While leaders of the West repeatedly declare that they are out to make Afghanistan into a society free of corruption, with a stable democratic government and one that respects human rights, they turn a blind eye to such moral basics as protecting children from systemic sexual abuse.

At the time...

There is a consensus building in Washington, D.C. -- which has been joined by many leading Democrats (including the President) -- that Medicare outlays must be cut if our national deficit is to be reined in. At the same time, we hear relatively little about cutting the costs of health...

The topic of the day, both in Washington, D.C. and in the states, is how to cut the deficits. One of the best ways to proceed, which has so far received scant attention, is for the federal government and most states to change the peculiar way they tax liquor, wine...

These days, I am interviewing college graduates for research assistant jobs. I do not bother those who seem to believe that proofreading their application is a waste of time and whose term papers are written as if English was their fourth language. After a brief chitchat ("What do you see...

Predicting political developments is a treacherous business. Social scientists like me turn out to be wrong all too often. Nevertheless, I will predict the outcome of the hectic negotiations on raising the debt limits -- and show why this is not much of a boast.

I predict that a deal...

Sometimes a very limited exchange of words captures well a much greater issue. This was the case last Saturday during the weekly presidential radio broadcast and the Republican rebuttal.

The GOP commentary was delivered by Congressman Adam Kinzinger. He went right on the attack about the wrongheaded policies that are...

Sometimes a small observation speaks volumes. Recently CNN's Gloria Borger reported that when she asked Democratic voters what the Republican message was, they regurgitated it easily and correctly. When Borger asked them what the Democratic message was, the voters couldn't respond.

I have strong reasons to believe the GOP message...

If you want to know what is going to happen next to your investments, the job and housing markets, and more generally to the economy, you may want to follow what is happening to the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes argued that when economies are sputtering, the...

The best advice I ever received from a psychoanalyst concerned the son of a friend of mine (let's call him Joe). Joe kind of adopted me, and often came over seeking advice. The young man was unrealistically optimistic. If his boss complimented him on some job he carried out, Joe...

The defense lawyer of Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the press that the sex his client had with the chambermaid was consensual. The press reported this statement as if it had the same standing as the claims by the maid that she was raped, leaving the matter in a he-says,...

Does it make sense to make airport security ever tighter and more intrusive while our shorelines are almost totally unsecured? Until recently, I kept my mouth shut when I was patted down more times than most because I have a pacemaker and cannot go through the screening gates. But then...

The recently held Congressional hearing about Muslims in America returns us to the question of whether "Islam is peace," as President George W. Bush put it on September 17, 2001, or a religion that promotes hate and violence, as its critics allege. Both are wrong. Islam -- like all other...

The president should declare that he would sign a bill that contains substantial additional budget cuts -- but only if it sets a trigger that activates them automatically after the unemployment stays at or below 7 percent for six months.

One can set the unemployment rate at some other figure...

I guess it is again open season on the author of The Feminine Mystique. In an article highlighting the importance of Betty Friedan's landmark feminist publication, the New Yorker's Louis Menard deviates from his literature review to report some...

President Obama has found a new way to deal with the difficult political situation he is facing as a result of the midterm elections. He recently unveiled a major policy move that cannot be easily boxed in as left or right, and hence serves his tendency to seek common ground....

One of the oldest rhetorical tricks is to present what is actually a political and ideological attack as if it were a mathematical inevitability, a purely scientific conclusion. Indeed, at first it is impossible to see the flaw in the argument that, because much of the federal budget is spent...

The most widely predicted course for Washington over the next two years is gridlock. "What we know is that we're going to have gridlock," says NBC's Chuck Todd. "On the big questions, especially federal spending and taxing, confrontation will be the order of the day [...] gridlock is likely to...

The reports from our generals in Afghanistan -- trying to convince the public to support extension of the war, to be shortly reviewed by the president-- remind me of a study by anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard. He wondered how rainmakers could stay in business, given that they hardly produce rain...

I am asking for your "vote." I posted on the CNN opinion page a call for a new antiwar movement, similar to the one against the war in Vietnam, teach-ins and rallies and all. If you find merit in the following, please consider (a) clicking "recommend" on

The newest way General Petraeus plans to measure success in the war in Afghanistan reminded me of what the government did when its campaign to persuade the public to stop smoking did not make much headway. It stopped counting how many people had had their last cigarette -- and started...