The president is either moping or muttering defensively about the abuses by the IRS and the tragedy of Benghazi. And to mollify the media about the alleged overreach of capturing the AP's phone records, he has offered to promote a legal shield for the media. As I see it, if...

During the opening rounds of a gun debate in London, beamed globally by Google Plus, I thought I was doing quite well. I started by telling the audience, brought together by Intelligence Squared, that I recently was showing off photos of my grandchildren in a doctor's waiting room,...

Sixty-five years ago it was far from obvious that Israel would survive; it was even far from obvious that a Jewish state would be created in the first place.

In 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for a resolution calling for the division of British-controlled Palestine into...

NPR's social science maven reported that President Obama may have undermined the success of gun control legislation when he stated that "We don't live in isolation, we live in a society. A government of, and for, and by the people. We are responsible for each other." Americans, Shankar Vendantam stated,...

The ads that recently appeared to the sides of buses in several American major cities declare: "#MyJihad is to march on despite losing my son," "#MyJihad: Modesty is not a weakness," "#MyJihad is to build bridges through friendship," and "#MyJihad is to not take the simple things in life for...

If you understand where President Obama is headed in his second term, pray send me an email. I like him, wish him Godspeed, and might well support where he is going -- if I could just figure out where that is.

I thought I got it during the inaugural speech....

We need a Coffee Party to wake up the American people, and there are fewer better wake up calls than Steven Brill's outstanding recent Time cover story, "Bitter Pill." Indeed, if you have time to read only one essay this month, make it this one. It not only...

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the quest for a new enemy is underway. The armed services who are fighting over shares of the threatened defense budget (the Air Force and Navy pitted against the Army), select corporations (in particular those that manufacture big weapon systems), and...

Nowhere is the defeatist liberal approach to American politics more evident than in the post-Newtown campaign for gun control. Liberals are rushing to repeat, like a devout incantation, hand on one's heart, that "we believe in the Second Amendment" -- in an "individual's right to own a gun." Half of...

When I served in the White House, I convinced a speech writer to insert a paragraph in favor of a policy I championed into President Carter's forthcoming speech. I was going (as many had before me) to use this paragraph to urge the relevant agencies to proceed, on the ground...

New York City is installing a system that will track people 24/7, using thousands of closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs), radiation and license plate readers, and other technologies. If it works as promised, Microsoft -- which is developing the software -- stands by to sell it to your city. The...

When President Obama first entered into office in 2009, he was riding a huge wave of hope. He was going to engage other nations rather than confront them, work closely with allies rather than rush ahead unilaterally, restore the good name of the United States across the word and win...

There is a very widely shared myth about "Washington." Accordingly, there are two camps, the right-wing GOP and the left-leaning Democrats, who are more or less matched. Each control one house of Congress, and command about half of the electorate. Hence, the gridlock.

Actually, much of American politics over...

The ink on the reports of the election results has barely dried and conservatives have already rolled out the first big post-election victory -- by enacting a so called "right to work" law in, of all places, Michigan. Previously, the labor unions that were defeated -- in the 23 states...

We should not wait for our elected officials, in President Obama's good words, "to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics." We should do our share. One way to proceed is to mark our homes, apartments and condos, with...

There is reason to believe that if the GOP will agree to raise the taxes on the super rich, President Obama will agree to cuts in Medicare. It is morally abhorrent to cut benefits to any current or future seniors before much greater efforts are made to stop...

Liberals are making victory laps and scoffing at the GOP, which is having great difficulties drawing lessons from the 2012 election debacle. However, liberals also have much to learn from the election. They will need to find other groups to collaborate with if they hope to get President Obama --...

Allowing the nation to go over the fiscal cliff for a very short period of time will provide all the legitimate political benefits of such a policy dive -- with few to none of the menacing losses that are looming at the bottom. We can readily fly off the cliff...

I do not want to dump on a general who has just been pushed off his pedestal by a jealous mistress. However, the nation deserves consolation -- the loss to America is much smaller than the media has made it out to be. General Petraeus has been depicted as a...

President Obama should not allow conservatives to define the agenda for the next four years. The very high priority granted to dealing with the fiscal cliff is a distraction because it defines the issue in terms of how much spending to cut and how much taxes ought to be raised....