Columns

WASHINGTON -- It is said, more frequently than precisely, that the reasons the Supreme Court gives for doing whatever it does are as important as what it does. Actually, the court's reasons are what it does. Hence, the interest in the case the Supreme Court considered last week.

It's quite striking to see the degree to which traditional Islam has come under ferocious attack from the anti-religious impulse in Hollywood and New York and other bohemian centers in America. It is clearly anti-Islamic religious bigotry. Take a look at just some examples over the past year alone.

In my entire career, I have never been as confounded as I am over President Obama and the Democratic leadership's obsession with a piece of legislation that not one major national poll has shown to be popular. A quick glance at this week's surveys shows about a 10 percent spread between those who favor the latest health care legislation and those who oppose it.

It was Father's Day, 1964, when the Phillies' Jim Bunning, a father of seven, took the mound against the Mets. Ninety pitches later, Bunning had struck out 10 and allowed not one batter to reach first base. Twenty-seven up, 27 down. The first perfect game in 86 years in the National League, and the finest hour of the Hall of Famer's baseball career.

Some years ago, one of my favorite doctors retired. On my last visit to his office, he took some time to explain to me why he was retiring early and in good health. Being a doctor was becoming more of a hassle as the years went by, he said, and also less fulfilling. It was becoming more of a hassle because of the increasing paperwork, and it was less fulfilling because of the way patients came to him. He was currently being asked to Xerox lots of records from his files, in order to be reimbursed for another patient he was treating. He said it just wasn't worth it. Whoever was paying-- it might have been an insurance company or the government-- would either pay him or not, he said, but he wasn't going to jump through all those hoops.

WASHINGTON -- So the yearlong production, set to close after Massachusetts' devastatingly negative Jan. 19 review, saw the curtain raised one last time. Obamacare lives. After 34 speeches, three sharp electoral rebukes (Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts) and a seven-hour seminar, the president announced Wednesday his determination to make one last push to pass his health care reform.

WASHINGTON -- Memo to that Massachusetts school where children in physical education classes jump rope without using ropes: Get some ropes. And you -- you are about 85 percent of all parents -- who are constantly telling your children how intelligent they are: Do your children a favor and pipe down. These are nuggets from "NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children" by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.

WASHINGTON -- For all our bemoaning the tortures of health care reform, the debate has been healthy for the nation. Everybody's crazy aunts and uncles have been let out of their respective attics and basements, and it's good to know who they are. It's also been helpful for Americans to see how the sausage is made and figure out whether they really want any.

The deficit for last year was $1.4 trillion. The deficit rose as a share of the gross domestic product from 3.1 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009, the highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945. The projected deficit for the fiscal year that ends in September is another $1.3 trillion.

With publication of "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, the hunt was on for the "missing link." Fame and fortune awaited the scientist who found the link proving Darwin right: that man evolved from a monkey.

Most discussions of health care are like something out of Alice in Wonderland. What is the biggest complaint about the current medical care situation? "It costs too much." Yet one looks in vain for anything in the pending legislation that will lower those costs.

It starts with the countdown10-9-8-7the anticipation builds.6-5-4.your heart begins to race3-2-1Blastoff! Watching a rocket take off from the Kennedy Space Center on television is an impressive sight. It is a moving experience that leaves you awestruck when you see it in person.

Florida lost more than 38,000 businesses last year and more than 1.1 million hard working Floridians are unemployed. The Florida Chamber of Commerce has a multi-point plan to change all of that in 2010. While government doesnt create jobs, the Florida legislature can, and should, do everything in its power to send a strong message to entrepreneurs that job creation is job one in the upcoming legislative session.

"More talk, no deal" was The Wall Street Journal's headline on Thursday's Blair House health care summit. "After summit flop, Democrats prepare to go it alone on Obamacare," proclaimed the headline here at The Washington Examiner. These were appropriate verdicts if you viewed the summit as an attempt to reach bipartisan agreement or even a limited consensus.