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.
Before leaving for his vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Barack Obama said the next big item on his legislative agenda -- well, after health care and cap-and-trade and maybe labor's bill to effectively abolish secret ballots in union elections -- was immigration reform.
Believe it or not, sometimes good news on the economy can be bad news for stocks.
It's been a long and ugly weekend, e-mail wise. Ted Kennedy may be gone, but the haters are still out there. Every time I said a nice word, my BlackBerry would start vibrating.
"President George W. Bush kept us safe from further terrorist attacks." Few presidential claims have been less persuasive to the public than that. Yet after Sept. 11, most Americans thought, "It's not a question of whether, but when." We would have been grateful if we had known at the time that there would be no further attacks while Bush was president.
Since 1999, when he was placed under California parole supervision for a 1976 rape in Nevada, Phillip Garrido, 58, was subject to drug testing, required to wear a GPS device and subject to twice-monthly visits by his state parole officer.
Flip the calendar pages -- as they do in the old movies to show passage of time -- and stop at Nov. 2, 2010. That will be Election Day. How Congress handles health care reform will influence which party gets to party that night.
Edward Kennedy was buried Saturday, the last son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, the longest-serving member of the only royal political family our democratic republic has ever produced.
When he served as deputy attorney general, now Attorney General Eric Holder gave a "neutral leaning positive" recommendation that led to President Bill Clinton's pardoning of gazillionaire fugitive Marc Rich, who was on the lam in Switzerland hiding from federal charges of fraud, evading more than $48 million in taxes, racketeering and trading oil with Iran in violation of a U.S. embargo.
Earlier this month, three federal judges -- Stephen Reinhardt, Lawrence Karlton and Thelton Henderson -- ordered the release of more than 40,000 of California's 160,000 inmates. No lie: They claimed that releasing one-quarter of state inmates would not have "a meaningful adverse impact on public safety."
Predictably as always, the Republicans in Congress and in the conservative media are berating Attorney General Eric Holder for deciding to investigate the CIA's use of abusive interrogation methods on terror suspects.
They called him "The Liberal Lion." Ted Kennedy deserved that title, though with some asterisks added. There's no reconciling Kennedy worshippers with the Kennedy haters. But those who can deal with shades of gray will pay tribute to the legendary Massachusetts senator who championed landmark legislation through bipartisan cooperation -- but whose sense of family privilege didn't always serve the interests of democracy.
As it becomes clear that a large percentage of Americans are rebelling against the prospect of a larger, more intrusive government, including many whom Democratic politicians assume would see themselves as beneficiaries of government spending and activity, debate among supporters of the Democratic agenda has focused on tactics.
He was not a natural. He did not have the gift that Bill Clinton had, that Barack Obama has, the gift of making whatever he said sound smart and moving.
