Columns

My iPhone buzzes on a regular basis with "news alerts" from Politico, The Hill and other sources.

Many loud voices in the debate over immigration have been insisting that effective border enforcement must precede any steps that legalize the status of current illegal immigrants.

WASHINGTON -- They lost me at the word "women."

WASHINGTON -- Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun.

"This is called slave labor," said Pope Francis.

"We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked," Secretary of State Dean Rusk famously said during the Cuban missile crisis.

The Washington Post reported something surprising on April 29 -- a hidden-camera expose by pro-life advocates. On the front page of the Metro section, the Post reported how a veteran D.C. abortion doctor named Cesare Santangelo told a 24-week pregnant woman that in the unlikely event that an abortion resulted in a live birth, "we would not help it."

"Personal charm may be Obama's last best hope" headlined the Washington Post on Monday. That charm was on ample display at the annual vanity fest called the White House Correspondents Association dinner over the weekend.

Someone called politics "the art of the possible." But, in the era of the modern welfare state, politics is largely the art of the impossible.