Having just lost an election, many Republicans are anxious to remake our party in the image of Democrats. The theory seems to be that whatever we’re doing isn’t working, so we better change everything. But in fact, whatever Republicans did in 2012 — other than an overly long primary fight — worked amazingly well, given […]

Nothing about illegal immigration quite adds up. Conservative corporate employers still support the idea of imported, cheap, non-union labor — in a strange alliance with liberal activists who want the larger blocs of Latino voters that eventually follow massive influxes from Latin America. Yet how conservative are businesses that in the past flouted federal law […]

On Tuesday, NBC released a confidential Department of Justice paper concluding that our government can authorize the use of drones to kill targeted terrorist leaders, including U.S. citizens abroad. This story bares the dividing line between honest liberals — such as Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the American Civil Liberties Union and the San Francisco Chronicle’s […]

In “Zero Dark Thirty,” the movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden, one of the first scenes shows a terrorist being waterboarded, where useful information gets extracted. The movie thus asserts the controversial practice leads to actionable intelligence. Not only was former President George W. Bush criticized for “authorizing torture,” his critics argued that […]

Let’s put ideology aside for a moment. Karl Rove, architect of the George W. Bush-era Republican victories, says he’s sick of fanatics running his party into the ground. So he’s devised a strategy to pre-emptively sink unelectable candidates early in the process. He’s formed a new super PAC to implement this strategy. It’s called the […]

An unsigned and undated Justice Department white paper, obtained by NBC News, reports The New York Times, “…is the most detailed analysis yet to come into public view regarding the Obama legal team’s views about the lawfulness of killing, without a trial, an American citizen who executive branch officials decide is an operational leader of […]

The House Republicans, in serious trouble with public opinion as they blinked facing the “fiscal cliff” over New Year’s, seem suddenly to be playing a more successful game — or rather, games — an inside game and an outside game. The inside game can be described by the Washington phrase “regular order.” What that means […]

Put on your shocked faces: Since my bipartisan call last week for Democratic women to join the Ladies Against Senator Sleaze-Bob movement, not a single Democratic woman in Washington has signed up. Here’s the thing. The brewing scandal involving N.J. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is not […]

I like to bet on sports. Having a stake in the game, even if it’s just five bucks, makes it more exciting. I also like playing poker. “Unacceptable!” say politicians in much of America. “Gambling sometimes leads to ‘addiction,’ destitute families!” Well, it can. So politicians ban it. It’s why we no longer see a […]

Not long after President Obama proclaimed in his second inaugural that “an economic recovery has begun,” we learned that the U.S. economy actually shrank in the last quarter. Many economists believe this is a temporary setback. This recovery may be the weakest in American history, but the economy isn’t cratering either. Still, you can bet […]

Barack Obama won re-election by perpetrating three frauds: 1. He sold the American people on the idea that we were in the midst of a slow recovery. Given time, he assured us, we would grow our way out of the recession and all would be fine. Nonsense. We now learn — three months after the […]

PARIS — The anti-war types are unhappy with France’s foray into Mali to help that country’s troops eradicate balkanizing terrorism at the request of the Malian government. If even the French aren’t “allowed” to go to war — and under a Socialist president, no less — then who can? It would indeed be nice if […]

During the 2012 election cycle, Tea Partiers were told by their supposed betters that their ignorance of everyday politics meant that they should take a back seat to the Republican Party establishment. Brandishing the so-called Buckley Rule with quasi-religious fervor — the notion that Republicans should run the most conservative candidate who can win — […]

People on both sides of tax issues often speak of such things as a “$300 billion tax increase” or a “$500 billion tax decrease.” That is fine if they are looking back at something that has already happened. But it can be sheer nonsense if they are talking about a proposed increase or decrease in […]