Columns

WASHINGTON -- As he promised it would be, Barack Obama's presidency has been transformative, but not as he intended. Whether it lasts two or six more years, it is an exhausted volcano because its biggest consequence may already have happened: It has resuscitated the right, making 2010 conservatism's best year in 30 years -- since the election of Ronald Reagan.

Liberal Democrats show no signs of reading their washout at the polls as a reason to shift to the center. President Obama told "60 Minutes" his only mistake was he passed some major legislation, but he didn't focus enough on the messy "how" -- as in "how it's risky to pass an Obamacare bill that a majority says it doesn't want."

For political junkies of a certain age, it was a given that the House of Representatives would always be controlled by Democrats. They won the chamber in 1954 and held on for 40 years -- more than twice as long as any party in American history had before.

NEW YORK -- Despite its considerable gains in the midterm elections, the GOP has a problem looming in the margins named Sarah Palin.

On Election Day, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case Schwarzenegger vs. Entertainment Merchants Association. The irony of this case name was obvious: The celebrated violent-action-hero governor of California had signed a bill into law in 2005 forbidding the sale of ultraviolent video games to minors, a law that lower federal courts prevented from ever going into effect.

Let's try to put some metrics on last Tuesday's historic election. Two years ago, the popular vote for House of Representatives was 54 percent Democratic and 43 percent Republican. That may sound close, but in historic perspective it's a landslide. Democrats didn't win the House popular vote in the South, as they did from the 1870s up through 1992. But they won a larger percentage in the 36 non-Southern states than -- well, as far as I can tell, than ever before.

Elections have consequences, and I won. Remember that quote from our president? He said it just three days after he took the helm as our president.

WASHINGTON -- When Alexander Pope was on his deathbed, his doctor assured him that his breathing, pulse and other vital signs were improving. "Here I am," Pope said to a friend, "dying of a hundred good symptoms."

Those who've followed this column over the years know that when President Obama was first elected, I tried valiantly to give him the benefit of the doubt. I believed for the best that his promise of "change" would be an exercise in moderation and sound judgment. But that didn't happen, and this past week's elections were a comprehensive rebuke of the first two years of his presidency.