Columns

It's pretty clear that Democrats are less enthusiastic about voting this year than Republicans. The latest evidence comes from Gallup, which reports that Republicans' 3 percent edge in congressional voting among registered voters increases to 13 and 18 points when you include just those likely and very likely to actually vote.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the four-term Texas Republican, hopes it is true that, as has been said, Americans invariably do the right thing -- after exhausting all the alternatives. Regarding the fiscal imbalance that is driving the national debt toward 90 percent of GDP, Americans are running out of alternatives.

America was horrified by the story that erupted in the national news that Rutgers college freshman Tyler Clementi threw himself off a bridge because his new roommate used a webcam to tape a homosexual encounter in which he'd engaged. Media outlets quickly dispatched their cavalry to find the experts to explain why America is a land of incessant bullying.

It's a topsy-turvy, upside-down political world out there for people who thought Barack Obama would be cruising at a 70 percent approval rating while crushing the Republicans like bugs. In fact, the opposite has happened. The Senate majority leader is in grave danger of involuntary retirement. Everyone in Washington concedes Nancy Pelosi is unlikely to bang the gavel in January.

NEW YORK -- The suicide of an 18-year-old Rutgers University student following an unimaginable invasion of his privacy has launched an overdue examination of casual -- and possibly criminal -- disregard for others' personal space.

Don't read Newsweek magazine while drinking a beverage. A spit take is the obvious first reaction to a column by Julia Baird headlined "The Shame of Family Films." On the Internet, this article is coded as "Why Family Films Are So Sexist."

Congress left town last week only to reconvene after the November elections. However, unlike most Congresses, this year the American public will get twice the work out of its retiring or defeated members of Congress.

Congress completed its legislative work for the fall a week early and adjourned midweek until after the November elections.Honestly, the legislatorshad little-to-nothing to show for their September fall session.Both the House and the Senate were able to pass a continuing resolution before the bewitching hour of Oct. 1. This passage means that the federal government will continue operations until the close of business on Dec. 3.

When Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink went to New York City last week to speak on managing state pension-fund investments, she didn't include Stuyvesant Town in any PowerPoint presentation.

WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 9, 1969, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a memo to President-elect Richard Nixon, on whose White House staff Moynihan was to serve. Moynihan wondered whether the disintegration of "private sub-systems of authority" presaged "the ultimate, destructive working out of the telos of liberal thought," in which case "we are moving from Locke to Hobbes." Imagine, if you can, Nixon's furrowed brow.