James Pinkerton

Maria Shriver, in conjunction with the Alzheimer's Association, has launched a new campaign against Alzheimer's Disease (AD). But she doesn't want simply to treat AD, she wants to beat AD. And in setting such an ambitious goal, she is invoking the memory of her famous uncle, John...

Does our politics always have to be conflict? Must politicians always operate in a blood-sport arena in which they attack their partisan opponents for everything -- even candor? In Washington DC, the discourse quickly seems to descend to the lowest common denominator. And oxymoronic as it might seem, the only...

"Gerald Ford will always be president." That's a cynical piece of Washington wisdom that you can find a) discomfiting, or b) reassuring. But c), it is an enduring truth. The centrist center of gravity in this town is that strong.

Such centrist reality is distressing to the left today,...

Could a film from 1935 provide President Obama with a pointer or two about mobilizing support for an ambitious agenda? And could the can-do spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt's epoch inspire the Obama administration to remember that the New Deal was qualitatively different--and a lot more popular--than what today's Democratic...

Searching for perspective about all these bailouts and huge deficits, I thought I would pick the brain of the ultimate big-government guy, Karl Marx. Of course, the famous communist philosopher died in 1883, which forced me to get creative.

Yes, it is a Wall Street bailout -- a bailout for Wall Street, first and foremost. But don't take my word for it. Trust the hometown newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, to provide the scoop. According to one informed estimate, the same Wall Streeters who got us into this...

In Washington, it's a showdown between the representatives of Wall Street and the representatives of Main Street. But have you noticed that the old partisan alliances are reversed? It's the Democrats who are now the Wall Street Party. And Republicans -- with the conspicuous exception of President Bush -- are...

The massive suicide bomb that went off in front of a Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing more than 50, including the Czech ambassador, reminds us that terrorism continues as a serious trans-national threat. From Oklahoma City to Madrid to Bali, it's ominously easy to set off a bomb.

Expectations were low for the 44th President, elected on November 4, 2008. Having survived a bitter and contentious campaign season, he was not seen as particularly knowledgeable on either energy or environment issues. And so most informed observers expected little change in the doleful status quo in the coming administration--a...

With apologies to George W. Bush, I don't think our President looked very clearly into Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw the alleged goodness of his soul . I think Putin was wearing his KGB happyface when the two men first met in 2001, and Bush fell for it.

Paul Wolfowitz, former Deputy Secretary of Defense and former President of the World Bank, has been named Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. But while AEI is known as a hub for hawkish neoconservatives--including Richard Perle, David Frum, and Michael Ledeen--Wolfowitz will not be working on any more foreign...

The Michael Vick dog-fighting case is a case study of cruelty and brutality. It's also a study of insincerity, even mendacity, on the part of those, far beyond Vick, who have orchestrated a counter-offensive against the truth. But most compellingly, the Vick case is a study in possible conspiracy and...

If art and politics run counter to each other, it's little wonder that a hip new production at the Spoleto Festival USA is so anti-utopian. Why? Because the leading utopian in the world today is our own 43rd president, who preaches, and practices, a kind of coercive do-gooderism that has...

"If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied."

Those bitter words do not come from some folk-singing anti-war protestor. They come from a conservative Englishman, Rudyard Kipling, in his collection, "Epitaphs of the Great War." And those same words were heard today on Capitol Hill...

"For Reasons of State." It's arguably the strongest reason for doing something--for doing anything. The Romans said it well: Videant consules, ne respublica detrimentum capiat--"Let the consuls look to the safety of the state." When they had to, Roman leaders vested themselves with unlimited power. And who can argue with...

So what will Judith Regan do for her next act, now that she's been fired from her publishing gig by Rupert Murdoch?

She's never been one go gently into anything. Moreover, she is totally on her own now, free to listen to her own inner muses--or inner whatevers. In...

The usual pattern in American politics is this: The Reagan Democrats win the politics, and then they lose the policy. But that pattern--victory turned into defeat--is likely to change. And when it does--when their victories endure--America will change, and so will its role in the world.

The Reagan Democrats...

Inside the mind of Mark Foley:

Well, I have succeeded in my plan. I have destroyed the Republican Party, or at least destroyed its prospects for Election 2006. Destroying myself seems like a small price to pay. And as we shall see, I have a plan, a plan for...

I had a visitor last midnight, a most peculiar stranger. I'll admit I was pondering weak and weary last night, but this morning, I see clearly what has happened. It's my past, but it's your future--our future.

Last night I was at home burning the midnight oil. Then I...

So is the old John McCain back? Are we seeing the re-emergence of the straight-talking Arizona maverick who delights liberals and vexes conservatives--especially George W. Bush--with his ideo-heterodoxy? At the climax of his political career, with the White House beckoning to him, McCain may have discovered that rare thing in...