Columns

WASHINGTON -- Viewed from Washington, which often is the last to learn about important developments, opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative still seems as small as the biblical cloud that ariseth out of the sea, no larger than a man's hand. Soon, however, this education policy will fill a significant portion of the political sky.

Like just about everybody else in Washington and many across the country, I've been reading the excerpts from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' book "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War."It presents a significantly more negative picture of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton than Gates' statements in office led anyone to expect.

The first time I saw New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on television, a few years ago, my first reaction was astonishment: "A talking Republican!"

WASHINGTON -- Constitutional arguments that seem as dry as dust can have momentous consequences. On Monday, the Supreme Court's nine fine minds will hear oral arguments about the meaning of "the" and "happen." What they decide could advance the urgent project of reining in rampant executive power.

John F. Kennedy broke some sort of record for stating the obvious when he noted that "life isn't fair." More evidence for the unfairness of the nation's evaluations of presidents emerged in a recent Washington Post poll showing that, five years after he returned to Texas, George W. Bush is still blamed by 50 percent of Americans for the current state of the economy. Only 38 percent hold President Barack Obama responsible. The lesson for future presidents appears to be: You may be one of the greatest humanitarians in the history of the world (as Herbert Hoover arguably was, and as was Bush in some ways), but if you're in office when a financial crisis hits, the public will blame you forever.

As Barack Obama scrambles to eviscerate key sections of his own signature health-care law, he and other Democrats are trying to shift voters' focus to another issue -- income inequality.Unfortunately, the solutions they advocate are pitifully inadequate or painfully perverse.

Thank you, Nancy Smith, for bringing up Atlantic City, and for allowing us to tell the other side of the story (ref: Jan. 6 Smith column,"About All That Crime Gambling Brought to Atlantic City ...").

WASHINGTON -- The era of Gesture Liberalism is at hand. It may be more amusing than consequential. Americans who exercise consumer sovereignty wherever Barack Obama still tolerates it are constantly disappointing him. For generations they persisted in buying what he calls "substandard" policies from what he calls "bad apple" health insurers. They stopped only when he forced them to stop -- when he rescued them from their ignorance by banning their benighted preferences.

"Pizza is like sex. Even when it's bad, it's pretty good." As a Connecticut boy, I was spoiled when it came to pizza.

Liberals are angry President Barack Obama won a second term, and yet, they didn't get the liberal agenda items they wanted passed in 2013, including gun control and amnesty for illegal aliens. The complaint at the end of the year is that this was the "least productive Congress" in 66 years, with production always being measured by the amount of legislation passed.

Smoking Marlboros is now forbidden in Irish bars in New York City. But buying, selling, and smoking marijuana is legal in Colorado.It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.But where are we going?

Media malpractice had become fairly rampant, but major change is in the air.

WASHINGTON -- Two years from today, Iowa -- dark, brooding, enigmatic Iowa -- will be enjoying its quadrennial moment as the epicenter of the universe. And in 10 months, voters will vent their spleens -- if they still are as splenetic as they now claim to be -- in congressional elections. Some numbers define the political landscape.

With twin suicide bombings in Volgograd, at a train station and on a trolley, 34 Russians are dead and scores are injured and hospitalized.Moscow and the world have been put on notice by Doku Umarov, the Chechen Islamic terrorist, that the winter Olympics in Sochi, six weeks away, may not now be safe for visitors.

Iurge those supporting Senate Bill 392 to please reconsider their support for this legislation. It will only lead to an increase in the number of collisions, injuriesand fatalities currently occurring on public roadways throughout Florida.