For years, most Americans' vision of history has been shaped by the New Deal historians. Writing soon after Franklin Roosevelt's death, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and others celebrated his accomplishments and denigrated his opponents.

One of the interesting things about recent elections is that Republicans have tended to do better the farther you go down the ballot.

Presidents' State of the Union addresses are delivered in the chamber of the House of Representatives in the Capitol.

There were two extraordinary disclosures in Thursday's testimony of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The House Republicans, in serious trouble with public opinion as they blinked facing the "fiscal cliff" over New Year's, seem suddenly to be playing a more successful game -- or rather, games -- an inside game and an outside game.

Our major public policies are based on the assumption that America will continue to enjoy growth. Economic growth and population growth.

These days, our political parties are defined by their presidents. Their policies and their programs tend to become their respective parties' orthodoxies.

Commentators both left and right agree that Barack Obama's second inaugural speech Monday was highly partisan, with shoutouts to his constituencies on the left and defiance of his critics on the right.

To judge from his surly demeanor and defiant words at his press conference on Monday, Barack Obama begins his second term with a strategy to defeat and humiliate Republicans rather than a strategy to govern.

It's often good fun and sometimes revealing to divide American history into distinct periods of uniform length.