Columns

WASHINGTON -- Reaction to the horror at SeaWorld, a nightmare seldom seen outside Peter Benchley's imagination, has run the exhausted gamut. "Kill. The. Fish." was one talk-radio host's suggestion. "Save the whale" has been the sentiment of animal lovers, including the victim's family. So goes life in the Land of Twitter.

WASHINGTON -- Thursday's health policy "summit" comes at a moment when, as happens with metronomic regularity, Washington is reverberating with lamentations about government being "broken." Such talk occurs only when the left's agenda is stalled. Do you remember mournful editorials and somber seminars about "dysfunctional" government when liberals defeated George W. Bush's Social Security reforms?

WASHINGTON -- The RINO hunt is back on and the coveted trophy is Scott Brown. Inevitably and predictably, the new senator from Massachusetts -- Mr. 41, Mr. I-Drive-A-Truck, tea party poster dude -- has disappointed his base by, alas, representing his constituents. It's the purity test all over again; only this time, the stakes are high and the weird are turning seriously pro.

Tiger Woods doesn't owe me an apology. Nothing that he has ever done has cost me a dime nor an hour of sleep. This is not a plea to be "non-judgmental." I am very judgmental about all sorts of things, including Tiger Woods' bad behavior. But that is very different from saying that he somehow owes me an apology.

When Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana announced last week he wasn't running for re-election, he didn't state what may have seemed obvious. He couldn't say he wanted to avoid the embarrassment of losing, or that he worried he'd never achieve national office if that happened. Instead, he launched into a lecture about what was wrong with everyone else.

My recent bouts of vertigo, and the fall and concussion that resulted from one of them, meant that I was unable to attend the funeral services for a great American, Al Haig. So I'll eulogize him as best I can in this column space. Thank you, Gen. Haig.

WASHINGTON -- Amazingly, the congressional hearings on Toyota were relatively civilized. Apart from some inevitable theatrical hectoring, thequestioning was generally respectful, the emotions controlled. This was allthe more remarkable given the drama of some of the testimony, such as thatoffered by a tearful Rhonda Smith, who recounted how, in her runaway Lexus,she had called her husband because "I wanted to hear his voice one moretime."

Fox is having its usual smash with "American Idol," with this season's latest offering beating the Winter Olympics in the ratings. Paula Abdul walked off in a money dispute, Ellen DeGeneres is unexpectedly flat, and the show overall is starting to sag, but it's still just about the best thing on TV.

We inherited the worst situation since the Great Depression. That is the reflexive response of President Obama to the troubles from which he has been unable to extract his country. Even before the inauguration, he says, there were projections of a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009. That deficit is not my deficit.

As politicians position themselves for the 2010 elections, sure as the sun comes up in the morning, the ones who hold office will try to use this legislative session to attract attention and lure as much support as they can.

A few weeks ago President Barrack Obama announced his plan for NASA and boy was it a shocker! After promising -- twice -- during his campaign to preserve Americas space program, the president demonstrated an unfortunate lack of vision for the future of manned space flights. He proved his rhetoric was as hollow as his promises -- mere attempts to woo the people of the Space Coast so that he could win their votes for his election.

No president enters office knowing everything he needs to know. His experience is limited to some greater or lesser extent; his knowledge of the people from whom he will choose appointees is incomplete; his mastery of the substance of public policy, after years on the campaign trail, is likely to be out of date. And like all of us, he does not know what the future will bring. So presidents must rely on something else, something intangible and unquantifiable, in determining what is within the realm of possibility and what is a bridge too far: intuition.

A decade ago, Oldsmobile went. Last year, Pontiac. Saturn, Saab and Hummer were discontinued. A thousand GM dealerships shut down. To those who grew up in a "GM family," where buying a Chrysler was like converting to Islam, what happened to GM was deeply saddening. Yet the amputations had to be done -- or GM would die. And the same may be about to happen to the American Imperium.

Go ahead and throw mud at me. Kick me. Call me a Republican In Name Only. I don't care. This time, I'm siding with Alec Baldwin. The actor and liberal activist (and loud "vocalist") recently was rushed to a New York City hospital. It seems that his 14-year-old daughter, Ireland, phoned 911 and said Baldwin was in bad shape and may have suffered an overdose of some sort.