Columns

You needn't be clairvoyant to deduce what the Democratic Party wants to run on in 2016. It really doesn't matter whether their nominee is Hillary Clinton or someone else. Democrats won't be campaigning on the thriving economy under President Barack Obama, global stability under American leadership, the successful routing of al-Qaida or Obamacare. No, the Democratic Party is the ladies' party now -- dependent completely on the lopsided votes of single females for their electoral success. To the degree possible, 2016 will be about women's sex lives and who should pay for IUDs.

Liberals just aren't very liberal these days. The word "liberal" comes from the Latin word meaning freedom, and in the 19th century, liberals in this country and abroad stood for free speech, free exercise of religion, free markets, free trade -- for minimal state interference in people's lives.

WASHINGTON -- Israel accepts an Egyptian-proposed Gaza cease-fire; Hamas keeps firing. Hamas deliberately aims rockets at civilians; Israel painstakingly tries to avoid them, actually telephoning civilians in the area and dropping warning charges, so-called roof knocking.

"The heartlessness and nativist pandering that have broken America's immigration system must give way to providing proper food, clothing, shelter and medical care to the Central American children streaming into the country." So pronounced the editors of the New York Daily News. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. echoed the theme in his "Bordering on Heartless" column, noting that Glenn Beck has "come under fierce attack" for his proposal to bring food, water, teddy bears and soccer balls to the children stuck at the border. "It's one more sign," Dionne writes, "of how the crisis at the border has brought out the very worst in our political system and a degree of plain nastiness that we should not be proud of as a nation."

Attorney General Eric Holder granted an exclusive interview to ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" from London, where he was portrayed by ABC as deeply concerned about the global terrorist threat. What stands out from this very rare session -- Holder hasn't been on Sunday network television in four years -- is that Holder pulled out the oldest, lamest card in the Obama political deck: President Barack Obama and he are opposed by people who should be suspected of racism.

In 1978, Sen. Phil Lewis, D-West Palm Beach, took office as Senate president. The very first appointment President Lewis announced was to make his opponent for the presidency, Sen. Jack Gordon, D-Miami Beach, the important chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

The flood of underage -- and nonunderage -- illegal immigrants from Central America coming across the border in Texas is, to paraphrase a former Obama administration official, a "man-caused disaster." The man who caused it, more than anyone else, is Barack Obama.

One question I am asked while on tour for my new book, "The Greatest Comeback," on the resurrection of Richard Nixon, is:Does Nixon's rise, from crushing defeats in 1960 and 1962, and the debacle his party suffered in 1964, to capturing the White House and beginning a string of five victories in six presidential elections, have relevance for today's GOP?

And so Benghazi fades, the VA story fades, the missing plane, the missing girls in Africa, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, IRS, the list goes on, all fade from the headlines in this attention-deficit, 24/7 news cycle.

As we near the anniversary of the verdict that set free George Zimmerman -- the man who stalked, shot, and killed Trayvon Martin -- race again comes into play here in Florida.

Skitter, scamper, scuttle. That seems to be the mode of the Obama administration of late.Skitter away from your red line in Syria. Scamper off to a meeting you'd previously nixed with Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Good scammers are also remarkable manipulators. They understand enough about how the human mind works to exploit its weaknesses.

WASHINGTON -- As is his wont, President Obama is treating the border crisis -- more than 50,000 unaccompanied children crossing illegally -- as a public relations problem. Where to photo op and where not. He still hasn't enunciated a policy. He may not even have one.

Increasingly, across this city, the "I" word is being heard.Impeachment is being brought up by Republicans outraged over Barack Obama's usurpations of power and unilateral rewriting of laws. And Obama is taunting John Boehner and the GOP: "So sue me."

MSNBC host Chuck Todd assembled a panel of liberal-media veterans on his morning show "The Daily Rundown" Monday and joked that the assembled heavyweights presented "a nightmare scenario for Brent Bozell." But what these journalists proceeded to issue was a devastating indictment of the Obama presidency and a real nightmare for this president.