videos to amplify the message.
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The Obama budget and the appearance of reform
April 12, 2013
WASHINGTON -- Well, at least we're starting to get the procedure right. Washington has rediscovered the beauty of the boring. It's called "regular order," using the normal, routine, constitutional process to arrive at, for example, a budget.
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The trigger and the poison pill
April 5, 2013
WASHINGTON -- Is a bipartisan immigration deal at hand? It's close. Last week, the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce worked out a guest-worker compromise that allows in foreign workers on a sliding scale of 20,000 to 200,000, depending on the strength of the economy.
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What really happened in Jerusalem
March 29, 2013
"I honestly believe that if any Israeli parent sat down with those 1 / 8Palestinian 3 / 8 kids, they'd say I want these kids to succeed."
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Why we give foreign aid
March 11, 2013
WASHINGTON -- Sequestration is not the best time to be doling out foreign aid, surely the most unpopular item in the federal budget. Especially when the recipient is President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt.
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Hail Armageddon
March 1, 2013
WASHINGTON -- "The worst-case scenario for us," a leading anti-budget-cuts lobbyist told The Washington Post, "is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens."
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Immigration: The lesser of two evils
February 22, 2013
WASHINGTON -- The president suggested he would hold off introducing his own immigration bill as long as bipartisan Senate negotiations were proceeding apace -- until his own immigration bill mysteriously leaked precisely as bipartisan Senate negotiations were proceeding apace.
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In defense of Obama's drone war
February 18, 2013
WASHINGTON -- The nation's vexation over the morality and legality of President Obama's drone war has produced a salutary but hopelessly confused debate. Three categories of questions are being asked. They must be separated to be clearly understood.
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Call Obama's sequester bluff
February 8, 2013
WASHINGTON -- For the first time since Election Day, President Obama is on the defensive. That's because on March 1, automatic spending cuts ("sequestration") go into effect -- $1.2 trillion over 10 years, half from domestic (discretionary) programs, half from defense.
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Immigration: Getting it right
February 1, 2013
WASHINGTON -- Immigration reform is coming. Let's get it right. What counts as getting it wrong? The 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act, signed by President Reagan. It granted amnesty to the then 3 million illegal immigrants and promised border enforcement.
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Obama unbound
January 25, 2013
WASHINGTON -- The media herd is stunned to discover that Barack Obama is a man of the left. After 699 teleprompted presidential speeches, the commentariat was apparently still oblivious. Until Monday's inaugural address, that is.
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A new strategy for the GOP
January 18, 2013
WASHINGTON -- It has become conventional wisdom that Republicans are suffering an internal split that President Obama is successfully exploiting to neuter the Republican House. It is not true, however, that the Republican split is philosophical and fundamental. And that a hopelessly divided GOP is therefore headed for decline, perhaps irrelevance.
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The meaning of Hagel
January 11, 2013
"This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."
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Return of the real Obama
January 7, 2013
WASHINGTON -- The rout was complete, the retreat disorderly. President Obama got his tax hikes -- naked of spending cuts -- passed by the ostensibly Republican House of Representatives. After which, you might expect him to pivot to his self-proclaimed "principle" of fiscal "balance" by taking the lead on reducing spending. "Why," asked The Washington Post on the eve of the final "fiscal-cliff" agreement, "is the nation's leader not embracing and then explaining the balanced reforms the nation needs?"
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The roots of mass murder
December 21, 2012
WASHINGTON -- Every mass shooting has three elements: the killer, the weapon and the cultural climate. As soon as the shooting stops, partisans immediately pick their preferred root cause with corresponding pet panacea. Names are hurled, scapegoats paraded, prejudices vented. The argument goes nowhere.
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Michigan's labor furor reveals nation's right-to-work dilemma
December 16, 2012
For all the fury and fistfights outside the Lansing Capitol, what happened in Michigan this week was a simple accommodation to reality. The most famously unionized state, birthplace of the United Auto Workers, royalty of the American working class, became right-to-work.
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Obama puts politics ahead of economics in budget battle
December 9, 2012
Let's understand President Obama's strategy in the "fiscal cliff" negotiations. It has nothing to do with economics or real fiscal reform. This is entirely about politics. It's Phase 2 of the 2012 campaign. The election returned him to office. The fiscal cliff negotiations are designed to break the Republican opposition and grant him political supremacy, something he thinks he earned with his landslide 2.8-point victory margin on Election Day.
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Cliff jumping with Barack
November 30, 2012
WASHINGTON -- Why are Republicans playing the Democrats' game that the "fiscal cliff" is all about taxation?
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Look to Hamas for reason why war continues in Gaza
November 25, 2012
Why was there an Israel-Gaza war in the first place? Resistance to the occupation, say Hamas and many in the international media.
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The way forward
November 9, 2012
WASHINGTON -- They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.
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The choice
November 2, 2012
WASHINGTON -- "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not." That was Barack Obama in 2008. And he was right. Reagan was an ideological inflection point, ending a 50-year liberal ascendancy and beginning a 30-year conservative ascendancy.
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Obama stoops, doesn't conquer
October 26, 2012
"L'etat, c'est moi."
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Romney can give allies love they've lacked from Obama
July 29, 2012
A generation ago, it was the three I's. A presidential challenger's obligatory foreign trip meant Ireland, Italy and Israel. Mitt Romney's itinerary is slightly different: Britain, Poland and Israel.
