After months of claiming insufficient information to express an opinion on the District of Columbia gun law, Barack Obama noted with apparent approval Thursday that the Supreme Court ruled the 32-year ban on handguns "went too far."
Why is the president of the United States entertaining Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, at Camp David when his own State Department has singled out the Sheik’s homeland, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), for its continuing violations of human rights?
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has appealed to Senate Democratic leaders to confirm President Bush's long-pending nominations to fill two empty chairs as Fed governors, enabling a fully staffed central bank to handle the current financial crisis. He did not receive a favorable response from Sen. Christopher Dodd, Senate Banking Committee chairman.
"Not Exactly a Crime" is the title of a book on America's vice presidents published in 1972 -- a year before Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign for actually committing a crime.
On the day after an unusually important Fed policy meeting, both gold and stocks severely rebuked the central bank's decision to take no action in support of the weak dollar or to curb rapidly growing inflation. Gold spiked $30, a clear message that Bernanke & Co. won't stop inflation. Stocks plunged over 200 points, an equally clear message that the Fed's cheap-dollar inflation is damaging economic growth.
Precisely on schedule, the usual assortment of right-wing operatives is preparing its expected assault on the Democratic presidential nominee. While this unwholesome phase of the election cycle is known universally as "Swift-boating" -- named after the defamatory media blitz against John Kerry four years ago -- the style and some of the personnel date back at least two decades.
News that life expectancy among some American women has fallen earned startled headlines, as well it should. In this country, life expectancy is something that's supposed to go up. It took a big scourge, such as the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, to depress it.
Much has been made in the past of presidential candidates' campaign theme songs, but there would be no more appropriate choice for this year's Republican nominee, John McCain, than the Rolling Stones' classic, "Time Is on My Side."
What is an "Obamacon?" The phrase surfaced in January to describe British Conservatives entranced by Barack Obama. On March 13, the American Spectator broadened the term to cover all "conservative supporters" of the Democratic presidential candidate.
Have you noticed a change in Barack Obama’s campaign? Instead of avoiding controversies over values, religion and race, he seems to welcome them and wade into the debates with an increasing enthusiasm.
Here's a nice news flash: Most people really are religious and tolerant, faithful and open, altogether American. That's the conclusion this week of a major Pew Research Center study of religion in America.
The high-class explanation for the South Korean riots against U.S. beef is protectionism. The low-class explanation is anti-Americanism. But a third view -- that South Koreans are justified in slamming the safety of American beef -- has no class at all. That educated people subscribe to such libel does not dignify it.
When John McCain met privately with Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin after a political event in the Milwaukee suburbs May 29, the Republican presidential candidate might not have realized that he had just come face to face with an opportunity and a test.
In an ABC interview on Monday, Sen. Barack Obama urged us to go back to the era of criminal-justice prosecution of terror suspects, citing the successful efforts to imprison those who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993.
As we enter the second half of the campaign year, facts are undermining the Democratic narrative that has dominated our politics since about the time Hurricane Katrina rolled into the Gulf coast -- most importantly, the facts about Iraq.
Leaders of Sen. John McCain's campaign are looking toward "527s" as their principal means of attacking Sen. Barack Obama because they have been given a green light by McCain. "I can't be a referee of every spot run on television," McCain told the Boston Herald in an interview published June 12.
Cindy Unleashed" screamed the headline on the Drudge Report. Did Cindy McCain really go after Michelle Obama? Not exactly, but close enough. There was only one right answer to the question Mrs. McCain was asked by Kate Snow on ABC's "Good Morning America" this week about whether Mrs. McCain was "insulted" by Mrs. Obama's comment some time ago that it was only with her husband's run for president that she was "really proud" of her country.
Once upon a time, there was a fiscally and socially responsible senator named John McCain. Despite his presidential ambitions, the Republican from Arizona spoke out against the economic royalism of his party's leadership in the White House and Congress, and simply said no.
A 26-year-old political operative from Buffalo on Daniel Patrick Moynihan's staff in 1977 was overshadowed by the all-star cast accompanying the newly elected senator to Washington. Not for the last time, Timothy J. Russert surpassed famous contemporaries.
John McCain has drawn first blood in the political debate following Barack Obama's victory in the primaries. His call yesterday for offshore oil drilling — and Bush's decision to press the issue in Congress - puts the Democrats in the position of advocating the wear-your-sweater policies that made Jimmy Carter unpopular.
