We face, today, our own hard and inescapable facts that call into question what the most important pursuits of America's responsibility and purpose at home and abroad really are. Guns to kill people in other countries or butter to save people in our own?

The most critical obstacle to progress on climate change is the inability of the United States to make any credible commitments to the rest of the world, given the upcoming presidential election and a chronically dysfunctional Congress.

Serious reform in a democracy requires looking in the mirror. As long as money rules the process, your studies and your debates, and even your votes, will make no difference at all.

Despite an occasional burst of optimism from quarters that were not involved in the negotiations, it is fair to say that both sides were anticipating that the committee would fail to come up with anything that resembles a budget deal.

Fukuyama is devoted to the Westminister model, which theoretically can produce a coherent plan but which, in the real world, seems to suffer, like any political mechanism, some stubborn problems.

Maybe the only real solution to all of this is for the public to take the 2012 elections very, very seriously, and send a more definable mandate to the politicians on the decisions they are entrusted to make.

With the so-called super committee kaput, more market instability looming and the distinct possibility of another recession, the absolute inability of Washington to solve the nation's fiscal problems is inescapable.

Not with a bang but a whimper. Not a surprise, but disheartening on many levels. Let us count the ways.

President Obama is set to make a statement from the White House briefing room at 5:45 p.m. on Monday, following news that the congressional super comm...

WASHINGTON — Don't look for the Pentagon to shut down one side of its famous five-sided building. Don't expect the Education Department to pull ...

WASHINGTON -- An ill-conceived scheme to make an end run around public opposition to major spending cuts to entitlement and social programs has founde...