Six days into Barack Obama's international tour, the Gallup daily tracking poll shows the race for president remains tight, with only two points separating the presumptive nominees, 45% to 43%, on combined data from July 21-23. Odd.

Everything has gone well for Obama on this foreign...

ABC News reports Saturday afternoon that some flunky in the Bush White House emailed to its full, extensive distribution list (all of the press, friendly religious leaders, conservative movers and shakers, etc.) a Reuters news story saying that duly elected Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki agrees with Barack Obama's timetable...

I remember when Newt Gingrich took a swipe at the Clintons after the1992 election, famously saying that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was now occupied by a bunch of "counter-culture McGoverniks."

Within a week I saw a cartoon (may have even been in the New Yorker) showing Bill and Hill...

James Baker has joined his nemesis from the 2000 Bush v Gore battle in recommending a stunning new piece of federal legislation: a law designed to rein in presidents who want to go to war half-cocked.

Gee, anybody we know?

The bipartisan National War Powers Commission, which Baker co-chaired...

I just filled up the car for the holiday weekend... $4.53 per gallon. It seems to go up a nickel or a dime every day.

As the dollar signs on the pump flew by, I unconsciously began to hum the song blaring from the outdoor speakers at the gas...

Keith Olbermann declared Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia the "Worst Person in the World" on the Thursday, June 26 edition of MSNBC's "Countdown." What got him up in arms was the Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment.

I'm tempted to give Olbermann a pass on this since he...

There's a debate over whether or not it's wise to have Rudy Giuliani as John McCain's campaign surrogate on matters of terrorism and homeland security. Obviously McCain thinks so, but last September he didn't sound so sure:

"I think the nation respects the mayor's leadership after 9/11, and I...

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that terror suspects held indefinitely by the U.S. government at Guantánamo Bay have constitutional rights in our courts, notably habeas corpus (the right to seek relief from unlawful detention). This is good news for all Americans and for our standing in the world.

Critics of...

OK, I know it's a parlor game to detect the Machiavellian tendencies of the Clinton's. I was shocked by some of the commentary after her RFK remark. From Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" on MSNBC to various bloggers, some of what was said and written went over the top.

Here's my...

Last September, Hunt Oil of Dallas quietly revealed it had signed an oil production-sharing agreement with the grand poobahs of Iraq's Kurdistan region, in defiance of the central government in Baghdad, the one America created.

The Bush administration briefly feigned mild concern and then went out for cocktails....

Dick Cheney's recent joke about West Virginia being full of inbred citizens prompted the following response from Governor Joe Manchin, a Democrat, according to The Charleston Gazette: "I truly cannot believe that any vice president of the United States, regardless of their political affiliation, would make such a derogatory...

Rachel Maddow wrote a thoughtful, reasoned piece on Huffington Post this week (here) about the Michigan/Florida mess and the chances that Hillary Clinton goes all the way to the convention. But one thing in her otherwise fine analysis didn't ring so clear:

After the primary calendar has ended, Clinton's...

Conventional wisdom says a Bob Barr Libertarian run for president will take votes from the Republican John McCain, and that's good for the Democratic nominee, but it's not that simple.

Former federal prosecutor and Georgia Republican congressman Barr can be loony, but he has turned into quite...

It would be a mistake to assume that Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania by 214,000 votes just because she had the support of Governor Ed Rendell. Barack Obama's inability to attract the supporters that make up her traditional Democratic coalition goes far deeper than that.

After all, in progressive...

The local-er the better! Here's the posted agenda for this week's city council meeting in the small Texas town of Rhome:

Unlike Bush, I don't buy into the "you're with us or you're with the enemy" mindset. I'll proudly vote for the Democratic nominee in November, so I don't bow exclusively at the alter of either Obama or Clinton. That's for rabid supporters, blood relatives, or me if I'm on the...

We've heard it said that "All politics is local." This means that solving problems of real people back home marks the difference between a good politician and a putz. That's true once in office, but while you're still a candidate all politics is -- believe it -- arithmetic.

The...

Countdown on MSNBC is one of the best things about cable news. Let's face it, CNN has flatlined at 8 pm eastern and FOX still trolls the vast rightwing conspiracy. This makes former sportscaster Keith Olbermann's lively romp through the day's events must-see TV for viewers eager to end the...

We've learned that Barack Obama rocks the caucuses and Hillary Clinton's strength is big primaries. The media credits Obama's success to his supporters' passion, but I say their secret weapon is....punctuality.

A primary is designed to accommodate people's individual lives. You vote to your own rhythm (before work, after lunch,...

Everyone knows Hillary Clinton wants the delegates from Michigan and Florida seated at the Democratic National Convention. Everyone also keeps lumping both Michigan and Florida into the same boat because both were punished for moving their primary date in violation of DNC rules.

Not so fast....