Just as it is possible to have anti-Semitism in countries in which there are Jews, so, we now know, it is possible to have McCarthyism in a post-Communist world.

Van Jones signed a petition. President Obama is attempting to indoctrinate school children with socialism.

Not only are the...

Why is it universally accepted that we provide all our citizens a college education but "socialist" to universally provide health care? Why hasn't UMass, the "public option," driven its immediate neighbors Amherst and Hampshire out of business with its lower tuition?

Before abandoning the notion of a "public option" in...

When reading the torture memos, keep in mind that Jay Bybee sits, right now, on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This means that the man who deliberately and unashamedly created the legal cover for American torture deals with significant Constitutional issues on a daily basis. The 9th Circuit...

For those of us born shortly after World War II, the first great moral question we asked ourselves was "if you had been German, what would you have done?" By the time we were in our late teens and early twenties, the question was no longer theoretical. Our country was...

Baseball season has just begun: I am already heartbroken. Not because of an early loss but rather because the new New York stadiums have diminished not only the game but its place within our culture.

Until very recently, going to the ballpark was a great democratizer. It really didn't matter...

The Republican Party needs a new image: may I suggest the Squawking Parrot? In times of prosperity, it screamed, "Tax cuts." When the budget was balanced, it screamed, "Tax cuts." And now, in the face of economic catastrophe, it still screams, "Tax cuts."

As House Republicans demonstrated this past...

A recent poll suggests that concern for the environment is taking a back seat to concerns about the economy. No surprise there. But it does mean that various proposals for a gas tax surcharge could easily meet furious resistance that could all too easily become divisive.

Taxing gas is like...

Given that there is little to no chance that Barack Obama will disinvite Rick Warren from delivering the invocation at his inauguration, let me make a simple request: instead of having Warren deliver the invocation let him deliver an invocation. Let Obama really allow a diversity of views to be...

It's a short-term solution but it's the only immediate solution I can see to the current mess created by Rod Blagojevich.

Illinois now faces the awful prospect of either having an appointed Senator who will be greeted with immediate suspicion (if, of course, the Senate allows such a person to...

If there is any clarity emerging out of the mess that was once the "Big Three," it's that health care and management are two primary causes of the industry's collapse. In both cases, however, the need for a government bailout may provide hidden opportunities.

Management first: After their shameful Congressional...

With Alberto Gonzales enjoying the kind of full-fledged support from President Bush which Eagleton enjoyed from McGovern, it's time for Democrats to think about an independent prosecutor who can look into possible criminal conduct in both the Justice Department and among the White House staff.

There will only be a...

We know the least of what the President knew and the latest he could have known it.

While we have yet to fully discover who conceived the plan to fire the U.S. Attorneys, who nurtured the plan, and who finalized the list, there is no question as to who executed...

The US Attorney scandal could be the big one - the one which finally brings down the miserable reign of George the Terrible. Yes, I know - he should have been impeached for lying to Congress when he started the Iraq war. But he wasn't and he won't be. Obstruction...

Language counts. A lot.

Nothing undermined the central position of the Democrat Party more than allowing "liberal" to become a dirty word. (Those of us who were active in the New Left have to shoulder a lot of blame on this; we made it an epithet a long time before...

Out here in the blue part of the Blue/Red Zone, people have been walking around with shocked smiles. This is Western North Carolina, where I've been teaching, as divided a Congressional District as any in the country. There is very little purple in these hills. Asheville is as liberal as...

San Diego take note: the only thing wrong with Montréal is its cross.

For two glorious years, I had the immense pleasure of living in the great Québec city. Weather permitting, I hiked each weekend in the Frederick Law Olmstead masterpiece of a park which is built around the mountain...

Bush's veto of the Stem Cell Research bill is being cast as a classic conflict between science and religion, with the hope that the clear medical benefits will make this a potent campaign issue.

It's the right issue, but the wrong approach.

Once again, the Republican right has cast their...

What if Al Gore had been more like Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador?

What if he had not merely demanded a recount in Florida but encouraged Democrats to pour out into the streets, rather than discouraging them?

For that matter, what if Kerry had called for demonstrations after...

Does no one remember Abbie's shirt?

You had better. Yesterday, the Senate came within a single vote of sending a constitutional amendment onto the states which would have allowed legislation outlawing the desecration of the flag. There were already a sufficient number of states who had declared that they would...