Another Hillary Scandal - The indictment of Hillary Clinton's 2000 campaign-finance director, David Rosen, may pose a threat to the senator's presidential bid. For now, the federal indictment is focused only on Rosen, but it is not hard to see the process creeping up the campaign food chain to the senator herself. - More...
Wednesday - January 12, 2005

Who's A 'Penny Pincher'? - According to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, America is a land of "penny pinchers" who are not sufficiently generous to the needy in the rest of the world. Citing our relatively low level of per-capita official governmental foreign aid, he refuses to take issue with the recent charge by a U.N. official that we are "stingy." - More...
Monday - January 10, 2005

Beware Of Changing Cloture - If Senate Republicans change the filibuster rule to permit closure on judicial nominations by a simple majority vote, they will be undermining their own president and their electoral fortunes for years to come. - More...
Wednesday - December 22, 2004

Elites Lost To People Power - The election of 2004 will be seen historically as the beginning of a dramatic reshaping of the techniques, methods and tactics of American politics. - More...
Wednesday - December 15, 2004

To Save The U.N., Cut The Dues - Whether the United Nations were located in New York or in Geneva, Congress cannot and should not continue to spend our money paying dues to an organization that will not open its records to our elected officials who are seeking to investigate numerous reports of corruption reaching high up in the U.N. organization. - More...
Wednesday - December 08, 2004

What's Not W's Mandate - The Christian right has sought to portray the president's re-election as a victory for their moral agenda, claiming that it was a mandate to legislate further curbs on abortion and to approve draconian Supreme Court nominees. - More...
Wednesday - December 01, 2004

While we looked away, Czar Putin stole Ukraine - Would-be czar Vladimir Putin has taken a giant step toward reasserting the regional hegemony of the former Soviet Union by stealing the election in Ukraine right under our noses. - More...
Thursday - November 25, 2004

It's Bill's Library, But Hill's Campaign - Events in Little Rock had less to do with a library retrospective of the Bill Clinton years than a campaign launch for the prospective presidency of Hillary Clinton. - More...
Saturday - November 20, 2004

Thoughts On A Second Term - Some second-term ideas for the triumphant Bush administration... More
Thursday - November 18, 2004

The Ad War: Billion-Dollar Draw - Despite the massive advertising in swing states by both parties and their allied 527 committees, the evidence is that ads didn't work in the elections of 2004. - More...
Wednesday - November 10, 2004

Missing Bin Laden - When John Kerry tries to spin the bin Laden tape to his own advantage, he is fond of saying that the ghoul's message just serves to indicate that he is still around because Bush failed to get him "when he was surrounded" in Tora Bora. - More...
Tuesday - November 02, 2004

Why Bush Will Win - Here's a two-part test to determine who will win on Tuesday....
Saturday - October 30, 2004

Nobody Knows - So now the Zogby poll, which had seen more Kerry strength than most, is picking up a Bush surge - while the Rasmussen poll, which trended for Bush, is seeing a Kerry bump. - More...
Wednesday - October 27, 2004

The L-Word Sticks - With only two weeks to go, President Bush and his campaign demonstrated once again that they are playing chess while Kerry is playing checkers. - More...
Tuesday - October 19, 2004

'Nuisance' Nonsense - Sen. John Kerry has just explained, clearly and lucidly, the difference between the Democratic and Republican approaches on how to fight terrorism: He told the New York Times Magazine that, as a "former law-enforcement person," he knew that we could not wipe out terrorism, but hoped we could repress it until it became a "nuisance," not a mortal threat. - More...
Wednesday - October 14, 2004

The President Is Back - The president finally showed the guts, determination and focus that earned him victories in the three debates with Al Gore. He finally did his homework. He focused on his briefing points and mobilized his rhetoric to win the second debate. - More...
Monday - October 11, 2004

Deer In The Headlights - Tuesday night John Edwards went from seeming to be like JFK to emulating Dan Quayle in the space of 90 minutes. Confronted with Dick Cheney's obvious competence, incisive parries to his charges and devastating rebuttal of his phony statistics, Edwards looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights. - More...
Thursday - October 07, 2004

The Anti-War Turn Is A Loser - Stung by criticism that his campaign lacks direction and focus, Sen. John Kerry has chosen to base his candidacy on an all-out assault on President Bush's record in Iraq - indeed, opted to move to the left decisively and attack the war head-on. - More...
Wednesday - September 29, 2004

Why Shakeup Won't Save Kerry - John Kerry's recent shakeup of his campaign illustrates his larger problem: He is playing a simple game of checkers, while President Bush is playing a subtle game of chess. - More...
Wednesday - September 22, 2004

Beyond The Bush Bounce - President Bush enters September with a remarkable double-digit lead as a result of one of the most successful conventions in recent years. The key to the GOP success was, of course, its focus on terrorism, reminding Americans what a dangerous world we inhabit. The Republicans also moved to the center, featuring pro-choice and socially moderate orators like Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Zell Miller and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. - More...
Friday - September 10, 2004

On Target - No wonder Rudy Giuliani, Ed Koch, Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. John McCain brought the Republican Convention to its feet with their stirring pleas to fight terror and re-elect President Bush. - More...
Thursday - September 02, 2004

Bush Bounce A'Building - After one of the weakest convention performances in memory, John Kerry has had the worst post-convention period since Walter Mondale found himself defending Geraldine Ferraro's husband's business accounting in 1984. - More...
Tuesday - August 31, 2004

The Next Prez? Osama May Decide - More than any other single individual, more than George W. Bush, more than John Kerry, it is Osama bin Laden who will determine the winner of the election in November. - More...
Wednesday - August 18, 2004

The Partisan Peril - It is hard to believe, but recent polling by the Fox News Channel suggests that more than a third of American voters believe that the Bush administration is manipulating the terror warnings for political advantage. This ridiculous suspicion is the Democratic equivalent of those Republicans who labeled Bill Clinton's rocket attacks in Afghanistan in the hopes of killing Osama bin Laden a wagging of the dog. - Read more...
Thursday - August 12, 2004

The Bagel Candidacy - I LOVED Bill Clinton's speech. I was inspired by John Edwards. Barack Obama thrilled me. Max Cleland made me grow as a person as I heard him . . . Read more...
Monday - August 02, 2004

Masterpiece - The master returned to center stage Monday night as Bill Clinton showed how to address a convention and use issues to win elections. - Read more...
Wednesday - July 28, 2004

Kerry's Quandary - John Kerry has a fundamental strategic problem that he must resolve during this week's Democratic National Convention in Boston: Should he campaign on the nexus of issues surrounding terror or focus on domestic concerns? - Read more...
Tuesday - July 27, 2004

Kennedy vs. Clinton: The Dem Divide - Just as the Democratic Party in the later 1960s was dominated by the schism between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, so the party in this decade is likely to be mired in a split between the Clintons on the one hand and Ted Kennedy and John Kerry on the other. - Read more...
Thursday - July 22, 2004

Mr. Sharon, Build This Wall - As the Cold War waned, President Ronald Reagan went to Berlin and defiantly turned to the Soviet Union and said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Now, we should turn toward Israel and say, despite the recent decision of the International Court, "Mr. Sharon, build this wall!" - Read more...
Thursday - July 15, 2004

Disaster is Lurking - John Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his vice presidential candidate is getting predictable but sincere applause from Democrats, relieved that some charisma will enliven their presidential ticket. But the initial positive reaction may not last long as the Bush campaign zeroes in on Edwards' vulnerability: his presidential campaign contributors. - Read more...
Thursday - July 08, 2004

Bush's Churchill vs. Kerry's Atlee - The basic issue in the 2004 election is not a clash of two leaders or two parties or even two ideologies. It is a battle between two issues for supremacy. It boils down to a simple question: Do voters want a wartime or a peacetime president? - Read more...
Thursday - July 01, 2004

Kerry's Stealth Strategy - Senator John Kerry is becoming the first modern dark-horse candidate - in an old sense of the term. - Read more...
Wednesday - June 23, 2004

U.K.'s Declaration Of Independence - On Sunday, a small group of freedom-loving Brits, the United Kingdom Independence Party, scored amazing gains in the European Parliamentary elections, winning almost 20 percent of the vote. - Read more...
Wednesday - June 16, 2004

Clinton Was Reagan's Ratifier - What was most unique about Ronald Reagan was his inner compass, his internalized sense of himself. Most politicians are narcissists. They lack a sure grasp of who they are and seek not only ratification but also self-definition in the eyes of others. - Read more...
Thursday - June 10, 2004

Terrorists For Kerry - Osama bin Laden could have made a good living as a political consultant if he did not choose to kill babies instead. The al Qaeda/Ba'ath Party strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan is, at core, a political one. They seek not just to pull Iraq into chaos, but to defeat President Bush as well. - Read more...
Tuesday - June 08, 2004

Mr. Bush, You're President of America, Not Iraq - he defining issue President Bush needs to press in this election is domestic security against terrorism. Only by expanding the terror issue and relocating it from Iraq to the United States can he hope to win the votes of the women who are backing Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). - Read more...
Thursday - June 03, 2004

The World's Firefighter - The horrific human, financial and political cost of the occupation of Iraq suggests a need to review our nation's role in the post-9/11 world: The United States can't be the world's policeman - but must be the world's firefighter. - Read more...
Saturday - May 29, 2004

The War Could Beat Kerry Or Bush - Al Gore let Ralph Nader sabotage his presidential chances in 2000 by vacating the environmentalist niche that had sustained him for his entire political career. By sublimating his greenish agenda to more "mainstream" issues like Social Security, Medicare and prescription drugs, Gore invited Nader, the Green Party nominee, to occupy the ground he had vacated. - Read more...
Tuesday - May 25, 2004

The Rigidification Of George Bush - In 1972, presidential historian David James Barber, writing in the shadow of Vietnam, described a process he called "rigidification" in his landmark work on presidential character. - Read more...
Thursday - May 20, 2004

To Buck Up U.S. Morale, Let's Leave Iraq To The Iraqis - John Adams said it best. Quoted by David McCullough in his wonderful biography of our second president, as Adams defended the Redcoats in court against charges stemming from the Boston Massacre, Adams said: "Soldiers quartered in a populous town will always occasion two mobs where they prevent one. They are wretch-ed conservators of peace." - Read more...
Thursday - May 13, 2004

Clinton Steals The Show - Bill Clinton has now been out of office for 39 months. There are but six months to go until the election. Why must he choose June to publish his memoirs? - Read more...
Thursday - May 06, 2004

How To Buy A French Vote - Anyone who pines for genuine international multilateralism would do well to follow the bribes now being uncovered in the United Nations' Oil-for- Food scandal. - Read more...
Friday - April 30, 2004

Dubya In Trouble - Both of the polling organizations that track the presidential race in daily surveys have concluded that the contest has settled into a stalemate. Scott Rasmussen reports that for eight of the last nine days, President Bush has gotten 45 to 46 percent of the vote, while Sen. John Kerry ranged from 44 to 46 percent. John Zogby shows Kerry ahead by three and reports little movement either way. - Read more...
Thursday - April 22, 2004

Iraq Could Doom Bush - President Bush had a narrow brush with disaster last week as the casualties mounted amid escalating Iraqi violence. The daily tracking polls of Scott Rasmussen show that 10 days ago Bush was three points ahead of Kerry. His attack ads had the Democrat reeling. Then, from April 3-7, Bush fell by nine points and ended his crash trailing Kerry by six. - Read more...
Thursday - April 15, 2004

Kerry's Crash Continues - The latest daily tracking polls by Scott Rasmussen show that President Bush has moved up six points in the past week to take a three-point lead over Sen. John Kerry. The Bush surge is catalyzed by his negative ads, which castigate the Democrat's record on taxes and terrorism, and by the Kerry camp's abysmal failure to answer the charges effectively in paid advertising. - Read more...
Wednesday - April 07, 2004

Why Clarke Helped Bush - The 2004 contest is not between two men, two parties or even two ideologies so much as it is between two issues. The most recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll (March 26, 2004) highlights the contrast. - Read more...
Thursday - April 01, 2004

A Blowout In The Making - The Bush ads are working: Two weeks ago, the Washington Post poll showed Sen. John Kerry ahead of President Bush by 11 points, and the Gallup Poll had him up by 8, while more recent polls reflect a dead heat between the two. - Read more...
Thursday - March 25, 2004 - 12:15 am

Bush Ads Hit the Mark - At last George W. Bush is doing what he needs to do to win this election - run ads that explain John Kerry's liberalism to moderate swing voters. - Read more...
Friday - March 19, 2004 - 1:10 am

For Hillary in 2004, It's Now or Never - If Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) beats President Bush and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) is not on the Democratic ticket as a vice presidential candidate, she will probably never be president of the United States. This cold, hard fact is staring the Clintons in the face as they assess the best way to inaugurate a new Clinton presidency. - Read more...
Thursday - March 18, 2004 - 12:55 am

How 'Flip-Flop' Kills Kerry - It is increasingly clear that President Bush's line of attack against Kerry will be to describe him as a flip-flopping politician, changing his positions constantly to suit the political needs of the moment. One negative ad, previewed on "Meet the Press," showed an animation of two John Kerry boxers battling one another. The winner? George W. Bush. - Read more...
Thursday - March 11, 2004 - 12:50 am

Democrats' Mistake - The Democratic Party slit its throat Tuesday night, abandoning 12 years of pragmatism to indulge in a nominee who's very unlikely to win. - Read more...
Saturday - March 06, 2004 - 1:00 am

Dubya's Dilemma - February 24, 2004 -- THE most recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, the worst ever for George W. Bush, shows why he is in trouble and what he must do to get out of danger. - Read more...
Wednesday - February 25, 2004 - 1:15 am

Why W. Must Bash Kerry Now - The 2004 presidential election may be decided in the next two months. - Read more...
Thursday - February 19, 2004 - 12:45 am

Bush's State Of The Union Message Was Historic Failure - During Bill Clinton's eight years in the White House, State of the Union speeches were the pillars that held up his presidency. His popularity would soar in the weeks after the speech and sag as the year unfolded, only to be revivified by another speech in January. - Read more...
Saturday - February 14, 2004 - 1:10 am

Hillary's Veepstakes - The demise of Howard Dean's candidacy opens the door to a Kerry/Clinton ticket in 2004. As long as Dean was favored to get the nomination, Hillary likely wasn't interested in the second slot on the ticket. With the Vermont governor almost certain to go down to a massive defeat, Hillary probably wanted no part in the ensuing carnage. But now that the Democrats have a real chance to win, it makes all kinds of sense to offer her the nomination and for her to accept it. - Read more...
Wednesday - February 04, 2004 - 1:15 am

Dems' Race Ain't Over Yet - Most analyses of the New Hampshire results miss the point. In fact, the Democratic nomination probably won't be decided by a contest in which John Kerry beats Howard Dean and never really has to come to terms with also-rans like John Edwards and Wesley Clark. - Read more...
Saturday - January 31, 2004 - 1:10 am

Death By Negatives - The negative ads of Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt succeeded brilliantly: They both lost Monday in Iowa. The winners - John Kerry and John Edwards - both abstained from negatives and won. - Read more...
Thusday - January 22, 2004 - 12:50 am

Hispanics: Key To GOP's Future - President Bush's immigration/amnesty proposal will probably be remembered in history as the idea that saved a political party. - Read more...
Friday - January 16, 2004

Dr. Dean's Advance: Unstoppable - If Howard Dean wraps up victories in the early primaries, as now seems quite likely, he may find that he has won them too well, so that his victories contain the seeds of his own destruction. But he'll likely survive - thanks, ironically, to the work of the party establishment. Read more...
Thursday - January 08, 2004 - 1:00 am

The Ricochet Effect - Why does the opposition party tend to become dominated by its own extremists when it is out of power? Why did the Democrats follow liberal leaders like Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis while Ronald Reagan was president? Why did the right under Newt Gingrich take over the Republican Party during the Clinton years? Why is Howard Dean dominating the Democrats these days? - Read more...
Wednesday - December 31, 2003 - 12:10 am

GOP Senate Hopes - Lost among the focus on the Democratic presidential race is the likelihood of a huge Republican gain in the U.S. Senate in the 2004 elections. Even without a landslide victory for Bush (quite possible if Howard Dean wins the Democratic nod), the way races are shaping up, the Republicans have a lot to gloat about. - Read more...
Saturday - December 27, 2003 - 12:30 am

Hillary's Veepstakes - Especially now that the capture of Saddam Hussein could turn the Iraq war into a positive for George Bush, Howard Dean may turn to Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his vice presidential candidate. And, especially now that Al Gore has un-retired, Hillary might just accept. - Read more...
Saturday - December 20, 2003 - 12:45 am

Why Gore's Backing Dean - It's payback time for Al Gore. Dissatisfied at how thoroughly forgotten he is among active Democrats and resentful of all the attention Sen. Hillary Clinton, his White House rival, is getting, Al has reportedly decided to flank the Clintons by backing Howard Dean for president. - Read more...
Wednesday - December 10, 2003 - 1:00 am

Hillary's Badwill Tour - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has just returned from a badwill tour of Iraq, seeking to use the façade of saluting the troops and sharing their Thanksgiving to undermine the political support for their mission. - Read more...
Wednesday - December 03, 2003 - 1:00 am

The Front - The Democratic Party is being replaced by a new group called "Americans Coming Together," which has been launched with two $10 million donations from financier George Soros and Peter B. Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corporation. The new organization wants to raise $94 million to finance a massive campaign against Bush - all with soft money. - Read more...
Wednesday - November 26, 2003 - 12:30 am

Dean's Iraq Quagmire - It is very easy for Howard Dean to predicate his primary campaign on criticizing U.S. involvement in Iraq. But it may be very hard in the general election. - Read more...
Thursday - November 20, 2003 - 12:55 am

The Clark Collapse - Old soldiers who run for president, to paraphrase MacArthur, never die, they just fade away. Wesley Clark has just faded. - Read more...
Wednesday - November 12, 2003 - 1:00 am

W's Weapon Against Dean - As Howard Dean rolls toward the Democratic nomination, there seems to be no stopping him. Dick Gephardt is making a last-ditch stand in Iowa as is John Kerry in New Hampshire, but I don't give much for their chances. Once Dean hits the first multistate primary and faces Wesley Clark for the first time, he will have so much momentum that he will run over the general without even a pause. - Read more...
Thursday - November 06, 2003 - 12:50 am

The Activist Primary - The Democratic presidential races usually feature a thematic competition that foreshadows the earliest of primaries and determines the eventual nominee. The tough part is figuring out what this pivotal contest is about. Often, it is only apparent after one candidate has won it. - Read more...
Wednesday - October 29, 2003 - 12:30 am

Wes' Losing Plan - Attempting to cash in on his national standing without mucking around in the trenches of electoral warfare, Gen. Wesley Clark trumpets his decision to avoid the Iowa caucuses entirely and downplays his prospects in New Hampshire. But he cannot win the nomination without battling his way through the early caucuses and primaries. - Read more...
Wednesday - October 22, 2003 - 12:50 am

The Raging Fury Against The Political Establishment - There is always a temptation to put a partisan spin on voter anger and pretend it is directed at one or the other of our political parties. Republicans celebrate the upheaval of the Democrats in California. Democrats chuckle at Bush's dive in the polls. Republicans have their share of fun in watching first Howard Dean and then Wesley Clark eclipse the best and the brightest among the Democratic candidates. - Read more...
Thursday - October 16, 2003 - 12:45 am

Barbarians at The Gate - How did Arnold Schwarzenegger get to become the frontrunner in California's recall election? How did Wesley Clark come out of nowhere to lead the pack seeking the Democratic nomination? How has Howard Dean been able to parlay the Internet into fund-raising that surpasses the entire field of traditional Democratic pros? Why has President Bush slipped so dramatically in the polls? - Read more...
Wednesday - October 08, 2003 - 12:50 am

Dean's E-Reform - As he surges into the fund- raising lead among the Democratic '04 presidential contenders, Howard Dean is also catalyzing the most far-reaching of reforms in campaign finance. Indeed, the Dean campaign will likely mark the end of the big money era in our politics, when campaigns were dominated by ultra-wealthy donors or special interests contributing massive amounts of money. - Read more...
Friday - October 03, 2003 - 12:50 am

Why Clark Will Fade - The shocking truth about the U.S. presidential race is that the sudden and headlong collapse of President Bush's popularity has created such a vacuum that a new candidate such as retired Gen. Wesley Clark has no difficulty soaring to the top of the polls based on one week's publicity. - Read more...
Thursday - September 25, 2003 - 12:50 am

Terror Fears Fade Too Fast - The 9/11 attack is a wound that healed too quickly. The skin has knit over the gash; only a scar remains visible. Yet, underneath, infection still roils and an abscess oozes. - Read more...
Thursday - September 18, 2003 - 12:20 am

As Dubya Sinks, Al and Hill Scheme - Here's what I see happening in the 2004 presidential race: Al Gore is watching President Bush. Hillary Clinton is watching Gore. Bush is watching Hillary and the Democrats are watching Dean. - Read more...
Wednesday - September 10, 2003 - 12:55 am

Bias-mongers On Rocks As Viewers Taste Straight News - I am sure we were all surprised to learn in the Aug. 11 issue of The New York Times that people are " burned out on serious news." How else could the bastion of establishment journalism account for the falloff in network news viewership and, unnoted in the article, the newspaper's own decreasing circulation? - Click here to read more...
Wednesday - August 21, 2003 - 12:30 am

Hillary Clinton Might Not Want to Wait Until 2008 - In 1968, a carpetbag senator from New York pondered a race to unseat an incumbent president. Determined to capitalize on his family name, raised to mythic proportions by his relative's tenure in the White House, he judged, nevertheless, that his time had not yet come and that he should wait for four more years to venture out and run on his own. - Click here to read more...
Wednesday - August 06, 2003

As Bush Falters, Watch Hill Run - George W. Bush's job approval ratings are dropping a point every other week. Most polls now have his support down in the high or mid-50s. Pollster John Zogby has them at 53 percent - a huge drop from the low 70s he was registering just two months ago. - Click here to read more...
Friday - July 25, 2003 - 12:05 am

Peace Dominoes Begin To Fall - Does anybody seriously believe that there would be a cease-fire between Israel and the most extreme Palestinian terrorists groups if the United States did not have 150,000 troops in Iraq? - Click here to read more...
Wednesday - July 23, 2003 - 12:15 am

Let's Hear The Good News - An unexplained vacuum of good news from the Bush administration has surrendered the stage to the media-inspired doubters and naysayers who have searched since Sept. 11 for a way to blunt the nation's momentum as it confronts terrorism and terrorists. - Click here to read more...
Thursday - July 17, 2003 - 1:25 pm

McGovern II - Dr. Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor now rallying liberals in the nation's Democratic primaries, is forcing the party into a potentially lethal march to the left. - Click here to read more...
Saturday - July 12, 2003 - 2:20 pm

Sending Troops To Liberia Could Be A Bridge Too Far - The Bush administration is showing signs of all of the vices of successful foreign policies - arrogance, overreaching, elitism, and messianic zeal - in its decision to enter the Liberian quagmire. - Click here to read more...
Thursday - July 10, 2003 - 12:30 am

And Now The Dominos Begin To Fall - The Vietnam War, waged for the sake of falling dominos, gave the chain reaction a bad reputation as a reason for public policy. - Click here to read more...
Monday - July 07, 2003 - 1:50 pm

W's Triangulation - President Bush has stolen all the Democratic issues.... Offering prescription-drug benefits under traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Expanded education funding. Boosting Head Start. Banning road construction in Wilderness Areas. Providing tax credits for lower-middle-income families. Ending racial profiling. Replacing expensive branded medicines with cheaper generic drugs. - Click here to read more...
Sunday - June 29, 2003 - 2:20 pm

Times Not A-Changing - Anyone who thinks that Howell Raines' resignation will restore editorial balance to The New York Times is in for a sad disappointment. The following excerpt from my book, "Off with Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media and Business" (published today), examines an incident that shows the partisan tilt of Joseph Lelyveld, Raines' successor - and predecessor - as the Times' executive editor. - Click here to read more...
Thursday - June 19, 2003 - 11:55 am

THE AL SHARPTON FACTOR - WILD CARD FOR '04 - Will civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton be the Ralph Nader of 2004? Sharpton, now running for the Democratic nomination for president knows he can't win his party's nod, but he turns coy when he's asked if he'll run as an independent in November, '04. "I intend to be my party's candidate," he says, making a statement that the average six year old knows isn't true. "The question is: Will the other candidates support me after I win the nomination!" - Click here to read more...
Saturday - June 14, 2003 - 12:05 am

President Puts Tax Cuts On '04 Agenda - As he desperately tried to head off Bill Clinton in 1992, President George H.W. Bush could not use his best weapon - the tax issue - to defend his incumbency. Although Clinton's record of tax increases in Arkansas offered an attractive target, Bush's reversal of his 1988 campaign pledge - "read my lips - no new taxes" - left him unable to make the likelihood of a Clinton tax increase the key issue in the campaign. His failure to do so cost him the presidency. - Click here to read more...
Saturday - June 07, 2003 - 12:50 pm

A Book About Clinton's Wasted Second Term - A second term is a terrible thing for a president to waste. Sidney Blumenthal's new book makes clear how totally Bill Clinton wasted it. He was a one-term president who lived in the White House for eight years. - Click here to read more...
Thursday - May 29, 2003 - 12:30 am

The Importance of Being Present - Presidential candidate and former House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt has dug himself an early grave in his pursuit of the White House. During his campaign, since the first of the year, he has missed 84% of the votes in the House of Representatives, showing up for fewer than one vote out of every five. - Click here to read more...
Wednesday - May 14, 2003 - 12:05 am

Queen Noor's Anti-Semitism - OH, that Khadafy! Jordan's Queen Noor assures us that the Libyan dictator and his wife are such a "delightful and charming couple," with whom she spent "a remarkably pleasant evening." - Click here to read more...
Thursday - May 08, 2003

BUSH CAN LOSE - As George Santayana put it "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." He might have included an injunction to remember the past accurately. - Click here to read more...
Wednesday - April 30, 2003 - 12:05 am

RUSSIA'S PLACE AT THE TABLE - Moscow, April 18... A week in the Russian capital meeting with the staff of former President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian experts on America makes clear how far President Vladimir Putin has strayed from Moscow's real interests in his misguided policy on Iraq. - Click here to read more...
Friday - April 25, 2003 - 1:00 pm

DON'T HONOR SADDAM'S OIL BRIBES - Why do you think France, Russia and China sided with Saddam Hussein in the United Nations Security Council against the invasion of Iraq? It was because their support was bought and paid for by the Iraqi dictator. Now, in the ruins of his empire, the question is whether the world will honor his bribes. - Click here to read more...
Tuesday - April 22, 2003 - 12:45 pm

Media Meltdown - One byproduct of war is often a major change in media and news reporting. In the Civil War, photography was born. In World War II, Edward R. Murrow brought radio into its own with his dramatic reports of the Nazi blitz on London. In Vietnam, television became pivotal as images of bloodshed soured American backing for the war. The Gulf War saw the growth of CNN as all-news television became essential. - Click here to read more...
Saturday - April 19, 2003 - 7:00 pm

Giving Government a Good Name - The alienation between the government of the United States and its people has narrowed sharply in the past two weeks, as the story of the war in Iraq has unfolded on our TV screens. The conviction that the government will not tell the truth, which lay at the root of that distrust, has been laid to waste by the forthrightness and openness of the war coverage by the Bush administration. - Click here to read more...
Thursday - April 10, 2003 - 10:50 am

Never Mind The Media - Don't get too worried by the absurd media gloom about the war: The American people aren't listening, and neither should President Bush. - Click here to read more...
Saturday - April 05, 2003 - 1:00 pm

"THE STRONG GROW WEAK THROUGH INHIBITION" - As American troops face Iraqi soldiers, they confront an enemy whose major defense is our reluctance to use the force we have if there is a significant danger that we will kill innocent civilians. No better example can be found of what Henry Kissinger called the process by which "the weak grow strong through effrontery and the strong grow weak because of inhibitions." - Read more...
Wednesday - March 26, 2003 - 1:15 pm

BUSH BEARS THE BURDEN - His tie hung low around his shrunken neck like a necklace. His ears seemed larger as his face looked gaunt. Hair graying, his eyes burned with intensity and purpose as he addressed his nation announcing the war. The burden of the presidency seemed etched in the lines of his face. George W. Bush looks like he has aged ten years in the last twenty-seven monthsand matured twenty years. Elected president, he has become a leader. - Read more...
Wednesday - March 19, 2003 - 3:30 pm

POLL: GET ON WITH IT - Support for military action to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power is higher than it has been in the past six months, but Americans are getting antsy about the endless diplomatic delays. The latest FoxNews/Opinion Dynamics survey showed that 71% support invading Iraq - with a new high of 54% strongly supporting it - but Americans want it done now! - Read more...
Sunday - March 16, 2003 - 3:40 pm

DECONSTRUCTING THE UNITED NATIONS - If the long awaited second resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq does not pass the United Nations Security Council, the Bush Administration should deconstruct the U.N. vote and pin the blame on specific countries. - Read more...
Wednesday - March 13, 2003 - 12:40 pm

THE WHOLE (HISPANIC) WORLD IS WATCHING - The Democrats are talking themselves to death in their filibuster against the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the federal bench. The more they talk, the more it is clear that they have nothing to say and no reason to block the nomination of one of the few Hispanics to be nominated to the senior levels of our judiciary. - Read more...
Monday - March 10, 2003 - 12:45 pm

DOMINO THEORY WORKS IN IRAQ - Remember the domino theory? First explained by President Eisenhower, it posited that if Vietnam fell, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore would be next. Then the Philippines and Indonesia. Soon we'd be fighting in San Francisco. It was wrong. Vietnam felland nothing happened. - Read more...
Tuesday - March 04, 2003 - 1:15 pm

CHIRAC, BLAIR - THEY'RE TRIANGULATING - Most Americans are baffled by Chirac's hostility and thrilled by Blair's support of Administration policy. But few really appreciate the internal political reasons for their positions. - Read more...
Thursday - February 27, 2003 - 7:45 pm

UNITED STATES LAUNCHES A COUP AGAINST IRAQ - American plans for invasion of Iraq look a lot more like a coup d'etat than a takeover of a nation. By aiming surgically at the leaders in Baghdad and isolating them from the rest of the military structure they command, Bush seeks to decapitate the Iraqi leadership rather than conquer the nation. - Read more...
Wednesday - February 26, 2003 - 1:45 pm

THE POST IRAQ CONSEQUENCES - It doesn't matter what the polls say right now about the War in Iraq. When we invade, we will either find or not find what Secretary of State Colin Powell says is there. If we do not find it, Bush will be in serious trouble. If we do, all of his critics will be. - Read more...
Wednesday - February 19, 2003 - 12:25 pm

OLD EUROPE'S LAST HURRAH - The objection of France and Germany to acting on the obvious necessity of disarming and dismantling Saddam Hussein's regime is not the first breath of a new age of peace but the last hurrah for outdated ex-colonial powers seeking to throw around a weight they don't have. - Read more...
Tuesday - February 18, 2003 - 1:00 pm

PLEA DEAL FOR SADDAM? - In times past, dictators packed their bags when they saw the Marines land and headed out of town. That's how we democratized Haiti without loss of life. The Haitian dictators left the country in 1993 at the behest of emissaries Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell as an amphibious American force was anchored ominously offshore. - Read more...
Monday - February 17, 2003 - 8:00 pm