Leslie Stahl's face evinces shock as Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about cheating on his wife, Maria Kennedy Shriver, on a CBS "60 Minutes" interview. The former bodybuilder and California governor was sorry that "I inflicted tremendous pain on Maria" -- but obviously not very. There was no show of like or dislike for the wife, but the most infuriating response of all -- indifference.
Republicans were supposed to have an easy time of it in North Dakota's U.S. Senate race. The multi-term Democrat, Kent Conrad, wasn't running for re-election, and this region is supposed to be Republican in its conservative soul. Thus, according to the script, Republican Rep. Rick Berg should have had this Senate seat in the bag -- as his Democratic foe, Heidi Heitkamp, tried to crawl uphill with a heavy D on her back. Contrary to these expectations, the RealClearPolitics poll average rates this race a "tossup."
Last week, the most-read items on the RealClearPolitics website were complaints about the "mainstream media." Basically, it was Mitt Romney supporters claiming that their man was behind in polls because the so-called mainstream media were biased against conservatives. On the left, meanwhile, the beefs tend to focus on "what the media aren't reporting" -- most often plundering by big business. About 11 out of 10 times these commentators know "what the media aren't reporting" because they read about it ... where?
LADY LAKE, Fla. -- Lunching at Applebee's in this hyper-groomed shopping center, I'm tempted to buttonhole some of the retirees enjoying their leisure as Fox News jabbers down from the bar. This, after all, is a gathering place near the storied retirement community known as The Villages, a huge conservative enclave smack in the middle of Florida's I-4 corridor.
Liberals strain to understand why so many blue-collar whites have made their home in the Republican Party. Yes, the GOP better connects with this group on social and lifestyle levels. Still, with working people under so much economic strain these days, it seems odd that they'd let a culture war centered on emotion trump their bread-and-butter concerns.
Robots don't take bathroom breaks, and that's one reason why, all else being equal, they may make better factory workers than the human version. But all else is getting less equal. New generations of super "smart" robots are doing more and more complex tasks, their needle arms going into tiny spaces the most delicate human hand can't reach. And just as the machines leap forward in sophistication, their price is coming down.
Letting homeowners deduct interest paid on their mortgages from taxable income makes no sense. It encourages taking on more debt, discriminates against renters, subsidizes one kind of spending over others and favors the upper incomes. It advances the questionable public goal of making more Americans into homeowners. And it costs the Treasury about $100 billion a year.
What Mitt Romney truly believes is anybody's guess. Whether Romney as president would act on those beliefs is also a guess. And we can't rule out the possibility that he doesn't have any beliefs outside of religion and investment strategies. Why he's running for president remains unclear, though commander in chief looks impressive on a nametag.
Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign zinger is back in 2012.
No balanced talk of immigration reform is expected before the November election. But that need not stop the airing of proposals, some of them semi-formed, some half-baked.
From the left, we have the TRUST Act, a bill passed by the California Legislature and now awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown's uncertain signature. It would require local law enforcement to defy some federal requests to hold arrested illegal immigrants pending checks for criminal records. That would force police to break either state law or federal law. The TRUST Act's sponsors should know that immigration is a federal responsibility in California as well as in Arizona.
The name of George W. Bush graces no chair at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. The 43rd president left behind monumental deficits and an economy in tatters. Republicans hold him responsible for the party's straying from its alleged small-government ethic. They want the public to forget the man.
The political convulsion over Missouri Republican Todd Akin's bizarre talk of "legitimate rape" highlights an issue that the GOP had buried in its campaign.
While the U.S. senatorial candidate's grasp of reproductive science is shockingly lacking -- he said real rape victims rarely get pregnant -- his position that abortions be banned with no exception for rape happens to be in the new Republican Party platform. It is a stance that most Americans, including most registered Republicans, disagree with and probably didn't know was an official party position. Now they do.
Paul Ryan has bold economic ideas. Or maybe he doesn't. It's really hard to know what Mitt Romney's VP pick thinks, since his budget plan includes Obamacare's $716 billion in Medicare savings over 10 years, but his election plan has him saying he would restore those spending cuts. Romney is accusing president Obama of "robbing" that money from today's beneficiaries.
It took a poor girl from the Ozarks to look upon the candy store of sex and money that was postwar urban America and rearrange the shelves. Helen Gurley Brown was she, the brains behind the racy Cosmopolitan magazine empire and author of the 1962 sensation "Sex and the Single Girl." Was her influence good, bad or an in-between thing? Answer to come.
When Curiosity touched down on Mars, joy erupted at NASA's lab in Pasadena, Calif., and national pride swelled. America the Demoralized had briefly vanished. Our research instruments were going where no research instruments had gone before. America was back at its game.
When traditional Republicans tell their tea party wing that they have to negotiate with Democrats, the radicals' frequent response is: No, they don't. One side has to win. But before that fistfight at the edge of the falls can take place, one side has to win within the Republican Party. Civil wars are not pretty.
When the sun goes down, the new Mountain West comes out swinging. Denver's Larimer Square and LoDo (Lower Downtown) district turns into a multicultural Mixmaster of educated professionals, ordinary folk and tourists jamming bars, hamburger joints, steak palaces and French bistros. Meanwhile, armies of largely Spanish-speaking immigrants work the kitchens and vacuum the deserted offices. For all the legends of the spacious West, the region is one of the most urbanized.
As three-digit temps broil the sidewalks through late afternoon, one walks alone in this charming Nebraska panhandle city. These days, Chadron seems more pan than handle. The only thing breaking the silence is the nearly daily siren summoning local firefighters to a conflagration in the grass and brush countryside. Its source is usually easy to locate. Smoke clouds stand out in the big sky.
Sometimes you need children to set you straight. They are so attuned to what they like and what feels good. The status-value of things doesn't register as much as with adults.
I'm a well-trained child of the human-less world of customer "support." I don't ask for much. When I need an answer, I first check the FAQs (frequently asked questions). I visit forums to find others discussing similar problems and sometimes offering good advice.
