In the glossy pages of The New Yorker, in graceful prose and with good reporting, the dreams and nightmares of the admirers of Barack Obama and his policies lie exposed.

Some of society's most intractable problems come not from its failures but from its successes. Often you can't get a good thing without paying a bad price.

Not long ago, I wrote about how the private sector outraces and laps government. While governments dither and dispute, the private sector discovers.

One of the few issues on which opinion has moved left over the last few years is same-sex marriage.

Pundits lately have been comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter, suggesting he is a likely loser in 2012.

Never before has there been a televised presidential candidates debate so short a time before the Iowa Republicans' Ames straw poll.

Why Iowa? It was the 29th state to be admitted to the Union, it is the 30th state in population, it has given the nation Grant Wood's "American Gothic" and Meredith Willson's "The Music Man."

Why aren't voters moving to the left, toward parties favoring bigger government, during what increasingly looks like an economic depression?

"Leading from behind." That's what an unnamed White House aide told the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza that Barack Obama was doing on Libya.

Those who consider themselves constitutional conservatives should take care to consider not only the powers that the Constitution confers on the different branches of government and reserves to the states and the people, but also the schedule that the Constitution sets up for sharp changes and reversals of public policy.