Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open […]

President Obama, despite pre-election criticism, continued Bush’s policies for a strong infrastructure.

Terrorism is speech — speech that gathers its audience by killing innocents as theatrically as possible. The 19th-century anarchist Paul Brousse called it “propaganda by deed.” Accordingly, the Boston Marathon attack, the first successful terror bombing in the U.S. since 9/11, was designed for maximum effect. At the finish line there would be not only […]

Despite a few technical changes, what’s on the table represents the usual tax-and-spend approach.

Is a bipartisan immigration deal at hand? It’s close. Last week, the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce worked out a guest-worker compromise that allows in foreign workers on a sliding scale of 20,000 to 200,000, depending on the strength of the economy. Nice deal. As are the other elements of the Senate’s bipartisan Gang […]

“I honestly believe that if any Israeli parent sat down with those (Palestinian) kids, they’d say, ‘I want these kids to succeed.’ ” — Barack Obama, in Jerusalem, March 21 Very true. But how does the other side feel about Israeli kids? Consider that the most revered parent in Palestinian society is Mariam Farhat of […]

The proposition that entitlement curbs are the key to maintaining national solvency is widely accepted, though not by many congressional Democrats. President Obama, however, has endorsed it on various occasions. And he could make it happen. If he wants. I remain skeptical that he does. But national solvency is important enough to test this proposition […]

In choice of both topic and foil, Rand Paul’s now legendary Senate filibuster was a stroke of political genius. The topic was, ostensibly, very narrow: Does the president have the constitutional authority to put a drone-launched Hellfire missile through your kitchen — you, a good citizen of Topeka to whom POTUS might have taken a […]

Sequestration is not the best time to be doling out foreign aid, surely the most unpopular item in the federal budget. Especially when the recipient is President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt. Morsi is intent on getting the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman (the Blind Sheik), serving a life sentence for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center […]