With one-sixth of the Obama administration's term of office complete, last week it revealed its profound commitment to an unprecedented policy of eschewing the exercise of great-power diplomacy -- and indeed of being willing to consciously accept humiliation -- in the hope of gaining future advantage from talking with hostile but weaker nations.
Will the sex scandal of former GOP Assemblyman Mike Duvall make a difference for the California GOP? In that Duvall -- now known as Spanky -- had the good sense to resign 15 hours into the scandal, the answer would be: No.
President Obama was on Wall Street, calling for a new regulatory regime to prevent a financial panic like the one set off a year ago. "We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis," he said.
The dwindling number of readers of The New York Times were treated Wednesday to a column by Thomas Friedman extolling China's "one-party autocracy," which, he told us, "is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people."
Toward the end of his speech on health care Wednesday night, President Obama said that he had been thinking a lot about the phrase "the character of our country."
All sound electoral predictions are grounded in history. Astute observers look back over the electoral landscape of the past and pick the bits and pieces of past years that match the conditions of the present.
The day after President Obama's impassioned speech for big-government health care, Wall Street bet heavily that the so-called government-insurance option he supports is dead.
While the next slate of House elections does not occur until 2010, congressmen and their challengers certainly don't take off the "off-year." Instead, this year is a crucial one for the parties who must prove their recruiting chops, for the incumbents who seek big fundraising numbers and positive headlines, and for the challengers who have to prove their ability to take down a sitting member of Congress. And that doesn't even include the open races, 18 so far, where incumbents have announced they will not seek reelection. In those districts, both parties are scrambling to find candidates who can quash takeover hopes or, conversely, take advantage of this rare opportunity.
One of the (many) irritating things about being a Republican in the liberal Bay Area is the certainty that if there is a story out there that makes conservatives look stupid -- like the protests against President Obama's Tuesday speech to America's students -- then you know that wherever you go, folks are going to ask you about that particular flap.
The wild furor over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren raises many questions, but there is only one that really matters. How did America surrender its political discourse -- not to mention the news cycle -- to the most unreasonable and unstable elements of the far right?
The resignation over the Labor Day weekend of White House "green jobs" czar Van Jones tells you some interesting things about the Obama administration.
The gifted woman who headed my children's elementary school, Reveta Bowers, always said that teaching kids values was as important as teaching them skills.
"You Don't Know Jack" is the perfect title for the upcoming HBO biopic starring Al Pacino as Death Doc Jack Kevorkian -- because it is clear that many of Kevorkian's fawning interviewers don't know much about Jack.
As the politicians who support the president's health care plans escape back into Washington from America -- and as the politicians who oppose the president's health care plans leave their safe redoubt in the heartland and go once more behind the lines into the hostile territory of the Federal Triangle -- only one thing is certain: We don't know the end of this story.
America will soon mark the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The replays of burning buildings and piercing screams will bring back jagged memories of that horrific day.
"Very active." That's what White House aides say Barack Obama is going to be this month. That's probably an understatement.
As he campaigned for the presidency, Sen. Barack Obama argued that Afghanistan should become "the central front in the battle against terrorism." Obama has delivered on that issue.
The jobless-recovery theme re-emerged on Friday with the arrival of a disappointing employment report.
Many astounding details surround the story of the California rapist who kidnapped an 11-year-old and kept her captive for 18 years. None shocks more than the raw fact that Phillip Garrido was not locked up, the key lost.
Watching conservatives cheer the demise of the "public option" has left me shaking my head.
