Chris Weigant

No so very long ago, Afghanistan was known as "the forgotten war." But these days, Afghanistan is hard to miss in the headlines. Obama needs to begin talking about our newly-forgotten war: Iraq.

Baucus' was supposed to be the "bipartisan" bill, but the only way it can truly be referred to as such is in the growing bipartisan distaste for the bill.

The code words change over time (from "nullification" to "states' rights" to Pawlenty's "state sovereignty"), but the idea is the same -- we retain the right to ignore any laws we don't feel like following.

Political discussions in America are fast becoming solely theological in nature.. Each side has their beliefs. Each has their tenets which they fervently defend. Much of this is done on faith.

Stylistically, the speech was reminiscent of Obama on the campaign trail. But the bar for him is so high that this was only remarkable because it has been so absent of late from Obama.

Obama absolutely loves the phrase "everything's on the table." But the time for piling "everything" on "the table" is over. Everything being on the table means that no decisions have been made.

Sadly, Obama's speech to school children has become mired in manufactured controversy from the right, with typical sky-is-falling rhetoric about the evil, evil man who occupies the Oval Office.

The news for Obama fans continues to be bad this month. There may be a faint glimmer of a spark of hope in the numbers -- but that's about all I can promise here, sorry about that.

Money wasn't just "given" to Wall Street firms. It bought something of value. And now that the firms (and the market in general) are recovering, they're starting to pay it back. With interest.

Calling for some sort of decorous avoidance of politics during politicians' funerals is downright ridiculous. It'd be like eulogizing Charles Lindbergh and not mentioning airplanes.

The following is the transcript of Senator Edward Kennedy's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Ted Kennedy is putting both his legacy and his sense of entitlement to his office before the interests of his constituents.

Do you really want to limit vaccinations only to people who have legal documents, or would you rather everyone get inoculated? Remember, those you exclude will likely have some sort of contact with either you, your kids, or the food you eat at some point.

Our look back at Obama's second 100 days will begin with a short overview, and then move on to the categories: "the best of times," "the worst of times," and "the age of (media) foolishness."

"Silly season" refers to late summer, when governments go on massive taxpayer-funded vacations all over the world. This year's season could produce a bumper crop of silly.

The news this month for Obama fans is not particularly good, as Obama has definitely ended his "honeymoon" period (which virtually all first-term presidents go through).

Barack Obama is the first president to not just accept the premise of the "having a beer" test, but to embrace it and turn it into reality.

Simply for acting like a leader this week, Speaker Pelosi wins the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award hands-down.

Obama's legislative style has been to vaguely define what he's for, introduce a plan that is quite obviously open to lots and lots of negotiation, and then sit back and let Congress work it out.

Democrats have to get over their knee-jerk reaction to being labeled "tax and spenders" by their opposition. If higher taxes for millionaires are the way to pay for healthcare reform, then let everyone know it, and know why.

The JusticeBot 9000: You said you wanted a machine that took all the human factor out of the law, so that emotion and empathy would be forever banished from the bench.

Obama faces a steady drip, drip, drip of stories leaking and becoming public. Wiretapping stories, torture stories, and secret CIA covert stories were all in the news in the past week alone.