Just after reading the latest story about a famous golfer whose behind-the-wheel driving has turned out to be not quite up to par, I had a dream in which William Blake appeared to me and dictated the following revision of his famous poem:

Tiger, Tiger, taking flight
In thy...

Now that the public option for health insurance has been all but jettisoned from the health care reform ship that is tacking and veering its way through Congress, it's high time to consider another option--not for consumers but for health care providers treating Medicare patients, whose health insurance is already...

What is it with guys named Joe Wilson?

The last time anyone publicly called the president of the United States a liar, it was a guy named Joe Wilson. But that Joe Wilson--a career diplomat with extensive experience in both Iraq and Africa--didn't literally say the president lied.

In...

I have a simple message for all those who denounce the reform of our health care system as a government "takeover" and warn that government "death panels" will decide whether or not older Americans (like this one, who just turned 70) will live or die.

With a combination of gross...

Mr. President, your plan to reform our health care system is in trouble.

Reading the latest New York Times/CBS poll (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/us/politics/30poll.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print) on health care is about as easy as reading tea leaves through a cracked-lens telescope aimed at Mars. While 75 percent of the 1,050 adults...

The short answer is what I'm doing right now, which is Googling my way to other sources on a story the Times itself resolutely refuses to tell.

The latest and most reliable dispatch on this crisis comes from Richard Siklos of Fortune, who reports 1) that former Hollywood mogul...

Blogger's note: To preclude any misunderstanding, the following is a complete fabrication meant to portray a certain kind of mindset. Any resemblance to the mindset of any actual AIG bonus recipient is purely coincidental.

OK, so I bagged a chunk of change: $4,605,321.54, to be exact. But I'm here...

In my last blog on this site, I wrote that Israel should drop its demand that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist and start trading in real, crunchy carrots, such as blockade-free roads for rocket-free skies. "The name of the game," I argued, "is changing what the Palestinians DO. So...

"Do you think I'm against them [Hamas] firing rockets now? No. I was against it before. Not anymore."
--Olfat Jaawanah, mother of nine, who moved her children out of their house in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza on Monday morning after Israeli shrapnel flew through a window and...

While just about everyone is agonizing over the 700 billion dollars we're going to spend on bailing out financial institutions, our pro-life president is hard at work. He's making sure that just in case we survive this crisis, our babies will be carefully protected from mad scientists grumbling about...

Now that John McCain has re-energized the Republican right by choosing a running mate who is ardently "pro-life," the topic of abortion will once again play a big role -- possibly a decisive one -- in a presidential campaign. See for instance David Kirkpatrick, "Abortion Issue Again Dividing Catholic...

As I write these words, Charles Gibson of ABC News is undoubtedly preparing a bag of softballs--or rather marshmallows--for his forthcoming interview with you. Before the campaign is over, I would dearly love to see you field any or all of the following hardballs.

1....

It's called democracy, and it's what we promised the Iraqis when we invaded and occupied their country six years ago.

While our two finalists for the White House slug it out here, Iraqi politicians are looking forward to an election of their own this fall, and the...

While Senator John McCain has been tirelessly displaying his invincible ignorance of power and politics in Iraq, has anyone noticed who has just negotiated with an Iranian terrorist?

Hard upon claiming (repeatedly) that the Shiite nation of Iran has been arming al-Qaeda in Iraq (which is rather like claiming that...

March 18, 2008 -- Five years ago today, just before dawn broke over Baghdad, U.S. forces launched the Iraq war by dropping four bunker-buster bombs and forty Tomahawk missiles on Dora Farms, a palace compound within the al-Dora farming community on the outskirts of the city. The bombs and missiles...

He just has to be the weirdest trick I've ever turned, and let me tell you, I've seen more than my share of them.

Don't get me wrong. He wasn't into anything kinky -- no S/M, no bondage, no whips or chains, nothing risky. And the only...

You don't give up easily, do you?

Earlier this week, just before the primaries in Wisconsin and Washington, you charged Barack Obama with plagiarizing a passage from a speech given by Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts. Though your charge fizzled (Obama won both of those primaries), you tried it...

Since "change" has become the mantra of this election, it's time we took a close look at the word.
It captivates millions of voters because it speaks to our restlessness, our loathing for the policies of the Bush administration, our longing to put them behind us. But unlike...

I don't mean to be grudging.

In all fairness, I must congratulate Hillary Clinton for winning the New Hampshire Democratic primary by almost eight thousand votes.

But in the Upper Valley, a cluster of New Hampshire towns that line the Connecticut River and that include my home town of Hanover,...

They've done it again, folks.

In a resoundingly adopted statement called "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citiizenship," the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has just ruled that Catholics risk eternal damnation if they vote for any candidate who supports "an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism."

Your excellencies, let me...