Why doesn't Harry Reid force an old-fashioned filibuster that could make Republicans look silly? Because he can't.

The Senate Majority Leader must get 60 votes to start the health care debate -- which he aims to try tonight -- and he'll need that many again when it comes time to...

This Veterans Day is a fine time to visit Soapbox Alert and help urge formal recognition for some WWII soldiers who liberated a prison camp. The Alert on congress.org was posted by one of my blog readers whose father and...

White House gripes about FOX News might not be in Barack Obama's best interest (why give such foes the attention they crave?). But assertions by Glenn Beck and others that this is unprecedented are way off base. This president is certainly not the first to target unfriendly media.

In...

I have no quarrel with GQ's Top 50 Most Powerful DCers of '09, but in this video I get started on the most influential of ALL TIME.

Among the joys of writing a book with Helen Thomas is watching her cut to the chase no matter the mood of the moment. Not even President Obama's delightful Nobel Prize dissuades Thomas from her view that he still has plenty to learn. In this clip with CNN's Campbell Brown...

NBC's Ann Curry says it best at the end of this clip: "Go Helen." This morning on the "Today Show" we got a few clues about how this woman, who has covered the presidency for half a century, seems to always get to the bottom line. Lesson Number One: "The...

Suspicious that the White House is backing out of a public health insurance option, Helen Thomas gives Robert Gibbs yet another chance to fess up or deny. Noting that she's asked this many times, Gibbs says, "I apparently don't answer it to your satisfaction." Thomas replies, "That's right." Then she...

The hysterical pundit syndrome explains the secret of Glenn Beck's ubiquity. In this Video Trail Mix we explore how this political performance artist mastered the formula for exploiting the angry man genre first seen in fiction with the 1976 film Network. It's called finding your niche and building brand loyalty...

Once again, Democrats face the vortex of gun rights. They probably lost Congress in 1994 largely because then-President Bill Clinton backed the outlawing of assault weapons. This is so nuts. I grew up learning to shoot critters with my 20-guage shotgun, but I never EVER considered it a constitutional right....

President Obama is asking a lot of foreign leaders, but they are not telling him what he wants to hear. In this CQ Politics video I explore the nature of this new president's style. Maybe it's time for him to do less asking and instead let underlings work out...

So now President Obama's critics are all "wee-weed up" over czars in the White House, as if it's something new -- which it's not. In this CQ Politics video I explore the history of czarism in America, with special emphasis on FDR's Rubber Czar -- "Battling Bill" Jeffers, the man...

President Barack Obama soon decides whether to send even more troops to Afghanistan, despite narrowing our purpose there to the prevention of terrorist nests.

Here's an idea, Mr. President: Why not just bribe the Afghan war lords to keep the terrorists out? They could even be our proxies against the...

NBC News calls the public option a "fetish." Providing insurance to Americans who cannot afford or obtain coverage is a fetish? A fetish? Have things gone so awry that health care for all is considered a deviant concept? Seems to me that big media's knee-jerk defense of the status...

Americans chose change in 2008, picking a president who seemed to represent a profound shift from his predecessor in style, ideals, outlook and agenda.

On Wednesday night, Barack Obama gives new voice to what that means as he addresses Congress at a critical juncture in his young presidency.

So often...

Pardon me if I chuckle as libs such as Ed Schultz, who once maligned the Clintons with abandon, now gripe about Obama on health care and approvingly quote Bill (as he did tonight on his MSNBC show). Wasn't it obvious during the Democratic nomination race? Obama proffered the least ambitious...

Some might think that winning an online vote to be DC's official Class Clown would be a dubious honor, at best. But not me. I want the job because I think I could serve with honor and dignity. As of this writing, I am leading this category in FishbowlDC's annual...

Hey, United Airlines once named an offshoot "Ted." Why shouldn't Democrats give that a shot for health reform?

Sure, United ultimately gave up on Ted, the airline, so perhaps the brand is tainted.

Still, imagine the pressure it would put on wavering Democrats to name legislation creating public insurance after...

I couldn't go to school the morning after Robert F. Kennedy was killed. I had gone to sleep the night before, pleased that he had won the California primary, only to wake up learning that he was gone. It was a weirdly haunting recall of what is to this day...

I am honored and proud to have written an upcoming book with the incomparable, indefatigable and relentless Helen Thomas. With no reservations we concluded that John F. Kennedy was the best of our presidents in recent times. Here's what we wrote:

"Why do we say John...

Don't get me wrong, I love the Kennedys, I surely do. But the Lord Almighty made no harder rock than the stone he gave conservatives to toss at the Kennedys. In the end their personal foibles, liberal arrogance and political pride might have done more harm than good to the...