This week, John Snow, Bush's former Secretary of the Treasury, claimed that one of the causes of the mortgage meltdown was that, in its zeal to increase homeownership, the Bush administration "forgot" that people had to be "able to afford their houses." Perfectly understandable. And it explains so much: Bush and company didn't mean to illegally torture prisoners at Gitmo - they simply "forgot" torture was illegal. They didn't mean to trample civil rights - they simply "forgot" about the Constitution. They didn't gin up phony intel to hype us into war - they simply "forgot" that WMD had to be real. Turns out their guiding principle has been Steve Martin's classic catch-all defense: "I forgot!" So, will Bush's parting words be, "Well, excuuuuuse me!"?
Micro-lending has changed lives. Now a wave of friends and "loose ties" within the social media community are bringing the micro-lending concept and applying it to charitable giving. Call it "Micro-giving."
I received a call from Rick Warren, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater.
I sent lyrics to Eartha. A day later, she called. "Brrrrruce, my love. Where have you been since 1952? This is so, so Eartha."
It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez faire capitalism. If not, the Dr. Frankensteins of the right will surely try to revive the monster and send it marauding through our economy once again.
What this crisis is going to do is bring us into financial alignment. Neighbors are going to meal share and carpool and child care -- less indoor gym workouts and more family outdoor time.
As the country went to the polls this past fall, the meme that America is a "center-right" country surged. I have some data to add to that debate, and it drives a final stake into the center-right talking-point.
In a sense, we made Madoff. This society and its desire for results and more results. The disease of more. The Bush legacy: No regulation. A free-for-all.
The pictures depicting a shirtless Mr. Obama wandering about on a deserted stretch of beach stoked fears that the U.S.'s financial woes were deeper than previously reported.
By sticking with its current acronym, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is in a precarious position made famous by the Nixon fundraising organization, the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP).
This is a Christmas and Hanukah season like no other. Many people have lost money. Millions are out of work, and those who still have jobs fear for their own future. It is a bad time, but also a good time.
I can already predict an email complaining that Bill O'Reilly doesn't make this list. It seems to me that some examples of stupidity are far too ubiquitous to be remarkable.
The Washington Post had the gall to run a column complaining about how "we" are passing on a bad world to our children. They're right about the problems, but wrong about the "we."
If India and Pakistan go to war, the world will lose. Big time. By putting conventional military pressure on Pakistan, is India calling what it perceives to be Pakistan's bluff under the belief that the U.S. will force nuclear restraint on Pakistan?
Sergeant Jeff Mahaffey's QRF (Quick Reaction Force) team is composed of 12 Marines and a medic. It is on call at all times. You could say Mahaffey's boys are the modern-day cavalry.
Ed Gillespie's recent online forum dissembling the "Myths and Facts About the Real Bush Record" should serve political science instructors well in the future as the epitome of dead-end political propaganda.
Obama should stop this torment that is being prepared for Kennedy by offering her the Court of St. James, the U.S. Ambassadorship to Great Britain.
At their essence, human rights, including a ban on torture, are about respecting human dignity. They are guiding principles for how and what governments ought and ought not do.
This isn't necessarily another angry take on Rick Warren. This is about fighting back in the age of Obama.
