Author: Debra Saunders

Certain quotes take on a mythical quality. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell entered that pantheon when he said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” On “60 Minutes” Sunday, the president observed, “When I first came into office, the head of the Senate Republicans […]

Candidate Barack Obama made this promise to Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos in May 2008: “What I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support and that I’m promoting. And I want to move that forward as quickly as possible.” Didn’t happen. When Ramos interviewed Obama […]

Recently, editorial page editor John Diaz asked Mark Klaas whether he expects to feel closure if California executes Richard Allen Davis, the man who kidnapped, toyed with and then killed Klaas’ 12-year-old daughter, Polly, in 1993. A jury found Davis guilty and sentenced him to death in 1996. From the early days after Davis snatched […]

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” Mitt Romney told donors in a $50,000-a-plate Florida fundraiser that was secretly recorded in May and released by Mother Jones this week. In an unfortunate choice of words, Romney described those 47 percent as people who “are dependent upon […]

“We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the consulate to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some […]

“No family should have to set aside a college acceptance letter because they don’t have the money,” President Barack Obama told the Democratic National Convention as he accepted his party’s nomination in Charlotte, N.C., this month. That sentence — key in Obama’s “college affordability” agenda — says everything about this administration’s approach to selling itself […]

They don’t fear us, and they don’t respect us. That’s the only message you can take away from an Egyptian mob’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo during which rioters scaled embassy walls and tore down the American flag on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. President Barack Obama helped ease out Egyptian President […]

Tampa, Fla., was like the Republican National Convention delegation — older, more experienced, less excitable. Tampa has hosted the Super Bowl; the city had lots of space and nothing to prove. There was a been there/done that feel to the entire affair. Tampa Bay is used to welcoming visitors and has plenty of nice hotels […]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — “First shot, straight through, that’s how you perform under pressure,” Barack Obama said in 2008. They played the quote with a video clip of Obama making a basket at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. Obama knew how to make it look easy, even though it wasn’t. When he spoke at the […]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — “First shot, straight through, that’s how you perform under pressure,” Barack Obama said in 2008. They played the quote with a video clip of Obama making a basket at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. Obama knew how to make it look easy, even though it wasn’t. When he spoke at the […]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michelle Obama connected with voters during her moving opening night speech of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday. She was smart, extremely likable and the perfect spokeswoman for the American president as she talked about “the unflinching sacrifice” her parents and husband’s family made so their kids could have the “chance to […]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.” So reads the 2012 Democratic National Committee platform. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi […]

“They lie, and they don’t care if people think they lie,” California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton told reporter Joe Garofoli before a state delegation breakfast Monday. Burton even brought up that “as long as you lie, Joseph Goebbels, the big lie, you keep repeating it, you know.” First off, Nazi analogies are obnoxious; they […]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — On the door of my home office hangs a collection of press passes I have amassed since I attended the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988. When I return home at the end of this week, bruised, blistered and tottering from lack of sleep, I shall hang my new trophies with […]

TAMPA, Fla. — You could say that the film “2016: Obama’s America” is the GOP equivalent of Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me.” The documentary is based on conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza’s 2010 book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.” As the film’s narrator, D’Souza argues that Barack Obama’s philosophy is “anti-colonialist,” a legacy passed on from […]

TAMPA, Fla. — Clint Eastwood put on an odd skit Thursday night at the Republican National Convention. It was awkward to watch and hard to hear, but I have to hand it to Eastwood. He achieved the impossible; he made the gaffe-prone Mitt Romney come across as supremely tactful. Four years ago, when Barack Obama […]

TAMPA, Fla. — What do you think of the media coverage? That’s what I asked California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro. “I’m weathering it,” he quipped. For the second time in a row, weather caused the Republican National Committee to cancel its first night. Some delegates believed that certain reporters wanted nothing more than […]

TAMPA, Fla. — Tuesday night was Good Cop/Bad Cop night at the Republican National Convention. Ann Romney played the good cop; the keynote speaker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, played the bad cop. Where Mitt Romney comes across as remote, his wife exudes accessibility. Democrats have devised a talking point about the Republicans’ so-called “war […]

TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan to be his running mate. Since his teens, Ryan has been a big fan of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” In 2005, he told The Atlas Society that the novel shaped his “values system” — and that speech has launched a number of recent columns by liberals aghast […]

Like teenagers on vacation with their parents, Republicans from blue states and Democrats from red states don’t want to be seen with party elders. “I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Mitt Romney,” Elizabeth Emken, the Republican who will face off against Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in November, recently told me. “That’s the […]

Rep. Pete Stark, 80, has seven children; three are minors, the product of his third marriage. He once told the Los Angeles Times that he calls the three youngest his “second litter.” Lucky Stark. Thanks to a dated Social Security system, he enjoys a “second-litter” subsidy. As Carolyn Lochhead wrote in The Chronicle, Stark has […]

There are two sides within the anti-abortion movement. On one side, stand men and women who care deeply about human life and fear that abortion devalues society by creating a caste of disposable people. On the other side, lurk crabbed adults who think women should be punished for having extramarital sex and that pregnancy is […]

What is official misconduct? That was the matter before the San Francisco Ethics Commission on Thursday. What is political misconduct in San Francisco? The standard constantly evolves. Ross Mirkarimi, the city’s newly elected but not yet sworn-in sheriff, got in an argument with his wife on Dec. 31. He bruised her arm. She told a […]

Vice President Joe Biden played the race card this week when he drawled Southern-style to a racially mixed audience that if Mitt Romney takes the White House, he’ll “unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” Last week, a super PAC run by a former aide to President Obama released an ad […]

Mitt Romney is a bit of a sci-fi buff. He not only took his grandkids to see “The Hunger Games” when the movie came out but also read the Suzanne Collins trilogy. I wonder whether he was thinking about the books when he picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate. On the surface, Romney […]

Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty Tuesday to 19 counts involving a 2011 shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that left six dead and 13 others, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, wounded. As part of the deal, Loughner will receive a sentence of life without parole. Victims’ families have been spared the rigors of a trial, and prosecutors can […]

Whenever a name Republican says something stupid or indefensible or arguably both, for the next three days folks will open a conversation by asking me (the only Republican they know) what I think about the latest GOP gaffe. That standard does not apply when Democrats talk out of turn — even when they make unsupportable […]

State Sen. Mark Leno wants California to recognize that a child can have “more than two legal parents.” So he wrote a bill, SB 1476, which, he argues, wouldn’t change the definition of a parent — for example, live-in lovers would not qualify — but would allow family court to recognize more than two parents […]

It doesn’t matter who wins in November; Bill Clinton will end this year on top. The former president will introduce Barack Obama on the penultimate night of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. That’s prime placement for the man who dismissed Obama’s campaign as “a fairy tale” four years ago. In the new USA […]

California’s death penalty has been in limbo since 2006, when a federal judge stayed the execution of Michael Morales, who was sentenced to death for the brutal 1981 murder and rape of 17-year-old Terri Winchell. The judge was fearful lest the state’s three-drug lethal injection protocol would cause Morales undue pain. Since then, a number […]