February 2010

From yesterday's issue of the Onion:

From the Palm Beach Post, this is classic Charlie Crist:

There's an amusing video this week of the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez in the midst of a televised attack on--who/what else?--George W. Bush when the lights go out. Chavez is plunged into darkness and, miraculously, ceases talking.

The leading Republican candidate for Senate in California, Tom Campbell, has come under fire for his voting record on Israel, his connection to Sami Al-Arian and others with ties to Islamists, and his endorsement of Alison Weir, who promotes the conspiracy theory that Israel harvests the organs of…

Quin Hillyer writes:

For those of us tracking the health care debate, this John Podhoretz post is required reading:

In certain corners of the blogosphere--as well as the mainstream media--there has been some consternation over how to designate the IRS suicide pilot, Joseph Stack. Is he a terrorist or just a criminal? Are there degrees of “terrorism”?

Whatever happened to "draining the swamp" in Washington? Nancy Pelosi is sticking with Charlie Rangel:

The “health-care summit” has come and gone, and it was a good day for the Republicans. They were sharp and focused, the Democrats meandering and ineffectual. The latter came off more like wishful ideologues or naive amateurs than like practical realists with sensible solutions. They seemed…

The leading Republican candidate for Senate in California, Tom Campbell, has come under fire his voting record on Israel, his connection to Sami Al-Arian and others with ties to Islamists, and his endorsement of Alison Weir, who promotes the conspiracy theory that Israel harvests the organs of…

One of the great things about the health summit was getting to witness certain members' rhetorical skills and getting to hear how they think about things.  One of the most revealing comments was made by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who lamented that people whose medical bills are higher have to pay…

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway reminded Congress yesterday that the purpose of the Marines is to fight and win wars:

Former President George W. Bush on his memoirs, due out in November:

A recent Gallup poll, surveying American attitudes toward Israel, provides fascinating results: 

The Founders would no doubt be glad to hear this.

Central Falls High School in Rhode Island has been among the state's lowest-performing schools for seven years. Only 7 percent of students are proficient in math, and fewer than half graduate.

Chart: "The stimulus bill and all the stops that the federal government pulled to save the economy and create jobs didn’t not help the private sector employees. On the other hand, it did show support for its own employees."

Here's something you don't see every day -- an orchestra breaking into Ravel's "Bolero" in the middle of a shopping mall:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD is happy to welcome a new kid on the magazine block--especially because he (she?) is smart, engaging and attractive. So we welcome the Jewish Review of Books--a new print and web publication for serious readers with Jewish interests, in which writers and scholars praise,…

Oklahoma Republican senator Tom Coburn says he had a "pretty positive attitude" leaving today's health care summit at the Blair House in Washington. He had even suggested Obama and lawmakers have another such meeting on health care. But now, after reading news reports saying that Democrats are set…

A press release from Pete Hoekstra:

NBC reports:

The Hill reports:

Update: A press release from Pete Hoekstra's office indicates that the House bill has been pulled because of opposition to the provision targeting interrogators.  

During her closing remarks--at which point Republicans didn't have a chance to respond--Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that John Boehner had misinformed viewers today when he said that there's public funding of abortion in the health care bill:

At today's health care summit, Obama and the Democrats were allotted twice as much time to talk as the Republicans. Here's the breakdwon, according to the Senate Republican Communications Center:

The message coming out of the health care summit is clear: President Obama and the Democratic leadership are planning one, last-ditch effort to restructure one-sixth of the economy by using the parliamentary tactic known as reconciliation. This jibes with Mike Allen's report from this morning.…

Why is the health care reform summit going over time? The answer is simple: President Obama. He's decided to try to refute -- at length -- every single Republican criticism of the Democratic health bill. (The only exception: Paul Ryan. In that case, Obama quickly changed the subject to Medicare…

Rep. Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, just launched a full-bore assault on the faulty assumptions behind the claim that the Obama health care plan will reduce the deficit. Obama didn't even bother questioning Ryan's presentation. He changed the subject to Medicare Advantage. The expression on…

The Times of London, in a story that borders on the passive-aggressive, is reporting that President Obama has refused to endorse British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. The short skinny of this is that there's another Buenos Aires-London row over the rightful ownership of the islands (you…

One of the more amusing side-plots to the health care reform summit has been the constant annoyance of Rep. Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, that Obama hasn't called on him yet. As Rep. Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, was speaking, you could hear Rangel protest to the president that he…

During a relatively succinct (for him) presentation on health care costs and deficits, Vice President Joe Biden had a great, Shatnerian line. "Medicare," he said. "It exists."

A statement from Liz Cheney:

This is distributed by the GOP, but the praise from some unexpected sources confirms my gut feeling that the health-care summit is not going badly for Republicans. There was a general consensus that Obama "won" the last televised confrontation with Republicans in Baltimore. That assessment was…

Andy McCarthy alerts us to an important national security issue on Capitol Hill:

More than halfway through today's health care summit, fears that Obama would somehow trap Republicans seem unfounded.

According to Josh Rogin over at Foreign Policy, there's a "growing realization on Capitol Hill that Senate ratification of the START follow-on treaty with Russia will probably not happen this year."

ABC News notes this exchange between former campaign adversaries Barack Obama and John McCain, which will probably end up being the headline out of the summit, but it revealed something beyond sore egos from '08:

The change in the president's demeanor over the course of the health care summit is striking. This morning, the president was sunny and friendly. By the time John McCain spoke around noon, however, the president was clearly angry.

President Obama is frustrated. He chastised Sen. Jon Kyl, the minority whip, and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin for making the health care debate about whether Washington knows best. That "tips the scales," Obama said (I'm quoting from memory), because "everybody is angry at Washington right now."

Harry Reid spoke, in his opening statement at today's health-care forum, about the possibility of using reconciliation to pass the bill— a tactic that Sen. Lamar Alexander asked Democrats to set aside during his opening statement. He expressed some faux incredulity that Republicans were even…

At the health care summit, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell just pointed out that Democrats have monopolized the speaking time so far. President Obama correctly replied that McConnell was right. The Democrats had longer opening statements "because I'm the president." Everyone chuckled.

Before Sen. Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, began to talk about costs, President Obama and Sen. Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennesse, engaged in a high-profile debate over the effects of the Senate legislation on the cost of premiums. Sen. Alexander said the Congressional Budget Office has…

During the Democratic primary race, it was Hillary Clinton whose health-care plan used an individual mandate to increase health-care coverage.

President Obama is genial, charming, and respectful of his opponents. Not Senate majority leader Harry Reid. He's a nasty hyper-partisan who regularly launches personal attacks against Republicans. And he wasted no time singling out Sen. Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, in his opening…

In his opening statement at the health care summit, President Obama mentioned his nightly routine. Each day, his staff selects ten letters sent to the White House from around the country and delivers them to the Oval Office. Obama then takes them up to the residence when he leaves for the day. The…

The health care summit is off to an already soporific start. How anybody will be able stay awake for the next six hours is beyond me. An early highlight: When they entered the room, both President Obama and Vice President Biden spent a few moments greeting the participants. Obama made his way to…

Because we need agrément from the man who is Ahmadinejad’s closest ally in the world, who stands by grinning as the Iranian madman threatens the “demise and annihilation” of the “Zionist regime,” and who himself calls America’s position on Iran (such as it is) “a new situation of colonialism in the…

There's plenty to crticize about President Obama's policies on missile defense, but Frank Gaffney makes the preposterous claim that the new logo for the Missile Defense Agency "appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo," he goes on:

Ol' Joe was off message again, talking to his home paper in Delaware just before today's health-care summit, which Obama has diligiently pitched as a truly productive, bipartisan gathering, despite all evidence to the contrary:

Israeli official says Dubai hit didn't interrupt intel operations: "Dubai authorities for some reason have a bee in their bonnet, and this tension will not go away. This was the underestimation of the Mossad."

Nancy Pelosi will say at the health care confab today that "inaction and incrementalism are simply unacceptable."

Janet Napolitano finally calls the Ft. Hood attack an act of "violent Islamic terrorism."

On the eve of the bipartisan health care summit at the Blair House, Democrat Anthony Weiner of New York took the floor of the House to attack "every single Republican" he has "ever met" as a "wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry."

A new CNN poll shows that only 25% of American voters want Congress to "pass a health care bill similar to the legislation that Congress has been working on for the past year." That number is down five points from January.

When Tim Tebow's pro-life ad ran during the Super Bowl, I wasn't a fan of it. It seemed so innocuous as to be a lost opportunity. Why did Focus on the Family pay so much money, create such a ruckus only to punt (forgive the pun) the issue when the Tebows finally came on-screen? It was a nice ad,…

As absurd as that question sounds, according to a new book, it's true, in a roundabout sort of way. The Decision Tree by Thomas Goetz, recently excerpted in the Washington Post, points out the skyrocketing cost of CT scans:

As noted yesterday, Pelosi's original coalition of 220 members of Congress who voted for the health care bill in November is now down to about 200 to 205. Minority Whip Eric Cantor puts the number in about the same range. So Obamacare's only chance is if Nancy Pelosi can flip 12 to 20 of the 39…

The Susan B. Anthony List notes that today John Boehner sent a letter to President Obama asking that Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan be invited to tomorrow's health care summit. Stupak has taken the lead among pro-life Democrats in opposing taxpayer-funding of abortion in the health…

Here's the about-to-be-unveiled list of House Republicans attending the "health care summit" tomorrow; the four additional picks are Ryan, Roskam, Blackburn, and Boustany:

At tomorrow's "health summit," we'll hear a lot of talk from President Obama and congressional Democrats about unscrupulous and under-regulated insurers who pad their obscene profits by raising prices at their whim at the expense of helpless Americans from coast to coast.  If only the federal…

The next time you encounter a learned discussion of 'the liberal media' -- which usually features stalwart denials of political bias, combined with pious invocations of professional standards -- consider the life and career of James Wieghart, who died this week at the age of 76. Mr Wieghart's…

John Yoo writes in the Wall Street Journal in response to the "bias and sheer incompetence" of the Obama DOJ's investigation of Yoo and other former government officials:

Andy McCarthy notices a pattern:

This week, the White House floated the idea of putting the SEIU's Andy Stern on its deficit commission. Presumably because labor unions are renowned for their skill in holding down costs.

Obama in '05: 51-vote nuclear option is arrogant power grab against Founders' intent.

Geert Wilders of the Netherlands is one of the oddest men on the world stage. He's been banned from entering the UK, denounced as a fascist, and largely blacklisted throughout Europe due to his staunch and outspoken opposition to militant Islam. And in a few months he might be prime minister of the…

A few years ago, I wrote a book on the faith of Hillary Clinton. Released in 2007, the book flopped, dismissed by conservatives who didn’t believe Hillary believed in God and liberals who didn’t care that Hillary believed in God.

For my recent week in Haiti, I was armed by our art director with a camera, and commanded to take usable pictures. I am not a professional photographer, but he assures me these qualify. (In this week's print edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, you can see more photographs from shooters who actually…

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said at a Senate hearing today on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell":

Josh Rogin asks NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen if the alliance has any concerns about the proposed sale of several Mistral-class amphibious assault ships by France to the Russian Navy. The answer: 

Perhaps Donny Deutsch will argue that "coconut," a racial slur implying that a person of color is a sell-out who is brown on the outside and white on the inside, is far more nuanced than "Oreo," and therefore acceptable.

Byron York writes:

Major Garrett recently conducted a revealing interview with former president Bill Clinton. They touched on a range of topics, including the president's health, Haiti, and the current state of the Democratic party. What struck me, however, is how Clinton kept referring to Obamacare in the past tense.

In talking to CPAC this week, George Will noted that the "agenda of dependence" is enabled by trial lawyers, the cultural result being the infantilization of the populace with warning labels like, "Do not fold stroller while child is inside."

In addition to the invites sent out to members of the Republican leadership, Obama invited the Republicans to bring along some additional Senators and congressmen to the health care summit "media event" on Thursday. Tom Coburn and John Barasso, hosts of the Senate Doctors Show, seem like smart…

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has a few ideas – pretty good ones, actually – about how a Republican candidate should run a campaign for the presidency. But guess what?  He says he doesn’t intend to run. “I don’t plan to do it, don’t expect to do it, and I really don’t want to do it,” Daniels says.

Slate's The Root -- the portion of the website where they cordon off their African-American content -- has compiled a list of "Black folks we'd like to remove from black history." Some of the choices are funny (Dennis Rodman) some are head-scratching (the doctor who prescribed Michael Jackson his…

A recent Kaiser poll is filled with interesting numbers. It found support for health care reform split, with 43 percent pro and 43 percent con. It found that only 34 percent of respondents believed the current legislation would better their condition. Only 32 percent said they wanted Congress to…

As citizens across the nation debate and dissect President Obama’s State of the Union address, we should not miss the opportunity to make good on one of his promises. President Obama devoted one line of his 70-minute speech to announcing a new plan to address the potential for bioterror attacks.

As liberals fantasize about reviving the public option, let's inject some reality into the health care debate. The president's revised proposal, which you can read here, probably could pass the Senate with 50 votes (and Joe Biden's tie-breaker) under the parliamentary procedure known as…

White House spokesmen Robert Gibbs and Dan Pfeiffer started out the week of the  bipartisan health care summit by accusing Republicans, once again, of having no plan:

A statement from Congressman Bart Stupak released this morning:

You mean Barack Obama showed up to declare his position after wrangling and tough choices by others had hammered out most of the details, so that he could hand down his slightly tweaked version of the basic consensus without actually solving any of the tough problems still on the table? Weird, that…

This may be the saddest passage you read about American culture this week. In a story from the New York Times headlined, "Once Stigmatized, Food Stamps Find Acceptance," we learn that the government has been using your tax dollars to market the giving away of your tax dollars in the form of food…

Hey, you know what the "Party of No" has that the president doesn't? A CBO score.

In his speech to a joint-session of Congress on September 9, President Obama introduced what he called "my plan" for "health care reform."  The next day, the Washington Post noted that "the president for the first time Wednesday embraced a set of ideas as 'my plan.'"  About the same time, Obama…

The media has treated Team USA’s victory over Canada in hockey at the winter Olympics as a great upset.  But that’s not true.  It wasn’t an upset at all.  The American hockey team is very good and its 5-3 win over Canada on Sunday night should have been no surprise.

The United Nations has recently ratcheted up its criticism of the United States’ decision to withhold humanitarian aid to parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamist terror group al Shabaab.  The international body’s official in charge of aid distribution in Somalia accused the U.S. of preventing…

Laura Rozen of Politico has written an assessment of Vice President Biden’s nuclear policy speech from last week that the White House is sure to love.  But that’s because she appears to have bought their line of argument a little too uncritically and has mistaken symbolism for substance.  No doubt…

President Obama's health care plan would use federal dollars to pay for abortions in at least three ways.

Lockerbie bomber Megrahi living in luxury villa six months after being at "death's door."

Reuters has an interesting story up on Robert Mugabe's birthday celebration, hosted by the new soft imperialists, communist China. Last year, the Zimbabwean dictator's 85th birthday was globally mocked as an embarrassing Marie Antoinette moment (one of many, really), as Mugabe spent a huge sum on a…

The Dubai police have exposed the “identities” of the people who did it—pointing the finger not only at the Mossad, but also at Palestinian “collaborators” (who may be traitorous members of Hamas, or Hamas-despising members of Fatah, depending on which fork of the tongue you care to believe, if you…

Fans of Republican Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, author of the Roadmap for America's Future, have some reading to do. First up: Ryan has a column in Newsweek describing his plan in an easy-to-read format.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf writes on his blog:

I don't know whether it's age or climate change, but the Tiger Woods Crisis has left me in a mystified state. I say this as a non-golfer who follows the pop cultural news with some fidelity. But both Woods' televised statement of apology -- for which the networks interrupted their scheduled…

The life of the mind at Princeton:

Via Roger Clegg, it appears that the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act is back on the Congress’s docket; the bill would create a separate government for native Hawaiians along the lines of tribal governance that American-Indian nations now enjoy. THE WEEKLY STANDARD examined why the…

Fareed Zakaria has an interesting -- though silly -- column up mocking Sarah Palin's suggestion that Obama get tough on Iran. It's interesting because Zakaria's grand solution to the deeply complex Iran problem is to simply lock them into a deterrence paradigm with the U.S. and Israel --more…

Obama to the Governors Ball: “One of the things I’ve always said about governors that Washington could learn from," Obama said, “is that it’s hard to be overly ideological as governor because the fact of the matter is, the rubber hits the road with you.”

As it turns out, February 22 is not only George Washington's birthday but also Single Tasking Day. In other words, amid the emails, voicemails, texts, and tweets, let us pause for a moment and get one thing done that we've been meaning to do for a long time.

The White House has begun its health care counter-offensive. You can read the Obama health plan here. The administration leaked its plans to establish price controls to the New York Times here. The health care summit, which will give kabuki theatre a bad name, is February 25. On Sunday, Senate…

Oops, again: "In a statement the authors of the paper said: 'Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this…

Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz make the case for gasoline sanctions in today's Wall Street Journal:

Whoa, Rubio's double-digit lead expands to 18 points:

The White House has unveiled President Obama's proposals for a health care compromise between the House and Senate legislation. You can read the plan here. It doesn't change much from what the Democrats were already working with, but here are what the White House dubs its "key changes":

San Jose, Costa Rica

The Road from Ruin

In yet another interview in connection with a major sporting event—this time, the Super Bowl—President Obama proposed yet another unorthodox manner of addressing a political problem: this time, a bipartisan half-day health care summit on live TV. Why hold such a meeting nearly a year into the…

Frank Kratovil is perhaps the most vulnerable Democrat in the House of Representatives. The 41-year-old freshman won Maryland’s First Congressional District by just 1 percentage point in 2008. But it’s a district that has historically tended red, and its citizens are far less enamored of Kratovil a…

Austin, Texas

Marry Him

I never watch a snowstorm without a feeling of gratitude that I got to live, as a teenager north of Boston, through the Blizzard of 1978. Since Washington is having its snowiest winter in a century, I have been having these feelings a lot. It is not the storm itself that sticks in the memory three…

Supreme leader Ali Khamenei had a good day on February 11. If the pro-democracy Green movement had managed to send hundreds of thousands of demonstrators once again onto Tehran’s streets, his heybat—the indispensable awe behind dictatorship—would have been finished. Backed by an enormous security…

The first week of February, a group of more than 75 celebrities met in a studio on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles to re-record “We Are the World.” The occasion was the January earthquake in Haiti, which left the bedraggled, destitute country even more bedraggled and destitute. 

The Obama administration is faltering on democracy and human rights. Take the president’s November trip to China. His “town hall meeting” was stage-managed by Communist authorities, and Liu Xiaobo, the most prominent dissident on a list given to Chinese authorities, was sentenced a few weeks later…

Nearly 50 years ago, Yemen fought a civil war pitting the Egyptian-backed government in Sana against insurgents supported by Saudi Arabia and its cadre of European mercenaries. The six-year war was bloody: At one low point in the campaign, Cairo resorted to mustard gas and nerve agents in an effort…

The Huffington Post has published a piece explaining how awful it supposedly is that Marc Thiessen, author of Courting Disaster (full disclosure: I reviewed a draft at Thiessen’s request), has been hired by the Washington Post to write a column.  The Huffington Post’s chief witness against Thiessen…

It takes a special talent to aggravate the Chinese government, the White House press corps, and the followers of the Dalai Lama all in one fell swoop. But the Obama administration managed to pull off that trifecta on Thursday with its poor handling of the Dalai Lama's meeting with the president.

The New York Times profiles Andy McCarthy (and mentions a seminal essay of his in THE WEEKLY STANDARD).

The Washington Post reports:

From Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos:

I've been watching CPAC on C-SPAN so you don't have to. And by far, the best speech of the conference has been George F. Will's talk from last night.

As Operation Moshtarak enters its second week, Americans should take a minute to appreciate just how lucky we are to have the British fighting alongside U.S. and Afghan forces. Their vast experience in imperial counterinsurgency notwithstanding, this marks the third war that the British have fought…

Now that Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) has decided to run for the Senate, it will be interesting to see how much he tries to distance himself from ObamaCare -- and how eagerly he switches his vote if that proposed overhaul ever makes it to another floor vote in the House.  Of the 219 House Democrats…

How about that? During all those months when Charlie Crist had a double-digit lead over Marco Rubio, he blew off all of Rubio's requests for debate. Now that Crist is trailing Rubio by double digits, the governor has agreed to debate Rubio on Meet the Press on March 7 and Fox News Sunday on March…

The Phildelphia Inquirer has the latest on the Obama administration's culture of corruption:

I'm consistently amazed at how much Google resembles the Microsoft of the mid-'90s. Which is to say, a company with a core business so successful that it hides the fact that they fail at nearly everything else they touch. We all know how great Google's search-served ad product is. It accounts for…

Democrats won congressional campaigns in 2006 and 2008 campaigning as moderates. The party fielded candidates with attractive personal stories who did not stray far from the center. One of those candidates was former Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman Debbie Halvorson, a freshman elected in 2008 in…

Chris Cillizza reports:

It wasn't until early summer 1994 that some conservatives began to realize the Republicans could take over Congress. Nor did conventional wisdom heed these conservative's warnings; when the Republican Revolution happened, blind-sided liberals wrote it off as a "temper tantrum," the dawn of the…

In the days preceding the thirty first anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei threatened that Iran would deliver a “punch” to the West.  Most observers assumed that this meant that Iran would launch several missiles, perhaps photoshopping in a few more for added effect, and…

Earlier today a man named Joseph Stack flew a small plane into an IRS building in Texas, killing himself; authorities say that two people were critically injured and a body has been found, though it's unclear if it's the pilot's body or someone else.

Cook Political Report: 52 Democratic seats and only 6 Republican seats currently stand a reasonable chance of flipping.

Yesterday, I noted that the media are quickly catching on to the fact that there's a chance, however small, that Congress may change hands in November. This wasn't the case in 1994 -- back then, folks didn't feel the first tremors of the coming political earthquake until the summertime, and those…

Yesterday Senators Lieberman, Kyl, and McCain delivered a sternly worded letter to General James Jones, urging the president's national security advisor to resist pressure from Moscow to tie conventional missile defense systems into the new START follow-on. The letter came after Ambassador John…

On Monday, February 16th at the National Press Club in D.C., the 10-month-old American Principles Project launched the “Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.” The American Principles Project, a group founded by Princeton’s Robert George to build a grassroots movement around conservative…

Oddly enough, a group of 88 self-righteous Duke professors has yet to issue a pre-trial conviction.

Keep America Safe chair Liz Cheney was greeted at CPAC with an enthusiastic ovation before delivering a speech on national security today. She argued that Obama, wed to a campaign promise to close Gitmo, has been forced to move terrorists to American soil. She related an anecdote involving her nine…

NBC's Mark Murray writes of Marco Rubio's speech at CPAC:

Vice President Cheney delivered unnannounced remarks following his daughter Liz's speech at CPAC. The takeaway line: "I think Barack Obama is a one term president."

Ten months ago, I watched Marco Rubio deliver a talk on America's Cuba policy to about 50 college students at George Washington University. A month out from declaring his bid for the Senate, not many of the GW students (or Floridians for that matter) knew who Rubio was. One poll at the time showed…

Reza Pahlavi learned an important lesson from Vaclav Havel: The Cold War opposition only thought they might be successful when Ronald Reagan called Russia an evil empire and triumphantly commanded Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Pahlavi hopes Barack Obama speaks as definitively against…

Palin: “Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this Tea Party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party.”

Conventional wisdom in Washington has already figured out the winners and losers of next week’s White House health care summit.  The smart money is on President Obama. The silver-tongued orator will wow C-Span viewers, demonstrating his knack for substantive detail and cool debating style.

I remember thinking that maybe I should have taken a cab or even walked back to Stanford's campus. But my dining companion insisted on driving me. At the time, Arnold Beichman had just turned 90 and still enjoyed driving his minivan. But it was dark. And riding shotgun, I could see Arnold was…

Oregon senator Ron Wyden is polling under 50%.

Did Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, who insists he favors more bipartisanship in Washington, schedule the announcement of his retirement to give his party a distinctly partisan advantage in picking a candidate to run for his seat?  It sure looks like he did exactly that.

Arnold Beichman has died, at age 96. One somehow thought he would live forever. He certainly was forever young—and entirely in the good sense: He was young in energy and enthusiasm and zest for life. He was at the same time wise in the ways of the world. It’s a rare combination. And I very much…

From an Economics 21 staff editorial:

We note in sorrow the death of our valued contributor Arnold Beichman, a longtime friend to many of us at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Arnold was one of the grand old men of American anti-communism, a vivid raconteur, a boon companion, and eyewitness to an astonishing swath of history.

It's kind of shocking how awful teachers unions are and how self-defeating they tend to be. Consider one story about Rhode Island teachers who bit off more than they could chew when they refused to work an extra half hour a day: The entire union was canned from their $70,000 per year jobs for…

Virginia's attorney general Ken Cuccinelli filed a petition yesterday to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's December 7 ruling that it would regulate greenhouse gases as it would air pollutants under the Clean Air Act--a back door attempt to accomplish what Congress can't through cap…

Establishment opinion in Washington is beginning to realize the GOP has the opportunity -- however small -- to recapture Congress in this year's midterm elections. A wave of anti-incumbent, anti-big-government sentiment has been building for some time. Recapturing the House was always a possibility…

Newsweek reports:

Krauthammer has wise words for the Obama administration: Don't repeat Bush's mistakes--try to learn from them. 

Marion Barry just can't seem to catch a break. The former mayor and current councilman needed a kidney transplant, was treated on a few occasions for his drug addiction, was accused of adultery, and blamed for any number of things during his tenure (poor city services, skyrocketing murder rates).…

The New York Times reports:

The DNC is churning out what seems to be a press release per minute alleging that Republicans are hypocrites for taking stimulus funds for their districts after voting against the stimulus. As Greg Mankiw writes, this is an illogical attack: does that mean Democrats should give back their Bush tax…

Today marks one year since President Obama signed the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, otherwise known as the stimulus, into law in Denver, Colorado. In January 2009, Obama administration economists predicted the stimulus would hold unemployment to 8 percent, and that without a stimulus…

In an open-source assessment of Russia's Sukhoi PAK-FA, aka the Raptor Killer, Air Power Australia concludes, "once the PAK-FA is deployed within a theatre of operations, especially if it is supported robustly by counter-VLO capable ISR systems, the United States will no longer have the capability…

Amnesty International is at a crossroads. One path leads to a continued relationship with an admitted jihadist. The other is guided by an Amnesty official who has been outspoken in her criticism of Amnesty’s relationship with the jihadist.

Ross Douthat has a great suggestion for the GOP in his latest column:

Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, lowers the boom on J Street:

I, too, was surprised by Sen. Evan Bayh's decision not to run for a third term. In an institution where members have a habit of hanging on until they leave the chamber feet-first--casting votes while attached to IVs, being wheeled in and out for quorum calls--it is always noteworthy when a…

The headline in Der Spiegel says it all: "Who Has the Longer Pipeline?" Five years after Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer served in the same coalition government—the former as chancellor and the latter as foreign minister—both men are now working in various capacities for different natural gas…

Most people couldn't find the nation of Transnistria (or Trans-Dniester) on a map, and most maps show it as part of the tiny former Soviet nation of Moldova. However, Transnistria is a very real place run by a very real government -- it merely lacks any international diplomatic recognition.…

A host of Washington journalist insiders (including the usually reliable Carl Cameron of Fox News) reported that polls showed Evan Bayh with a comfortable lead earlier this week when the Indiana Democrat announced he would not seek reelection this fall.

Looks like Tamyra d'Ippolito won't qualify to be on the ballot in Indiana, which means the state party will get to choose its nominee. TPM reports:

A Politico piece parsing the "myths" that Democrats and Republicans have created about health care ends up perpetuating one: "the Senate bill allows families and businesses to purchase insurance across state lines, a favorite policy proposal of the right."

Via Robert Costa, a new CNN poll shows voters unhappy with Obama:

As first reported by TPM, Tamyra d'Ippolito, a cafe owner from Bloomington, confirms to THE WEEKLY STANDARD that a broad coalition helped her garner more than 4,500 signatures necessary to get on the ballot for the Indiana Democratic primary: "We’ve got Democrats signing, we’ve got Republicans…

For the first time in 30 years, it looks as if the United States will see an increase in its nuclear power output:

God bless Lance Cpl. Andrew Koenig:

On "Face the Nation" this Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden accused Mayor Bloomberg of NYC of inflating the estimated cost of holding the KSM trials in Manhattan:

And, the NYT wept: "Mr. Bayh’s decision staggered Democrats. It was the latest in a series of setbacks that illustrate just how far the party’s fortunes have fallen since President Obama came to office more than a year ago, sweeping big majorities into the House and Senate with him."

Pakistani and U.S. intelligence services nabbed the Afghan Taliban's second in command during a raid in the port city of Karachi. The New York Times broke the story last night:

Bill Burck and Dana Perino: Obama officials say somewhere between 190 and 300 terrorists have been convicted by the Bush administration in civilian court, but the real number is less than a dozen.

On Sunday, the New York Times published what Power Line’s Scott Johnson rightly calls a hagiographic profile of Attorney General Eric Holder in the context of his decision to bring 9/11 co-conspirators to New York to stand trial. That decision has come under unrelenting criticism, of course. But…

From the AP : “Saudi Official Cool to New Sanctions on Iran.”

Financial Times readers received an important clarification email today regarding Edward Luce's interview with John Podesta:

Like many other stories coming out of Venezuela, this one should have been big news in the American media, but wasn’t. In early February, several former Hugo Chávez loyalists published a letter urging the Venezuelan president to resign from office. The letter denounced Chávez’s governing style as…

If someone accuses you of something untoward, try responding with, "Hey, I was just keeping it real." At least this is what 17-year-old Helene Hegemann has been doing—and quite effectively. Hegemann is already the toast of the town, having written and staged a play, and boasting a film-writing…

The Hotline's Reid Wilson and Quinn McCord explain the nomination process in Indiana:

A priceless line from today's online Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Whoever is on welfare in Rotterdam must now do at least something to receive his money."

We’ve shaken our heads in disgust often in the last year over the Obamic decision to permit a bunch of Chicago political hacks and the U.S. attorney general--the CPH Plus One--to run much of foreign policy out of the White House. It’s had real-world consequences, not least that the tension between…

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza reports there's another big pick-up opportunity for the GOP in November:

Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote on Friday that Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites because they criticized the $500 billion in Medicare cuts (it's actually $800 billion over 10 years) in the Democrats' health care legislation, but Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has proposed…

Three years ago an unusual volume was issued by Crown Books. It was signed by Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines, and titled Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life). Presented as a chronicle of how one woman broke through the glass ceiling to attain…

In a small but magisterial show that stopped in Paris and then (late last year) at the Dillon Gallery in Manhattan, Makoto Fujimura emerged as a major artist, one of the dozen-odd most compelling painters at work today. Fujimura is a Christian who paints within the Nihonga tradition of a limited…

Attorney General Eric Holder has been the Obama administration’s point man in revising the nation’s approach to terrorism. Holder said last summer that it was his decision to reinvestigate CIA operatives who had employed enhanced interrogation techniques during the Bush administration, although…

How the mighty have fallen! Only seven or eight months ago, President Obama and congressional Democrats were on their way to remaking America along liberal lines and positioning themselves for decades of political dominance. Their lopsided majorities in the House and Senate, plus the White House,…

Last week, a little more than 24 hours after the FBI warned senators not to disclose the sensitive information that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was cooperating with the FBI, the White House shared the information with the news media.

When Ralph McInerny landed back in the United States and cashed his GI check, a civilian again, the first thing he did was run to a bookstore to buy a copy of Lord Weary’s Castle, Robert Lowell’s new collection of poems.

Driving home from work one night last week, I heard somebody on the radio talking about The Catcher in the Rye. I guessed—correctly as it turned out—that the author had died. What I couldn’t remember, momentarily, was whether his name was J. D. Salinger or Holden Caulfield. 

As the World Turns

President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, is once again drawing criticism. This time, Brennan’s remarks concerning the Pentagon’s latest Gitmo recidivism study have come under scrutiny. 

Michael Mukasey: Where the U.S. went wrong on the Christmas Day bomber.

The BBC is reporting that Operation Moshtarek has finally launched in Afghanistan's Helmand province. The principle objective will be to seize Marjah, the fortress city owned by the Taliban. Marjah is a key node for Taliban operations and resourcing, so expect the good guys to sweep it, clear it,…

On Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, it’s worth reflecting that, as great as Ronald Reagan was, he followed in the footsteps of the greatest Republican communicator. That title belongs to the party’s first president. In reading Lincoln’s speeches, one can easily imagine how he would have responded to…

Critical Review editor Jeffrey Friedman in the CATO Policy Report:

Nancy Pelosi is still fighting to pass the health care bill through reconciliation. Nate Silver makes the political case for why the Democrats should follow her lead:

As Camelot comes to an end, with the political retirement of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), here's an article worth reading by Matt Labash from the archives: Patrick Kennedy -- The Man And The Myth. (For more from Labash, check out his book, Fly Fishing with Darth Vader, currently the number one fly…

Pew: "The only recent midterm campaigns when anti-incumbent sentiment equaled its current levels were in 2006 and 1994 – which culminated in elections that changed the balance of power on Capitol Hill."

Via Andrew Malcom, this is just embarrassing:

In a USA Today op-ed this week, assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser John Brennan wrote that "politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda." He's referring to the bipartisan criticism of the administration's decision to…

"It was not so much deregulation that caused the crisis," Niall Ferguson wrote in his 2009 report "Too Big To Live," "as excessive concentration, combined with regulatory capture or regulatory arbitrage as the big banks schmoozed their supposed supervisors or shopped around for the softest touch."

Last night, after Max Baucus and Charles Grassley spent weeks negotiating a bipartisan jobs bill, Harry Reid scuttled their efforts and put forward his own $15 billion plan. Democrats, Republicans, and the White House all were caught off guard. Reid's new plan is limited to the Schumer-Hatch…

One of the few moments of relief during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the tour de force performance of "Baghdad Bob" - AKA Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf -- the Iraqi Minister of Information who provided ludicrous statements about the status of Saddam Hussein's regime (always praise, he told us) and…

Here's some cable news gold, in which Joe Scarborough has to cut to commercial because Lawrence O'Donnell can't stop yelling at Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen (update: full clip here):

How many people die from lack of insurance? That's the question that The Atlantic's Megan McArdle tackled in her column this month. It's a more difficult question to answer than you might think: Though the left is fond of claiming that hundreds of thousands of people will be left to die like dogs…

What the Washington Post called it the "Nuclear Option" in 2005 is known as "filibuster-reform" in 2010.

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent piece this morning about Obama's decision to kill NASA's Constellation program, leaving America completely out of the low-Earth orbit game: "For the first time since John Glenn flew in 1962, the U.S. will have no access of its own for humans into space -- and no…

The Hill's Jordan Fabian reports:

During an interview on MSNBC Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the Obama administration’s handling of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Gibbs argued that the administration was right to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, instead of as an…

Let's play a game.

As Bill Kristol notes at the Washington Post, Vice President Biden couldn’t be bothered to express any support for the Iranian opposition the night before the Green Movement’s largest protests in months.  It appears from various reports that the tens of thousands of protesters that turned out today…

Niall Ferguson:

The Guardian has extensive coverage of the protests in Iran today, and Reuel Marc Gerecht has an op-ed in the New York Times that's not to be missed.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future has sparked intense debate ever since President Obama singled Ryan out during the January 29 House GOP retreat in Baltimore, Maryland. Predictably, support for Ryan's good-faith proposal to solve America's long-term fiscal crisis by…

The boss's column on Iran is up at the Washington Post.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future has sparked intense debate ever since President Obama singled Ryan out during the January 29 House GOP retreat in Baltimore, Maryland. Predictably, support for Ryan's good-faith proposal to solve America's long-term fiscal crisis by…

Just a thought for President Obama, but perhaps it is something like this scenario that leads "too many of our citizens [to lose] faith [in] our biggest institutions" including the federal government.

MSNBC White House correspondents Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs some hard-hitting questions today.

New York Times “public editor” Clark Hoyt searched the conscience of the New York Times the other day and found it wanting. (His own came up clean as a whistle, though.) Is retaining the services of Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner moral, he wondered—spurred by protests from Electronic Intifada…

With the Obama administration now focusing on jobs, and with the forthcoming introduction of a jobs bill in Congress (or yet another stimulus bill, depending on semantics), it would seem the Democrats would be against any sort of policy initiatives that would stifle economic growth. But that does…

February 11 is Sarah Palin's birthday. She turns 46 today. For a gift, she can look at this Gallup poll, which shows her in second place next to Mitt Romney, and within the margin of error, for GOP voters' choice to be the 2012 Republican nominee.

If life is like a box of chocolates, then the televised Super Bowl is like an Oreo. The chocolate wafers are the game itself, and the ads are the cream filling. If you watched those ads, you probably saw this one, heralding that Electronic Arts is bringing to an Xbox 360 and/or PlayStation 3 near…

Some good news on the jobs front recently. January unemployment decreased to 9.7 percent. New jobless claims fell last week. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is also down.

Gallup's latest poll shows voters say they're more likely to vote for Obama than "the Republican party's candidate" by 44% to 42% margin. But, as liberal bloggers keep telling us, Obama's support will surely pick up if only he could ram his health care plan through Congress (that would be the…

Mitt Romney is the subject of a long profile by David S. Bernstein in today's Boston Phoenix. Bernstein argues that Romney is moving back toward the center after running as a strong, anti-McCain conservative in 2008. According to Bernstein, in his forthcoming book the former Massachusetts governor…

Ahh, the tolerance of the Left. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming about how Tea Partiers and town halls will be the ruin of the nation.

A political hockey fight has broken out over whether or not the recent nasty weather in Washington, D.C., proves or disproves global warming. The argument misses the point; weather is different from the climate, and one cannot make generalizations based on the temperatures or snowfall on any given…

Ron Brownstein has an interesting piece in National Journal about President Obama’s problems with blue-collar voters. His argument is that the cross-tabs in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, in which Democrats bled working-class white voters, resemble the key characteristic of the 1994…

Proposals to ban niqab, the face veil worn by some Muslim women, are gaining support in France and Britain.   France saw its first crime by “burqa bandits” on February 6, when two men wearing head-to-foot female “Islamic” garments robbed a post office in the Parisian suburb of Athis-Mons.  The men…

I first encountered the word Zugzwang in a 1985 New York Times Magazine column by the late William Safire.  It’s a chess term that means “compelled to move, but imperiled by doing so.” The word’s political implications are profound.

Via Jim Hoft, the vice president told Larry King Wednesday night that a stable government in Iraq could be one of the "great achievements" of the Obama administration:

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Hill: Ben Nelson defects from Dems on terror trials.

First off, let me say that moms with children deployed can wear pretty much whatever they want with their kids' names on it, and it's just fine by me. If Sarah Palin wants to wear a Track Palin sandwich board, she can have at it, and I'll tell her it looks great on her.

A couple of interesting nuggets on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in that Quinnipiac poll noted earlier: Although 57% of registered voters say they favor repealing the law banning gays openly serving in the military, voters are evenly split when asked, "Do you think heterosexual military personnel should…

Economist Allan Meltzer on what Keynes would say about the Obama administration:

Bad enough (for Europe) that President Obama decided to skip the EU summit in Madrid this May, but making matters worse is that Spanish prime minister Jose Luís Zapatero was already in Washington and was unable to meet with the president. In fact, he wasn't even able to meet with Joe Biden. The…

The AP is reporting that Rep. Charles Wilson (D-TX) has died from a heart attack. Wilson was a champion of the Cold War, credited as the driving force behind the covert war against the Soviets' occupation of Afghanistan (see Operation Cyclone, made famous by the book and motion picture Charlie…

Paul Krugman is, I think, right to be amazed by Obama's embrace of the $17 million bonus given to JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Global warming causes less snow in Washington, D.C.

A Quinnipiac poll shows that "The suspect who allegedly tried to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day should be tried as an enemy combatant rather than as an ordinary criminal, voters say 76 - 19 percent." Those in the Obama administration might point to the poll's one shred of evidence that voters…

First, it was the spending freeze that sent economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman into a tantrum, saying that Obama "liquidated himself" by "embrac[ing] and validat[ing] the Republican world-view."

In an interview with Bloomberg News, President Obama said he does not "begrudge" the bonuses handed out to mega-bankers Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein. This is a stunning reversal for someone who has spent the past three years as a candidate and a president campaigning against the banks. As you…

When Michelle Obama was asked about Sarah Palin repeatedly by Larry King during an interview last night, she didn't get rude and off message by making fun of the former vice presidential candidate.

Gitmo detainee Binyam Mohamed, an al Qaeda terrorist whose story was documented by Thomas Joscelyn here, was released by the Obama administration to Great Britain earlier in 2009. Mohamed has long-alleged that he was tortured in U.S. custody at Gitmo, and the British press claims that "secret…

Just last week I chatted with a veteran Post reporter who was lamenting the sad decline of print journalism—the folding up of the Washington Post's business and book review sections, the multiple rounds of buyouts, and the dearth of copyeditors. The New Republic devoted a recent cover to the…

Buried in the new Washington Post / ABC poll is this question:

And, with that, Congress loses its only nuclear physicist, putting it in very bad shape indeed should a Bond-movie-style calamity arise in the capital.

After they slept through Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts, the new Washington Post / ABC News poll ought to be a wake-up call for congressional Democrats and the Obama administration. Obama's approval rating is at 51 percent, but the only issue area where he has higher than 50 percent…

Earthquake in Chi-town? I'm no Pat Robertson, but if I had to say, I'd blame Kanye West for this.

If you’ve paid any attention to the debate over where to prosecute international terrorists over the past several weeks, then you’ve probably heard the Obama administration talking point that anywhere from 190 to 300 terrorists have been successfully prosecuted in civilian courts since 2001. 

The "new," "progressive" voice of the "pro-peace and pro-Israel" lobby known as J Street has had its "pro-Israel" label questioned by many observers, and even some of its own have shed that label. J Street has now also revealed it doesn’t keep its word to trusting Jewish organizations.

Bill Burck and Dana Perino take apart John Brennan's USA Today op-ed piece by piece:

Three Democrats join Senate Republicans, including Scott Brown, to filibuster Obama Labor nominee Craig Becker.

As the mid-Atlantic stocks up on supplies to prepare for the coming storm, let's stock up on Quotes of the Day (So Far!). The first is from James M. Buchanan:

Last week, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair presented the “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. While the report notes that Venezuela is “struggling” to deal with the post-2008 drop in oil prices and with production declines,…

NYT: "Obama Urges Setting Aside 'Petty Politics.'"

Politico's Jonathan Martin has the goods on a new poll of Alabama Republicans that shows Mike Huckabee leading likely contenders for the 2012 GOP nomination:

Here's a headline that begs for a "reset" joke:

A memo being passed around by Capitol Hill Republicans:

Sure it's a little-known holiday, but it is as intensely celebrated in Matt Labash's office as National Quilting Day or Wear Too Much Axe Body Spray Day. And, by Matt Labash's office, I mean the inexorably Phoenix-scented, desk-shaped pile of scrap printer paper and Gary Hart memorabilia under…

On Christmas Day 2009, the Chinese regime sentenced writer and dissident Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison for "incitement to subvert state power."  His crime was co-authoring and circulating on-line a manifesto for democratic change in China called Charter 08, an intentional homage to the Czech…

Michelle Obama recently kicked up a mild fuss by discussing her children while talking about childhood obesity. Per ABC News, Obama said at an event kicking off her childhood obesity awareness campaign: "I didn't see the changes. And that's also part of the problem, or part of the challenge. It's…

Iran's Supreme Leader raised some eyebrows yesterday, claiming that Tehran would deliver a "punch" that would leave Western powers "stunned."

In a White House briefing where the president showed up (because Howard Kurtz wrote a column) to talk about his bipartisan health-care summit and getting beyond politics to solve problems, the White House press secretary used the dumbest political story of the week to take a shot at a former…

The "new," "progressive" voice of the “pro-peace and pro-Israel” lobby known as J Street has had its "pro-Israel" label questioned by many observers, and even some of its own have shed that label. J Street has now also revealed it doesn’t keep its word to trusting Jewish organizations.

As if there isn't enough for the French to worry about these days: climate change, the global financial crisis, the World Cup, farm subsidies, Cannes, terrorism. But now they are facing a threat to that which is most sacred—their language. According to the Financial Times, "Senior French officials…

It was not too long ago that Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer took to the USA Today op-ed page to accuse Obamacare opponents of being "un-American," and today President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan lashes out on that same page at critics of the White House: "too many in Washington…

As Republican leaders and the White House haggle over the details of the February 25 health care summit, conservatives have an opportunity to highlight the ideas they think could improve the health care marketplace while lowering costs, increasing the number of insured, and protecting what…

The Obama White House is apparently very serious about learning absolutely nothing from Massachusetts or the public's rapidly dwindling faith in Washington to solve any problem.

Two recent polls show former U.S. Representative Tom Campbell, who recently entered the California Republican primary for a U.S. Senate nomination, with a lead over his Republican opponents Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore. While the resume on his website shows a very impressive candidate, Campbell…

Andrew Malcolm writes:

Check out this nifty time-lapse movie of a teddy bear being buried under Snowpocalypse, round one:

Mark Halperin says David Brooks's column today "cracks the code of the Obama White House."

The future of journalism? Laid-off Washington Times sports reporter asks for cash to cover Nats.

While everyone seems to be all atwitter (quite literally) about Sarah Palin's hinting that she will run in 2012 "if I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country," it is worth noting the only actual name she mentioned in her Fox News Sunday interview last Sunday—Representative Paul…

Last week was a big one for nuclear news.  First, the Obama administration submitted its proposed budget for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (that’s the agency that, among other things, maintains our warheads).  Second, an unnamed administration official…

By a vote of 52 to 33, the Obama administration nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker, just failed to get the 60 votes needed for his nomination to proceed in the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t claim to have developed an economic stimulus plan of his own. But he does favor a cluster of proposals that, when packaged together, are a simple, sensible program for rejuvenating the economy.

Arnold Kling:

Is NOW's president similarly outraged by Snickers' 'celebration' of 'violence against women'?

Via Geraghty, the St. Pete Times reports: "Marco Rubio says his  Stimulus Fundraising Bomb (www.StimulusBomb.com) has raised $411,000, just one week after launching with the goal of raising $787,000 by February 10."

The Wall Street Journal's Mark Lasswell has a rave review of Matt Labash's new book, Fly Fishing with Darth Vader (which Jeffrey Goldberg dubbed "The Funniest Book of the Year"). From the Journal:

Politico is reporting that Vice President Biden will be delivering a key address on the future of America's nuclear arsenal this Wednesday. Here's what to expect:

From the AP: "Spokesman for Rep. John Murtha says the Pennsylvania Democrat has died at 77."

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Obama's counterterrorism adviser John Brennan claimed that Republicans should have known, based on his Christmas Day conversation with them, that terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be Mirandized:

This week in Tehran, it's déjà vu all over again:

On Thursday, the Foreign Policy Initiative is hosting a half day conference on Iran in Washington, D.C. Full details and registration information can be found here. 

President Obama will host a bipartisan health-care summit, to be televised on C-SPAN, on February 25. Reaction to the event has been divided. Liberals mostly think it's a good idea, while conservatives are not sure. Michelle Malkin says Republicans shouldn't attend. Philip Klein notes that the…

Sarah Palin's February 6 address to the Tea Party convention in Nashville opened the 2010 campaign season. It's arguable that it opened the 2012 campaign season, as well. Amazingly, however, the left has decided that the most important takeaway from Palin's speech was the fact that she scribbled…

The LA Times reports that the president of the National Organization for Women is still outrageously outraged over the incredibly tame Focus on the Family/Tebow ad last night:

The only thing more analyzed than quarterback play after the Super Bowl is the commercials: Were they funny, offensive, pointless? Money well spent, or 30 seconds of confusion? How does the MTV set view the last 25 years of politics?

This weekend, the Left freaked out at the revelation that Sarah Palin had notes on her hand during her speech in Nashville. I truly have no idea why this is an issue for the supporters of Capt. TelePrompter, but there you have it.

A lot of people have been looking to find someone to blame for President Obama's failures: the Constitutional order, the right-wing noise machine, the dull, dim-witted American people. Funnily enough, one person rarely seems to get fingered. Jay Cost makes the case that the only one to blame for…

Last week I noted that the Washington Generals are hiring, which was occasion to relive some of the storied franchise's great moments: Red Klotz's invention of the barnstorming losers; their 6-13,000 record against the Harlem Globetrotters; and their final victory against the Globetrotters, in…

Late-night junkies (you know who you are!) will no doubt want to read this tick-tock of how the Letterman / Leno / Oprah ad during last night's Super Bowl came together.

The New York Times reports on President Obama's offer to host a bipartisan health care summit at Blair House on February 25. The president made the offer during his Super Bowl pre-game interview with Katie Couric. Republicans quickly accepted. Not everyone is pleased, however:

Noah’s Compass

For a time there, it looked as if e-readers would be a dismal, faddish flop. It was hard to argue with the preliminary assessment of Steve Jobs: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or…

Recent electoral successes, including Scott Brown’s landmark victory in Massachusetts, have positioned Republicans once again for a role in governing, and far sooner than they might have supposed. But are they ready to govern? It all depends, for the problem with many Republicans (and I am a…

Tarkio, Missouri

The Cognitive

All Things at Once

In Defense of Thomas Jefferson

In his lengthy State of the Union address, President Obama was brief on national security issues, which he squeezed in toward the end. International terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even America’s relief efforts in Haiti all flashed past in bullet-point mentions. On Iraq and…

Farber on Film

Via Steven Ertelt, this is the supposedly "controversial" Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad that the National Organization for Women fought tooth and nail to keep off the airwaves:

When Burger King opted to go with "The King"—a sort of adult version of Ronald McDonald that some have described as "creepy"—it took a huge risk. But it was a calculated risk: BK executives decided they would focus their marketing energies on "super fans" (18- to 34-year-olds) instead of older…

Sarah Palin's speech to the Tea Party convention in Nashville showcased all of the former Alaska governor's strengths. She was confident, funny, down-to-earth,  at times emotional--and she took a scalpel to the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. Ignore the critics who will say Palin…

President Obama’s economic policy has run smack into reality. No one believes that he can keep spending even to the massive levels he projects, or eventually lower the deficit, or persuade congress to switch from profligacy to prudence, or … well, you get the idea. Worse still, even if you believe…

Many of us have fond memories of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution. In fact, it seems like it was just yesterday that we were all cheering the throngs of pro-democracy Ukrainians who threw out the nations entrenched post-Soviet oligarchy. And who could forget the faces of the revolution's two…

Jeffrey Goldberg: Matt Labash's book, Fly Fishing with Darth Vader, is the funniest book of the year.

The 2010 Herzliya Conference in Israel ended with a whimper on Wednesday evening. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, delivering the 2010 Herzliya Lecture, stunned the audience of Israeli and international security experts by using his prime time platform to speak about almost every issue except…

As if the French offering to sell Russia an amphibious assault ship wasn't bad news for Georgia, Eli Lake at The Washington Times reports that:

The other day I came across Barbara Mackay's Washington Examiner review of a new production of Shakespeare's Anthony & Cleopatra at the Lansburgh Theatre here in D.C. Here's Mackay:

You probably changed the channel by then, but at one point in his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama brought up offshore drilling. Here is what he said:

In his questions session with Democrats this week, Barack Obama chastised Republicans for not backing the Conrad-Gregg deficit commission, which failed to meet the 60-vote threshold to end debate last week.

Earlier this week, I wrote a post tracking the money race between likely candidates for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. A follow-up post quoted a perspicacious reader who observed,

Last week, a little more than 24 hours after the FBI warned senators not to disclose the sensitive information that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was cooperating with the FBI, the White House shared the information with the news media.

The unemployment rate has fallen from 10 percent to 9.7 percent. But, like the fourth quarter growth number of 5.7 percent, it is hard to get excited about this number. Obviously it's good to have rising growth and falling unemployment. Yet the positive macro-economic numbers do not mesh with the…

Quote of the day (so far, as Continetti says), from the champion of the Polish Solidarity movement, Lech Walesa:

Some recommended reading for East Coast readers snowed in this weekend (and for all our other readers, as well): Brookings Institution scholar William Galston has penned a thoughtful and respectful -- but still misguided! -- response to Harvey Mansfield's cover story in this week's issue. Be sure…

Well, not the actual, geographical border—but tensions are certainly on the rise between the two countries because of banking secrecy laws. The German government is cracking down on tax cheats such as Deutsche Post CEO Klaus Zumwinkel, but in order to do so, it needs access to the private records…

I don't know what Al's complaining about. Bill Burton assured Democrats just this week that the White House "has no specific deadline" and has "made his principles clear."

If the Daily Beast reports it, it must be true. D.C. is officially the most attractive (non) state in the United States.

Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO running for California governor, was first to go on TV with an ad this week. She's spent $19 million in the race so far, mostly on staff and a string of statewide radio spots:

Byron York reports on Senator Jon Kyl's efforst to get to the bottom of an Obama administration talking point on Gitmo and terrorism. Attorney General Eric Holder reiterates in his letter to the Senate this week that "Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300…

"Mom, this is so embarrassing. Quit talking about my BMI on national television!"

The assault on Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin's Roadmap for America's Future is not only coordinated. It's misleading and irresponsible. Politico observes that "in just a week, Ryan had gone from being seen as the smart conservative whom Obama might take seriously to being seen as the symbol of how…

Last year director Pierre Morel unleashed Taken, one of the year’s biggest surprises and box office hits, on unsuspecting audiences. Starring a father wreaking havoc in France’s beloved capital in a mad cap search for his beloved daughter before she’s sold into white slavery, the film delighted…

It's bad enough for passengers flying coach to be subjected to reduced flights with packed cabins, little leg room, and no food service to most domestic destinations (or food that can only be purchased), but must there be a special carpet at the gate that only business and first-class passengers…

Scott Brown was sworn in around 5p.m. this evening as the newest Republican senator. Brown ably handled the media during a press conference following his swearing-in. Video here.

Senior House Democrat John Conyers is demanding that Hillary Clinton demote Rajiv Shah, head of USAID, in which capacity he's leading U.S. relief efforts in Haiti.

If the president's dismal stats hold up, the GOP may be looking at two more Senate pick-ups. After presidential stumping in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts produced nothing but Democratic losses (and Kentucky basketball has its bone to pick, too), the president is headed out on the road for…

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey appeared on PBS's "The News Hour" last night. Here's the video:

Jobless claims rose unexpectedly this week, but not all of the news is bad. Some firms are still hiring. Ever dream of traveling the world and losing thousands of basketball games in a row? Well the Washington Generals are looking for you!From the Generals' website:

Bashar Al-Assad, according to his good buddy Sey Hersh, praises the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby J Street. This, according to notes Hersh took last December, now online at the New Yorker. Speaking on the topic of "Criticisms of some Israeli policies at the J-Street founding conference," the Syrian…

The Obama administration says that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (UFA), the failed Christmas Day bomber, is now cooperating with investigators after weeks of silence. Assuming that’s true, then authorities should be able to get answers to the following questions:

A new Rasmussen poll shows Mark Kirk opening up a 46% to 40% lead over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias:

Obama's State of the Union Address and his outreach to Republicans has led to a slight bump in his job approval rating. Obama is at 49 percent in the latest Rasmussen Reports daily survey. In Gallup Daily Tracking, Obama is now once again above 50 percent.

Two forces in TV and politics sit down and have, actually, a pretty nice conversation about Republicans, Fox News, Stewart's editorial sensibilities, health care, and the rest of it.

Katie Couric will interview the president live during the CBS pre-game show.

As Philip Terzian noted, Justice Thomas spoke at a law school this week where he addressed student questions about the Citizens United decision. Because it's just plain fun to hear justices get candid—particularly Thomas and Scalia— I'm pulling out some quotes from the event:

AP reporter Erica Werner on Obamacare:

They just can't help themselves:

Yesterday, at his talk with Senate Democrats, Obama went after Republicans for putting holds on his nominees— a procedural right afforded all senators.

Eric Holder should read his hero Justice Jackson more closely: "The ultimate principle is that you must put no man on trial under the forms of judicial proceedings if you are not willing to see him freed if not proven guilty. If you are determined to execute a man in any case, there is no occasion…

One final contribution to the post-mortem on the State of the Union address. 

 President Obama’s political learning curve continues.  Despite promising to end partisan polarization and change the tone of Washington, he – by his own admission – missed the mark during his first year in the White House. 

Someday, when your children are grown and the election of 2010 has long past, people will ask where you were when the demon sheep first came to American politics.

Flashback: Obama mocked Palin for saying he wanted to read terrorists their rights.

In a letter today to Senator Mitch McConnell, Attorney General Eric Holder defended his decision to have FBI agents read Miranda rights to Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and to charge him in civilian court.  Holder challenged the claims of some critics that the presence of a lawyer…

The Hill reports:

Earlier today at the Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a speech on the many flawed policies of the Obama administration’s approach to terrorism, paramount among them, “that terrorism should be treated as a law-enforcement matter.”

Rahm Emanuel pretty much declared Obamacare dead last week when he said Congress would first deal with jobs, the deficit, and financial regulation before coming back to health care. Yet liberal bloggers are keeping hope alive. A few new stories might persuade them to reconsider.

With already more than 500,000 views, the "Fear the Boom and Bust" video starring John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek is not exactly news. Still, in case you missed it, I've posted it below.

Just released, from Reps. Roskam and Shimkus of Illinois: 

The prevailing opinion in Washington is that President Obama's debate last week with the House Republicans was a big success. Whether you are an E.J. Dionne liberal ("The Q&A was a smash success, and we need many more") or a Charles Krauthammer conservative ("I do think it should be something we…

In an interview with 60 Minutes last spring, President Obama discussed the handling of captured terrorists and challenged those who claimed the "American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists."

Attorney General Eric Holder has sent a letter defending the decision to charge Abdulmutallab as a criminal and read him his Miranda rights. This paragraph stuck out immediately: 

Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton took his first turn behind the podium today, and was asked about the president's health-care remarks at yesterday's town hall during which he said he hoped to get health care done this year.

Democrats still have a supermajority in the Senate, despite the election two weeks ago of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. I called a Senate source, familiar with the Senate procedure, to ask for an explanation. 

Reports were this morning that former Sen. Dan Coats was definitely in for a run against Sen. Evan Bayh in Indiana after fellow Hoosier Rep. Mike Pence said 'no' to the idea, perhaps with his eye on a 2012 presidential run.

Laws banning cell-phone use while driving have not lowered crash rates, according to a recent study, puzzling researchers and undoubtedly sending your friendly neighborhood statists scrambling for other studies to justify their meddling ways.

Back when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, all the political energy was on the left -- specifically, the emerging Net Roots movement that dispelled Clintonian centrism from the Democratic party.

In this month's Wired, Chris Anderson launches another of his counter-intuitive, techno-supremacy arguments: That we are on the verge of another American industrial revolution, only this time it will be carried out in micro-scale by DIY entrepreneurs. I like Anderson a ton--he's one of those guys…

Word on the wires is that U.S.-Russian negotiators have reached an agreement in principle on a drastic reduction to nuclear forces. The cuts, part of the new START agreement, are projected to sharply cut nuclear delivery systems like subs, bombers, and ICBMs, as well as nuclear inventories. It will…

Even his adversaries agree that Rep. Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future is a big idea: The plan reforms Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the income tax. It effectively deals with the long-term fiscal crisis. The Obama budget, by contrast, projects record deficits and rising public…

The White House yesterday leaked the news that the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had begun cooperating with FBI interrogators last week. The Washington press corps quickly declared victory for the Obama administration and suggested that the news vindicated the decision to read…

As if he doesn’t have enough problems – double-digit unemployment, health care reform on life support, and his party’s pesky habit of losing blue-state elections – President Obama may be taking his biggest headache yet.

Herzliya, Israel

Eli Lake reports on yesterday's sobering annual threat briefing to the Senate:

Commentators who are convinced the Obama health bill still stands a chance of becoming law won't like Susan Ferrechio's Washington Examiner report on yesterday's Senate Democratic caucus meeting. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan said health care didn't even come up; "There was a lot of discussion…

Greg Mankiw on the sorry state of cap and trade.

Let us now praise famous art—and the moneyed men and women who buy it. Or so the National Gallery of Art would encourage us to do in its latest show, “From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection,” which opened last weekend in snowy Washington.

Politico's Josh Kraushaar reports:

With 95% of precincts reporting, Congressman Mark Kirk has captured the Illinois Republican Senate nomination with 57% of the vote, his closest challenger Patrick Hughes garnered about 20% of the vote. "We all know that over the past year a quiet despair has descended on the State of Illinois. A…

News from Steny Hoyer, via Politico:

Readers made some great points in response to my post yesterday on the race for the 2012 GOP nomination. One correspondent pointed out that I neglected to mention John Kasich, the former Republican congressman and Fox News personality who is running for governor of Ohio. A Kasich victory would…

Left-wing bloggers and mainstream reporters are accusing John McCain of flipping from his 2006 position on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. The Washington Post's Michael Shear writes: "McCain said [in 2006] he would support ending the ban once the military's top brass told him they were okay with…

A new Gallup poll shos 57 percent of Americans worry about too much government regulation of business, as opposed to 37 percent who worry about too little. When asked if they'd prefer less or more government regulation of business, Americans want less at a margin of 50-24 percent.

How serious a document is the president's budget proposal? The establishment media do not seem to like it. The budget's long-term projections are enough to drive you to drink. No political faction is satisfied with the administration's proposals. Liberals do not like the freeze on their favorite…

While regular calendars note February 2 as Groundhog Day, it’s worth recalling that, on the literary calendar, today is the birthday of Dublin-born novelist James Joyce. On on this day in 1922, age at 40, he published Ulysses (which he pronounced “Oolissays”). February 2 was a lucky date in his…

The Democratic National Committee is circulating Mike Allen's report that shoe-bomber Richard Reid was read a Miranda warning five minutes after he was taken into custody. No doubt this will become the Democrats' latest talking point on why Republicans and conservatives cannot criticize the…

On January 19, Charles Krauthammer delivered a Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture at the Heritage Foundation. You can read the whole speech here. Food for thought:

Jake Tapper of ABC News has obtained a copy of a letter John Brennan, the assistant to President Obama for homeland security and counterterrorism, sent to congressional leaders Monday night. Brennan defends the administration’s efforts to close Guantanamo in the letter. While conceding that the…

An amazing piece in the Post today about Tim Tebow's "celebrate life" Super Bowl ad:

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported:

The founder of a non-profit group that promotes teaching of the U.S. Constitution stumbled on an early draft of it in Philadelphia this week, penned by James Wilson and entitled, "The Continuation of the Scheme."

The New York papers were crazy yesterday over a little incident with Rex Ryan, coach of the almost-AFC-champion Jets. While in Florida for Super Bowl week, Ryan attended an MMA fight where during a half-time interview he told the raucous crowd, "Hey, I just want to tell everybody in Miami here: Hey…

At the ongoing Senate hearing on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" John McCain defended the policy in his opening remarks. After thanking the service of all Americans in the military, he cited the findings made by Congress when the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was implemented in 1993:

Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen are set to testify any minute before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on 'don't ask, don't tell.' You can watch it here on C-Span; the boss's editorial on the policy may be found here.

Yesterday President Obama proposed a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal year 2011 that projects record deficits for the next decade. In announcing the plan, the president did what he does best: bash his hapless predecessor. Obama:

The latest PPP poll shows Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln losing her Senate seat to Republican congressman John Boozman 33% to 56%. Obama's health care plan is approved by 30% of the state's voters.

Alan Dershowitz has ventured where very few—if any—on either side of the furor over the Goldstone Report have gone: With his virtuoso lawyer’s searching eye he has combed every word of the 500-some-odd pages, the long appendices, and the 1223 footnotes in pursuit of the evidentiary basis for the…

In the president's proposed budget, the Obama administration zeroed out funding for NASA’s Constellation launch vehicle program. I think this decision is both irresponsible and short-sighted. “We certainly don't need to go back to the moon,” one administration official is quoted in the Orlando…

Obama will be back on the campaign trail yet again today in Nashua, N.H. This will be his second town hall event since proclaiming in the State of the Union, "We can't wage a perpetual campaign."

When Reuters is reporting it this way, it can't be good for the administration: "The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families."

Islamist infiltration of the Albanian-speaking areas in the Balkans began even before the U.S.-led Kosovo intervention of 1999. (The offensive by radical Islam continues in Kosovo has previously been chronicled here, here, here, and here, with attacks focused on moderate Muslim clerics.) The…

In the five weeks since the Christmas Day attack on Flight 253, the Obama administration has come under tremendous scrutiny for its mishandling of al Qaeda operative, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. At first the criticism focused on the many intelligence lapses that allowed Abdulmutallab on the plane.…

The Senate voted tonight to invoke cloture on the nomination of Patricia Smith to be solicitor in the Department of Labor. The final vote was 60-32. Sixty votes are needed to invoke cloture, of course, and the clinching vote was cast by Senator Paul Kirk (D-MA). (The roll call vote can be viewed…

Yesterday on Meet the Press, White House adviser David Axelrod said of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: "We have not lost anything as a result of how this case has been handled." Axelrod said this despite the fact that Democratic and Republican senators, as well as former CIA…

A frequent talking point trotted out in defense of the Obama administration's decision to try KSM in civilian court is that the U.S. has supposedly convicted 195 terrorists in federal court since 2001. In an important piece at NRO, Andy McCarthy debunks this bogus figure--you'll want to read the…

Max Boot: Defense spending and defense needs are not in sync.

As Stephen F. Hayes has thoroughly documented, there is much U.S. officials should be asking Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab about. Abdulmutallab was mirandized shortly after his arrest, however, and decided to stop talking. He has provided, at most, limited cooperation since then,…

Tomorrow morning, Craig Becker, who's been nominated to be a member of the National Labor Relations Board, will appear in front of the HELP Committee to testify. Becker is major advocate for card check and is in bed with labor unions. If confirmed by the Senate, his appointment on the NLRB would be…

Changing the Zip Code of the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other terrorists from New York City to Somewhere, U.S.A. does not solve the problems a civilian trial raised in the first place.  The decision does provide some justice because hundreds of millions of dollars in security costs…

From today's "Writer's Almanac":

The big news today in the Florida Senate race is the latest Rasmussen poll, which shows Marco Rubio leading Charlie Crist 49% to 37% in the GOP primary. In the general election, Rubio and Crist lead Democrat Kendrick Meek by 17 and 15 points, respectively.

Update, February 2, 10:30p.m.: Mark Kirk won the GOP nomination by more than 35 points.

It's never too soon to begin speculating about the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Today's peg: The fundraising figures released over the weekend by the likely candidates' political action committees. The big winners were Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. Romney's PAC raised $2.9…

The president released his $3.8 trillion budget for Fiscal Year 2011 today. You can read his message to Congress here. The Obama administration projects a $1.6 trillion deficit for FY 2011; as Phil Klein points out, that is around $400 billion more than the White House predicted last year. If all…

According to a draft copy of the Quadrennial Defense Review, DoD wonks are planning to mold an already over-tasked military to meet rising challenges associated with global warming climate change.

Democrats continue to insist that the Obama health bill could pass this year. Last week Nancy Pelosi pledged to take up pole vaulting in order to pass a bill that majorities disapprove of. On Sunday, Rep. Chris Van Hollen told Fox News Sunday that health care is "not dead." (Maybe it's undead?)…

As the Obama administration pulls the plug on hosting KSM's trial in Manhattan, Virginia governor Bob McDonnell makes clear he doesn't want the trial to be moved to his state. Jennifer Rubin gets this statement from the McDonnell's spokesman:

Ranking Republican on the Budget Committee Paul Ryan released this statement on Obama's record $3.8 trillion 2011 budget and record $1.6 trillion 2011 deficit today:

You may have noticed that liberals are constantly accusing conservatives of questioning liberal patriotism. This was especially the case when George W. Bush was president and politics centered on the war on terrorism. In truth, it's rare for conservatives to explicitly question their opponents'…

A lot of Westerners see Libya's Muammar Qaddafi as a defanged relic of the 1980s -- a man who used to cause a lot of trouble, was pacified by Reagan's bombing, and later gave up his terrorist ambitions. This is partially true, but while Qaddafi may have given up on his violent Islamist revolution,…

For the past week, liberals have been trying to persuade themselves that Republican Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate race need not mean the end of Obamacare. But that is exactly what it means. The Democrats’ health care agenda, in anything like the form it has taken for the past…

"It was fun,” Massachusetts senator-elect Scott Brown said of his trip last Thursday to Capitol Hill. “The only time I’ve been there really,” he told me, “was when I was looking for a bathroom as a tourist, and now I’m looking for a new office. So it’s kind of surreal but very exciting.”

Before Scott Brown rudely burst in with those big burly biceps of his, the attention of Washington’s political professionals had been fixed for ten days on Game Change, the new book about the 2008 presidential campaign. Think of it: ten days. In excitable, ADHD Washington, where the Internet…

Life doesn’t simply imitate art. There are important differences between the Scott Brown story and Jefferson Smith’s. And the differences make Brown’s actual achievement more impressive than Smith’s fictitious one. For example, Smith (Jimmy Stewart) was appointed to his seat in the Senate. Scott…

Last week, the Pentagon released the results of its investigation into the November 5 Fort Hood shooting (Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood). There is a large, publicly available body of evidence demonstrating that Defense Department personnel missed many warning signs in the years…

Scott Brown’s victory spoils a popular myth. I’m not referring to the one about Teddy Kennedy as an indomitable force in Massachusetts, even from the grave. Yes, the Kennedy myth was rendered inoperative. But so was the fable about a death struggle pitting tea party populists and angry…

Following Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts, speculation in Washington has quickly turned from the possibility that Democrats will lose the House in November to the impossibility that they won’t. It will be interesting to see what happens if congressional Democrats actually internalize…