Richard Klass

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...

The ship of state is sailing into a dangerous triangle. No, not the unknown dangers of the Bermuda Triangle. But into the well-known dangers of a fiscal triangle of disaster. And the arrival date is also-known: January 1, 2013.

The three points of the triangle are the start of the...

I live in Virginia. I have a mandatory sonogram scheduled next week. No, I am not pregnant. I am not a woman, but, until last week that could be a logical and cause for concern conclusion given the above facts.

I could say that Virginia is the central front of...

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had a very bad week. His narrow victory in the Iowa primary, on further counting, became a narrow loss to former Senator Rick Santorum. One of the candidates splitting the anti-Romney conservative vote, Texas Governor Rick Perry, dropped out and endorsed former House Speaker Newt...

In the excitement of the photo finish in the Iowa Republican caucus, we should not ignore the questions raised by the results.

The first question is the meaning of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's failure to break the 25 percent ceiling. Amazingly Romney received six fewer votes than he did...

Newt Gingrich, the self-styled and inventive historian and Republican presidential candidate recently told a Jewish audience:

Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part...

Sometime before the end of the month, probably by Christmas, the last American troops will leave Iraq and the U.S. military venture in Iraq will come to a close with a whimper, not a bang. The war will not end, only the American participation that began with an invasion and...

On Friday, October 21, 2011, President Obama announced that the last American troops would leave Iraq before the end of the year. This is a profound and proud moment for the American armed forces that were sent into an unnecessary war and poorly planned occupation. Yet they fought through deficiencies...

America does not have a jobs problem. It has two jobs problems. And they are inextricably intertwined.

The first jobs problem is a lack of jobs. With unemployment hovering over 9%, more workers having to settle for part time work and many simply giving up seeking work jobs are desperately...

Barbara Tuchman, in her book, The Guns of August, records a conversation between two former World War I adversaries. One asked the other why the disaster happened. The other replied, "Ah, if one only knew."

History is replete with disasters that could not be imagined. Neither side thought that the...

Everyone is talking about jobs but no one is doing a hard analysis of the impact of various deficit reduction proposals on job creation or loss.

In framing the current deficit debate, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has said that the U.S. has three problems: a spending problem, a deficit...

Very strange. When I heard President Obama announce the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of Navy Seal Team Six, Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman leapt to mind.

This perhaps irrational mental leap is not, on reflection, totally mad. The main character in the...

A few years ago, shortly after the 2008 election, a neighbor knocked on the door. She asked a favor. Her son, Ben, had a homework assignment to interview a veteran. I agreed to help and was presented with a shy first grade student. He -- with mom's help -- asked...

The wars in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan fill newspapers and televisions with images. The pictures inspire fierce debate over the value of putting American lives on the line and spending taxpayers' money.

But there is another war, with no pictures, being fought in some of the more...

As UN Resolution 1973 is being implemented over Libya, ghosts of the 2003 invasion of Iraq exactly eight years earlier emerge. But the comparisons are much more apt to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Clearly there are major differences but first the similarities.

UN Resolution 678 of 29 November 1990...

Despite the millions filling out their NCAA basketball brackets, March Madness is not only being played out on the hardwood floors across the nation. It's also on display on the floor of the House and the Senate. And the consequences of continuing the madness appear to be lost on the...

The esteemed executive director of the Council for a Livable World, John Isaacs, has penned a piece noting the similarities between the Republican production of a fiscal year 2011 (FY11) continuing resolution (CR) and the William Golding novel The Lord of the Flies. In the novel, a group...

In 1901 Frederick Burr Opper's comic strip featuring two overly polite and deferential Frenchmen, Alphonse and Gaston first appeared in William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. In fact they were so polite that they always insisted that the other go first. As a result, they never went anywhere and never...

It was rather warm for mid-November in Central Laos as I buzzed the pasture to clear the cows and allow my fragile O-1F to land. The Royal Lao outpost, called "Elephant" was halfway between the Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh and the Ho Chi Mihn Trail strategic junction at...