There are crises where the end point can be seen and generally agreed by both sides but the path to that point seems difficult, perhaps impossible. And then there are crises with no agreed end point or route to resolution. These are the most dangerous crises.

The Israeli-Palestinian problem is...

The United States and its allies face nuclear weapons challenges in both North Korea and Iran. North Korea is the most immediate problem and the one with the shorter fuse. Iran is a longer term problem but the fuse is lit in a more volatile region. And the outcome of...

A ritual refrain of the GOP is that we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. On ABC News on St. Patrick's Day, House Speaker John Boehner (OH) put it bluntly, stating that President Obama got all the tax increase he was going to get in the 1 January...

Last week's hearings in the Senate Armed Services Committee were supposed to be about the nomination of former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense. They were not. Instead they were about most of the Republican minority posturing for sound bites and TV clips to raise funds or...

The first "fiscal cliff" was temporarily averted through a last-minute congressional deal. The next "fiscal cliff", the automatic budget cuts, known as sequestration, is scheduled to arrive March first. Between now and March, Congress and the president will be searching for a way to reshape the budget in a more...

Republicans in Congress are changing their tactics in their relentless attacks on the Obama administration. Rather than relying solely on legislative obstruction, they have now added character assassination in an attempt to block cabinet nominees.

Case number one: Susan Rice: The GOP focused on Ambassador Rice as somehow responsible for...

The tragedies at Newtown, Conn., and Webster, N.Y., this holiday season brought to mind the title quote of this piece. It is from an Archibald MacLeish poem, "Young Dead Soldiers." The poem, was penned after WWII but reflected his experiences in WWI.

Surely this is also the way...

Leaving the nation's capital shortly after the 2012 election and spending a week in a far-away place (Hawaii) watching no television, listening to no radio and only glancing at newspaper and Internet headlines is good for mental and physical health and political perspective. But returning to a fiscal cliff that...

Former Massachusetts Governor Willard "Mitt" Romney commented during the primaries "Corporations are people, too." Does this apply in reverse? Does Romney consider people to be corporations? Under the rules of logic, of course it does not. Corporations could be only a part of the category "people." There could be other...

Normally I am opposed to politicians making pledges beyond their oath of office. And normally I am opposed to presenting other peoples views as the crux of my blog. But these are not normal times and the views below are those of an extremely gifted student of mine when I...

We should not let discussion of who won the second presidential debate distract us from the consequences of who wins and loses if Romney wins the election. A brief survey:

Winners under an unconstrained Romney-Ryan administration:

· Wall Street: All their wishes will be fulfilled. Water down Dodd-Frank. No increase...

When I read former Massachusetts Governor Willard "Mitt" Romney's quick draw response to the unfolding tragedies in Egypt and Libya, I finally got it. I figured him out. He is not a people person. He is a numbers guy.

This thought first crossed my mind when I saw Romney's response...

Are you better off than you were four years ago? asked Governor Mitt Romney in his speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination. The answer depends on which "you" he was addressing. There are some "you" whose answers he might prefer not to hear.

Corporate CEO and Wall Street...

Governor Willard "Mitt" Romney seeks the Commander in Chief role. But in accepting the Republican nomination for president, he showed no understanding or concern for the men and women who served this country or interest in the national security issues that face this nation.

This judgment is based on Mr....

Timothy Egan, the sage of the West, had a column in the Aug. 23 edition of The New York Times entitled "The Crackpot Caucus." It detailed how Todd Akin (KS) was by no means alone in his ignorance of basic facts of life and science. Indeed, his "legitimate...

The selection of Congressman Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin for the GOP vice president slot by Governor "Mitt" Romney has served to excite the Republican base and turn on the fundraising spigot. In this way it has had a similar short-term effect as Senator John McCain's selection of then-Governor Sarah...

The selection of Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as the Republican Vice Presidential choice of former Massachusetts Governor "Willard Mitt" Romney will have a major impact on the campaign and the election., perhaps as much as Senator John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in 2008.

For one thing,...

In a July 24, 2012 editorial on the speeches by President Obama and Gov. Romney to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) national convention, the New York Times commented:

"This was a chance for Mitt Romney to show that he could be a better international leader than President...

There it was, that thing that could not be killed. A vampire was staring directly at me. In the full glory of a New York Times headline it glared at me through my computer screen: "Republicans Pledge New Standoff on Debt Limit."

Speaker John Boehner is promising a...

There is a dictum attributed to Karl Marx that "History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce." Thanks to another Karl (Rove), the 2012 presidential campaign is shaping up to prove the dictum.

The tragedy was the "Swiftboating" of Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign. This...