The Death of the 'Defined Benefit' By Michael Barone
The defined benefit is dying. Barack Obama is struggling to keep it alive, but it's apparent that it's something that even as bounteously rich a society as ours can't afford.
Political Commentary
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April 25, 2011
April 24, 2011
Cult of 'Three Cups of Tea' Should Have Known Better By Debra J. Saunders
The first tip-off that Greg Mortenson's memoir "Three Cups of Tea" has some credibility issues comes in the book's introduction. Co-author David Oliver Relin writes that as Mortenson is flying over Pakistan, the helicopter pilot marvels to Mortenson, "I've been flying in northern Pakistan for 40 years. How is it you know the terrain better than me?"
April 22, 2011
The Trouble With Trump By Joe Conason
Everything we really need to know about the character of Donald Trump was revealed when the wannabe president frivolously accused Barack Obama's late grandparents of committing fraud with his birth announcement. Trump told CNN that they had placed the Aug. 13, 1961, announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser because they wanted to get "welfare" and other benefits. But this casual falsehood revealed only the tiniest hint of the truth about Trump that Americans will discover if he actually runs for the White House.
April 22, 2011
The Map: The Crystal Ball's First 2011 Take on 2012's Electoral College By Larry J. Sabato and the Crystal Ball Team
With 18 months to go until November 2012, there is exactly one use for a current projection of the 2012 Electoral College results. This is merely a baseline from which we can judge more reliable projections made closer to the election. Where did we start--before we knew the identity of the Republican nominee for president, the state of the economy in fall 2012 and many other critical facts?
April 22, 2011
South By Southwest By Kyle Kondik
The classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller "North by Northwest" contains a few of Hollywood's most memorable--and ludicrous--sequences, including a famous scene in which our hero, played by Cary Grant, finds himself being shot at by a crop duster at a bus stop near a cornfield.
April 21, 2011
Curbing Medicare Costs Without Vouchers By Froma Harrop
About 10 years ago, a new radiation treatment for prostate cancer came on line. A single course of "intensity-modulated radiation therapy" cost Medicare about $42,000. The older radiation therapy cost $10,000. Hospitals bought the new machines and stopped using the traditional method. This tacked another $1.5 billion per year to Medicare spending on prostate cancer alone.
April 21, 2011
No Poking President at Facebook By Debra J. Saunders
Last year, when President Obama wanted to convince Americans that his policies were paying off and creating jobs, he visited a solar-panel plant in Fremont, Calif. "The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra," quoth the president.
April 21, 2011
Mr. Obama: Taxing the Rich Won't Increase Revenues By Michael Barone
Did Barack Obama take Tax 1 in law school? I did, and I remember the first day of classes, when mild mannered Professor Boris Bittker asked a simple question, "What is income?"
April 20, 2011
The Republican Dwarfs By Susan Estrich
I must admit that it took me at least a minute to figure out the Drudge Report headline: "Paw In."
April 20, 2011
Governing While Drunk on Partisanship By Tony Blankley
If future historians look back on the ruins of the American economy after a U.S. bond crisis struck in the second decade of the 21st century, many causes will be noted. Obviously, it will be seen that for decades before the catastrophe, the U.S. was spending vastly more than it could afford on government health and retirement programs.
April 19, 2011
The War on Users of Cold, Allergy Drugs By Debra J. Saunders
You know the war on drugs has gone too far when politicians keep ratcheting up restrictions on cold and allergy medications in order to prevent kitchen drug labs from buying pills and converting them into methamphetamine.
April 19, 2011
America Is Not a Third World Country ... Yet By Froma Harrop
Let's start with the assumption that America is not a Third World country. In poor countries, many people never see doctors. Only the elite go to college. Rattletrap trains take two hours to go 70 miles.
April 18, 2011
President Whatever Finds Things Not Going His Way By Michael Barone
Barack Obama is a politician who likes to follow through on long-term strategies and avoid making course corrections. That's how he believes he won in 2008, and since then he's shown that he's not much into details.
April 17, 2011
Department of Obstruction of Justice By Debra J. Saunders
President Obama well may have begun another undeclared war -- this time on states that try to enforce their own death penalty laws -- on the dubious grounds that the Food and Drug Administration has not approved drugs intended to kill convicted killers.
April 16, 2011
Days of Disappointment By Susan Estrich
It's that time of year again, the time of year when high school seniors who have done everything right their whole lives discover that it wasn't good enough to get them into the colleges they dreamed of attending. Ditto for college seniors applying to graduate school.
April 16, 2011
Democrats Can Win the Budget Debate By Joe Conason
Having hesitated to fully enter the fiscal fray, President Obama has at last delivered a plausible, principled response to the budgetary flim-flams of the far right. But one speech, even a very good speech, won't fulfill his obligation in this fateful argument.
April 15, 2011
Why Democrats Could Take Back The House in 2012 By Alan I. Abramowitz
Between 1932 and 1994, Democrats controlled the U.S. House of Representatives for 58 of 62 years. Since then, however, party control has changed three times, with Republicans controlling the House from 1995 through 2006, Democrats from 2007 through 2010, and Republicans since then.
April 15, 2011
Why the GOP Could Keep the House in 2012 By Glen Bolger and Jim Hobart
If Barack Obama’s political standing is helped by a slowly recovering economy, talk among Democrats will quickly turn to taking back the House. However, control of the House of Representatives after the 2012 elections will still belong to the Republicans.
April 15, 2011
New Media Catches Obama Bribing the Fourth Estate By Howard Rich
For years, America’s left-leaning mainstream media outlets have belittled and rebuked members of the new media — questioning their credibility, impugning their integrity and assigning all manner of self-serving motivations to their contributions to the marketplace of ideas.
April 14, 2011
When Politicians 'Bicker,' They're Really Negotiating By Michael Barone
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank attracted some attention when he promised not to mention Sarah Palin for a month. He kept his promise. The republic and the Post survived.
