Catholic Wars By Susan Estrich
The nuns are right. The bishops are wrong.
Political Commentary
Most Recent Releases
March 19, 2010
What's Good for House Leaders Is Bad for Members By Michael Barone
The Democratic leadership's struggle to pass the Senate health care bill in the House looks like a great case study for political scientists. They have many examples of the leaders of a party majority trying to push controversial legislation through a balky chamber.
March 19, 2010
Conyers Is the Wrong Guy To Chair Judiciary Committee By Debra J. Saunders
Another funny thing happened in what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised would be "the most ethical Congress in history." Monica Conyers, the wife of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, pleaded guilty last year to a federal charge of conspiracy to commit bribery that prompted her to resign from the Detroit City Council last year. This month, she was sentenced to 37 months in prison.
March 18, 2010
Right Wing Gone Wild By Joe Conason
Demagogues often prosper under the rules of democracy, intimidating the moderate and preying on the weak-minded. But in a healthy society, such figures cannot cross a final threshold of decency without jeopardizing their own status -- and today's right-wing nihilists seem to be on the verge of doing just that.
March 18, 2010
Governorships 2010: The Changing of the Guard By Larry J. Sabato
Back in 1980, the Washington Post ’s David S. Broder wrote a notable book, The Changing of the Guard , about the generational turnover of national and state leadership occurring at that time. It’s happening all over again. We’ll see dozens of congressional seats switching hands and sides in November, but the greatest transformation will be in the statehouses.
March 18, 2010
Is Dodd Ending Too Big to Fail? By Lawrence Kudlow
Surprise, surprise. Sen. Chris Dodd's financial-regulation proposal raises the possibility of substantial progress on the road to ending "too big to fail" and bailout nation for banks and other financial institutions.
March 17, 2010
Constitutional Law 101 By Tony Blankley
The president and the Democratic congressional leadership are fighting furiously to pass, with no Republican votes, the ever-less-popular health bill. An Associated Press poll last week shows that four in five Americans don't want the Democrats to pass a health care bill without bipartisan support, while almost all polls are showing support for the current bill to be at only 25 percent to 35 percent. And all polls show high negative intensity.
March 17, 2010
The Sestak Scandal: This is "Draining the Swamp?" By Howard Rich
In addition to promising an end to Republicans’ out-of-control spending, Democrats vowed to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington D.C. prior to winning their Congressional majorities in 2006. Of course that was just an entrée for the real “hope and change” to come, as Barack Obama stormed to victory in the presidential election two years later promising to “change Washington” – and cut taxes for a majority of Americans.
March 17, 2010
The Last Lap By Susan Estrich
It was 30 years ago that we first put national health insurance in the Democratic Party platform. I was working for Ted Kennedy then. We had lost the nomination to Jimmy Carter, but both sides were still fighting. Whatever we were for, President Carter and his team were against. And we were very much for health care.
March 16, 2010
Obama Evokes Fear, Calls for Courage By Debra J. Saunders
As a candidate for president, Sen. Barack Obama rejected "the politics of fear." Well, he won. So now he's playing the fear card to the hilt.
March 16, 2010
Jihad Jane: Terror by Reason of Insanity By Froma Harrop
Consider the case of "Jihad Jane." Divorced twice (first marriage at 16), Colleen LaRose was arrested for drunkenness in Texas. She ended up living with a boyfriend in a Philadelphia suburb and taking care of his elderly father. Let's say that LaRose was not one of life's winners under conventional definitions.
March 15, 2010
Tea Party Brings Energy, Change and Tumult to GOP By Michael Barone
The political commentariat doesn't know what to make of those thousands of Americans who have spontaneously thronged to tea parties and town hall meetings to oppose the big government programs of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders.
March 13, 2010
Yellen Is Spellin' Future Inflation By Lawrence Kudlow
The new Obama Fed is going to be very dovish when it comes to fighting future inflation and defending the value of the dollar.
March 12, 2010
Coming Between You and Your Doctor By Froma Harrop
The lights must dim around Google's data-storage centers every time someone does a search for "government bureaucrat coming between you and your doctor." Foes of the Democrats' health-reform proposals have been chanting this on the hour for a year -- with a surge after Democrats put money for "comparative effectiveness research" in the stimulus bill.
March 12, 2010
Real Genius By Susan Estrich
A year ago, David Axelrod, the president's senior adviser, was a genius. A year ago, Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff, was a wizard.
March 11, 2010
Dems Are Stuck With a Mess of Their Own Making By Michael Barone
There's a lively debate going on in the blogosphere and the press about whether Democrats would be better off passing or not passing a health care bill.
March 11, 2010
The New McCarthyism By Joe Conason
The national madness known as "McCarthyism" began 60 years ago in Wheeling, W.V., when Joseph R. McCarthy held up a scrap of paper that supposedly listed the names of 57 State Department officials he said were actually Communists and traitors.
March 11, 2010
Meg Whitman Can Run a Company, but Can She Govern? By Debra J. Saunders
It took me five months to get my first interview with former eBay CEO and California GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman, and when I did, it was after a press event where the news reporters were not allowed to ask questions. Swell.
March 10, 2010
An American Obsession with Freedom By Tony Blankley
The publishing of the Declaration of Independence 233 years ago by our Founders was responded to in London by two of the 18th century's greatest minds: Dr. Samuel Johnson (after whom a literary age was named) and Edmund Burke (the intellectual father of modern Anglo-American conservatism).
March 10, 2010
And the Winner Is... By Susan Estrich
Like most Americans, I haven't seen "The Hurt Locker," but I was still rooting for Kathryn Bigelow to claim the Best Director statue. This is, after all, 2010 -- a little late in the day for "first women," particularly in an industry that depends on women as much as men to buy tickets. If you believe the media accounts, another glass ceiling has now been broken. Were it only so simple.
