Author: Debra Saunders

Newt Gingrich presented a stark contrast between Republicans and Democrats on gasoline prices Saturday at the California GOP convention in Burlingame. Gingrich promised that if elected, he would bring gasoline prices below $2.50 per gallon. A day earlier, in a signature speech on energy, President Barack Obama told the University of Miami that there “are […]

As I watched Wednesday night’s GOP presidential primary debate on CNN, I couldn’t help but notice that the four surviving Republicans are old news. Three have been out of power for a political half-life. Mitt Romney hasn’t been governor of Massachusetts for five years. Likewise, Rick Santorum hasn’t been in the Senate since January 2007. […]

Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and a prominent climate change expert, admitted Monday that he lied. Gleick pretended to be someone else in order to obtain documents from the Heartland Institute, which has challenged mainstream scientific consensus on the role of man in global warming. Last week, Gleick was the chairman of the […]

Occupy Oakland activists have filed a lawsuit against the city and are seeking damages. The American Civil Liberties Union-backed suit argues that protesters are engaged in “peaceful expressive activity” and that Oakland police have used “excessive force” that has inflicted “mental stress” on activists. The lawsuit also complains that police have not warned activists sufficiently […]

In February 2009 — having signed into law his $787 billion stimulus package — President Barack Obama made a pledge to the nation. “Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years,” the president noted, “we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration […]

The domestic-violence case against San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi did not start with a call from wife Eliana Lopez or neighbors who heard a fight getting out of control at the family’s home on New Year’s Eve. It started with a Jan. 4 phone call to police from a friend and neighbor, Ivory Madison, whom […]

Two of three judges on a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Tuesday found Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Judge Stephen Reinhardt stipulated that the ruling skirted the larger issue of whether same-sex couples have a right to marry. That’s a shame, because at least an equal-right-to-marry claim makes for a clean argument. Reinhardt praised […]

Losing candidates usually congratulate the winner — first by telephone and then in front of their supporters. Not Newt Gingrich. When he loses, Gingrich doesn’t even bother to pretend to be a good sport. Already, insiders are calling Newt’s Saturday Las Vegas news conference the modern equivalent of Richard Nixon’s pronouncement “You won’t have Nixon […]

It says something about the brazen attitude of American politicians that Congress enacted a measure to create a program that was impossible to implement — and named it the CLASS Act. CLASS stands for Community Living Assistance Services and Support, a program that was supposed to offer voluntary long-term care insurance to workers who are […]

“Hell is paved with good intentions,” George Bernard Shaw wrote, “not bad ones.” And Shaw never wrote about the unintended consequences of American campaign finance law or the Florida GOP primary, which provide ample proof that the more good-government types try to regulate money and politics the more convoluted campaign finance becomes. Mitt Romney won […]

Occupy Oakland is aptly named. When forces occupy a city, they know that occupied turf is not their home. They can maraud, loot, vandalize, abuse the locals, and then leave. They can treat other people’s property as their own. The occupiers don’t have to clean up after themselves. They don’t have to worry about paying […]

Last week, Sarah Palin stepped over the edge of civility. Fox Business host Eric Bolling played a clip of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on “Meet the Press” in which Christie said Newt Gingrich “has been an embarrassment” to the Republican Party. “Poor Chris,” Palin responded. “This was a rookie mistake. He played right into […]

Toward the end of his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama observed that Washington politicians should learn from the example of the U.S. military: “When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails.” Obama recalled the successful Navy SEAL mission that, under his watch, […]

When Newt Gingrich called CNN anchor John King’s decision “despicable” to begin last Thursday’s GOP debate with a question about Gingrich’s second wife, the Charleston audience responded with a standing ovation. Surely, I thought to myself, South Carolina Republicans are not going to vote for a candidate just because he is good at dressing down […]

When former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman exited the GOP presidential primary earlier this month, left-leaning columnists were bereft. Huntsman, after all, was the Republican most respected by non-Republicans. In December, New York Times number-crunching blogger Nate Silver laid out the case for “Jon Huntsman’s Path to Victory.” It turns out that path sustained itself through […]

President Barack Obama should pardon the four Marines who were captured on video as they urinated on three corpses, presumably dead Taliban. After the video went viral last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the wisecracking troops may have committed war crimes. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to assure […]

After a New Year’s Eve fight, former Venezuelan TV actress Eliana Lopez went to the home of neighbor Ivory Madison to talk about her husband’s behavior. Madison later told police that she took video of a bruise on her friend’s arm and had texts Lopez had sent that documented spousal abuse. Because Lopez is married […]