Wash Your Hands By Susan Estrich
Now it's not just your mother telling you or the school nurse, but your president. Wash your hands. Cover your mouth. Don't go to school if you're sick -- that'll be tough to enforce!
Political Commentary
Most Recent Releases
May 2, 2009
May 1, 2009
The Obama Generation By Alan Abramowitz
Americans under the age of 30 played a major role in the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. According to the 2008 national exit poll, 18-29 year-olds made up 18 percent of the electorate and they cast 66 percent of their votes for Obama vs. 32 percent for his Republican rival, John McCain.
May 1, 2009
Man and His Self-Interest By Froma Harrop
In a Q&A last year with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, former Pennsylvania Rep. Pat Toomey was asked what book he wanted Barack Obama to read. The Republican quickly recommended the work of Adam Smith, the 18th century economist and philosopher who held that individuals promote the good of society when they pursue their self-interest.
May 1, 2009
Pelosi's Tortured Explanation By Debra J. Saunders
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been pushing for a "truth commission" to investigate the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation" techniques like waterboarding -- until Republicans started shining the spotlight on Pelosi herself. Now she is not so adamant.
April 30, 2009
Combating Epidemic Ignorance By Joe Conason
In the turbulent imagination of the hard-core conservative, American foreign policy should be about telling off the rest of the planet. According to the right-wing mind-set, a manly foreign policy would curtail any effort at seeking influence abroad, cut off assistance to developing countries, forget about improving our global image and, above all, withdraw from the existing international organizations, especially the United Nations, which is nothing more than a gargantuan waste of money and a hive of parasitic bureaucrats.
April 30, 2009
Specter's Party Switch Is All About Winning By Michael Barone
Only his most sycophantic admirers might compare Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter with Winston Churchill, but the two do have something in common. Both had long and turbulent political careers, and both switched parties twice.
April 30, 2009
100-Day Lurch to the Left By Lawrence Kudlow
In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan's popularity and policies moved American politics firmly to the right. In only 100 days, Barack Obama's politics and policies have shifted America way to the left.
April 29, 2009
RIP to a GOP By Susan Estrich
The Republicans don't want him. The Democrats do. They would have booted him out. We'll do everything we can to support his re-election. It's a tough day when you leave your party, but being a hero certainly beats being reviled.
April 29, 2009
Public's Right To Know? By Tony Blankley
Several events in recent months bring back to the forefront the perennial assertion that, on grounds of both efficacy and ethics, the public's "right to know" is the best guide to good government and good institutions.
April 29, 2009
Barack Obama’s First 100 Days: Will They Lead to Lasting Change? By Scott Rasmussen
As Barack Obama’s administration reaches the 100-day mark, partisans and ideologues on both sides are spinning furiously to define what has happened so far and what it means going forward.
April 28, 2009
What Happens Politically If The Economy Improves? By Scott Rasmussen
If the U.S. economy improves, it seems safe to assume that will be good for President Obama’s job approval ratings. It will probably help congressional ratings as well.
April 28, 2009
Throwing Out Utah Stereotypes By Froma Harrop
SALT LAKE CITY -- American flags and lush spring grass lined the long drive of a Mormon meetinghouse here in the desert capital of Utah. Television trucks parking outside. Utahans were gathering last week for the funeral of Bill Orton, a Democrat who had represented an especially conservative congressional district in this most Republican state for three terms.
April 28, 2009
The Opposite of Intelligence By Debra J. Saunders
The mantra from the left during the Bush years went something like this: The world is not black and white. Sophisticated minds should seek out different, nuanced opinions.
April 27, 2009
Is The Beltway GOP Irrelevant? By Scott Rasmussen
To be relevant in politics, you need either formal power or a lot of people willing to follow your lead. The governing Republicans in the nation’s capital have lost both on their continuing path to irrelevance.
April 26, 2009
More Than a Silly Strip Search By Debra J. Saunders
When she was a 13-year-old student at Safford Middle School in Arizona, Savana Redding was strip-searched by school officials in search of -- this is no joke -- ibuprofen. Now she is suing the district and the officials for violating her Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
April 25, 2009
The Left's Angry Mob Recalls Madame Defarge By Michael Barone
It's tough trying to please people who crave vengeance almost as much as Madame Defarge, the unsparing French revolutionary in Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities."
April 24, 2009
Hounded and Stressed, but Not by Technology By Froma Harrop
Consider Cary Grant in "North by Northwest." Sinister forces may be chasing him for reasons he can't comprehend, but this is 1959, and neither the BlackBerry nor the Global Positioning System chip that goes inside it has been invented. And so the mysterious crop-duster has no way to pinpoint which cornstalks he's hiding under. The truck Grant steals also lacks a GPS that could help enemies foil his getaway.
April 24, 2009
I Had a Dream By Susan Estrich
Her name is Susan Boyle. If you haven't heard of her, you need to listen to her. Consider it my gift to you. Go to YouTube, along with the tens of millions of others who already have, and listen to the voice of an angel -- a plump, unemployed, 47-year-old "spinster" (as she was described by more than one British newspaper) who lives with her cat.
April 24, 2009
Los Angeles or Waterboarding? By Debra J. Saunders
After 9/11, Americans wanted one thing from Washington: to prevent future terrorist attacks. President George W. Bush, the CIA and other hard-working officials delivered. For their trouble, a handful of those individuals now have reason to fear that they may be ruined.
April 23, 2009
Obama Lets Congress -- and Lobbyists -- Do the Work By Michael Barone
The balance between the executive and legislative branches in writing laws has changed over the centuries. In the 19th century, Sen. Stephen Douglas wrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act, with President Franklin Pierce just an interested bystander.
