A standup comic once joked about his inner monologue while rubbernecking through the scene of a car accident. First the serious reaction: "Oh! How horrifying! How awful!" Then the morbidly gleeful: "Cool! Is that an arm?" Watching the Republican Party implosion and subsequent bloody flailing has become my favorite spectator sport. "Wow, the Republican Party is really, really horribly mangled," then, "Cool! Palin's making an ass of herself on TV again!" How screwed are the Republicans right now? Put it this way: the sanest contender for party leader is named "Bush." Yes, Bush: a name that proved to be even less popular this year than the name "Hussein."
I observed first hand her commitment to peace and justice, when my late husband and I worked closely with the Clintons in an attempt to achieve a Middle East peace. She will be a strong, effective Secretary of State.
The next administration will be asked to undertake the tough work of remaking American foreign policy in the post-George Bush era. It's time we take the full measure of the 21st century threats we face.
To trivialize my views on such as vast topic of terrorism with "Deepak Blames America," as Ms. Rabinowitz has done, not only suggests how abysmally uninformed she is, but also speaks to the ever-sinking journalistic standards of her newspaper.
I know. It couldn't believe it either. The idea that I could get Sarah Palin's new book for nothing. Or that Sarah Palin had written a new book. Or written an old book. Or read an old book. Or used an old book to swat black flies.
Beyond dealing with urgent trouble spots, a key priority for Barack Obama will be to set his own tone that helps to educate the public at home and abroad.
I'm suggesting that, until America takes care of its debt, untangles the housing mess and gets unemployment under control, we all commit to working six days a week.
It seems Laura Bush is feeling pretty wounded these days about Dubya's legacy -- according, at least, to two current monumental gestures.
The domestic automakers are struggling under the same burden against their foreign competitors with the subsidies they receive as local businesses do against Wal-Mart.
We are in clearly uncharted waters when it comes to the U.S. recession. There are no rules that apply -- we're trying to figure this thing out as we go along.
It may well be that General Jones, in what is frequently the geopolitical catbird seat as Obama's National Security Advisor, will emerge as the most influential figure of the new national security power troika.
Russia's actions on OPEC have given the Obama administration an opportunity to show the American public and the world that the days of oil patch hegemony over Washington are at an end.
Why has the mainstream U.S. media utterly ignored the report that Jewish victims at the Chabad Center in Mumbai had been tortured before they were killed? Is this not news?
If only Richardson, a skillful high-stakes negotiator, could rescue Wall Street, Detroit, the credit markets or our international image, rather than be consigned partly to making sure TV will be broadcast digitally.
A nation's reactions to the outside world becomes the shape of the nation, and as we head into a new era in America, it may be time to take stock of who are and how we've changed.
Liberal that I am, I support health-care reform on its merits alone. But it pleases me even more to think that the conservatives' nightmare of permanent defeat might come true simply if Democrats do the right thing.
What we have is De Gaulle-style socialism (state-funded corporations, cronyism, an overstuffed military), but without free and decent French schools, doctors and trains.
The banking industry (at least the folks not yet in jail) has a great plan to make home buying affordable and stabilize house prices. Let's give the bankers latest scheme a little thought before embracing it this time.
The #1 rule of the financial crisis so far has been that the people who caused it must be left in charge of everything. Going forward that has to change.
