Clintonesque

By Susan Estrich
Clintonesque. That's what all the talking heads were saying about the president's State of the Union. And they didn't mean long.
Clintonesque means Barack Obama projected confidence and optimism.
It means he connected with his audience, that he looked and sounded BIG. Not a whine in sight. Not an excuse to be heard. He was the president.

An Argument Obama Can Win

By Eugene Robinson
WASHINGTON -- If you heard a loud "gulp" Tuesday night after President Obama's State of the Union address, it probably came from Republican political strategists as they...

The Three Big Lies of Newton Leroy Gingrich

By Bill Press
Political junkies like me have never seen anything like it: Running 20 points behind, just a week before the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich catapulted to the...

Obama: No Retreat, No Surrender

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
WASHINGTON - It was to be expected that in the course of his State of the Union address, President Obama would mention the killing of Osama...

Rooting for Newt

By Susan Estrich
Ask any honest Democrat, and they'll tell you what I'm about to tell you: We're rooting for Newt.
The death penalty for marijuana?
Replacing janitors with school...

Revenge of the Internet Nerds

By Clarence Page
Fear the Wiki-power! A historic online protest by Wikipedia and other websites against proposed antipiracy legislation has startled web surfers, stunned Hollywood and stopped Congress in its...

Genetic or Not, Gay Won't Go Away

By Frank Bruni
Born this way.
That has long been one of the rallying cries of a movement, and sometimes the gist of its argument. Across decades of widespread ostracism,...

Living in Fear of the NCAA

By Joe Nocera
It was early in the evening of Jan. 13 when Ryan Boatright, the freshman basketball player at the University of Connecticut, learned that he was being suspended...

Fukushima Is So Yesterday

By William Collins
Wonder if our noble nation;
Is that safe from radiation.

Nuclear power may be bad for your health, but it could be great for investors' portfolios. The Nuclear...

What's He Got To Hide?

By Nicholas Kristof
DAVOS, Switzerland - In a filthy Ethiopian prison that is overridden with lice, fleas and huge rats, two Swedes are serving an...

Those Red-State Family Values

By John Young
“I wonder what his ex-wife is thinking, knowing she put him over the top in South Carolina.”
My wife, who said this,...

Gingrich's Surliness Won't Defeat Obama

By Gene Lyons
Look, nobody's third wife is going to be first lady. In the privacy of the voting booth, American women won't stand for...

Tension on the Tarmac

By Maureen Dowd
MIAMI - What is it with Barack Obama's penchant for getting in tangles with blond politicians on airport tarmacs?
Usually, tarmacs are...

Made In The World

By Thomas Friedman
The Associated Press reported last week that Fidel Castro, the former president of Cuba, wrote an opinion piece on a Cuban website,...

Lunar Colonies, Lunacy and Losses

By Charles Blow
Newt Gingrich is spaced-out. Literally.
Anyone who remembers him from his days as speaker of the House in the '90s remembers how...

Government and its Rivals

By Ross Douthat
When liberals are in a philosophical mood, they like to cast debates over the role of government not as a clash between...

Et tu, Harvard?

By Joe Nocera
If the worst thing that ever happens to Temi Fagbenle is that she gets to play college basketball for only three seasons...

Bob Dole Says It All

By Alexandra Petri
Ever wondered what the opposite of an endorsement is? It's this letter from Bob Dole on Thursday, blasting Newt Gingrich five days...

Being Prudish About Politicians' Private Lives

By Michael Kinsley
Many years ago, when Senator Ted Kennedy was challenging President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination, I quit my job at...

State of the Union, and of The GOP

By Jules Witcover
WASHINGTON - Two major political events shared center stage this week -- the traditional presidential State of the Union address and what...

Jobs, Jobs and Cars

By Paul Krugman
Mitch Daniels, the former Bush budget director who is now Indiana's governor, made the Republicans' reply to President Barack Obama's State of...

I Want My Planet Back

By Froma Harrop
Florida is the state that put the first man on the moon, NBC's Brian Williams noted at the Republican presidential debate in...

A New Industrial Era?

By Harold Meyerson
So much for post-industrial America. After decades of our leaders and sages assuring us that the United States would thrive as we...

Turning Arizona purple?

By Ruth Marcus
PHOENIX -- Presidential travel, especially in an election year, offers an insight into the favored electoral road map. So it is no...

Romney Must Get Past Himself to Beat Gingrich

By Margaret Carlson
WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney's troubles bring to mind a pop-psychology bestseller from a few years ago called "He's Just Not That Into...

Romney Holds Line on Taliban

By Jackson Diehl
Mitt Romney took some heat after saying last week that he would not negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Commentators pointed out...

Obama's Faux Populism Sounds Like Bill Clinton

By Robert Scheer
I'll admit it: Listening to Barack Obama, I am ready to enlist in his campaign against the feed-the-rich Republicans ... until I...

How Pimps Use The Web To Sell Girls

By Nicholas Kristof
In November, a terrified 13-year-old girl pounded on an apartment door in Brooklyn. When a surprised woman answered, the girl pleaded for...

Gingrich's 'Umbrage Card' Trick

By Clarence Page
What do you do when you're a presidential candidate like Newt Gingrich who lugs so much baggage that your baggage has baggage?...

Sanctimonious Hypocrites Can’t Diminish the Warmth for Joe Paterno

By Walter Brasch
Gov. Tom Corbett (R-Pa.) praised Joe Paterno and ordered flags on all state buildings to fly at half-staff for four days.
That...

Romney Goes On The Offensive

By Jules Witcover
WASHINGTON - Having delivered an effective one-two punch to Mitt Romney and the news media in the South Carolina primary debates, Newt...

Not Exactly Mr. Congeniality

By Eugene Robinson
WASHINGTON -- When the polls closed in South Carolina on Saturday, I happened to be in a Charleston hotel lobby where elegantly...

Noise Surrounds Ambitious Women

By Petula Dvorak
WASHINGTON - Are we really so different?
No. And yes.
Black women in America have long endured labels and categories - living...

Mitt, is this Witt?

By Maureen Dowd
WASHINGTON - Sure, Mittens can be annoying.
Paying an infuriatingly low tax rate and stashing millions in Swiss banks and the Cayman...

Keep the Electoral College

By Charles Lane
Last Thursday's GOP presidential debate was a doozy. Some of the commercials weren't bad, either. My favorite was the ad from the...

Gingrich as Insurgent

By Jules Witcover
WASHINGTON -- In Newt Gingrich's victory speech in South Carolina Saturday night, he took dead aim at his chosen political enemies --...

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Big Ideas Aren't Necessarily Good Ideas

By Ezra Klein
During Thursday's debate in Charleston, S.C., CNN's John King asked Newt Gingrich whether there was anything from the campaign he would like...

Being Rich Is Not Mitt's Political Problem

By Froma Harrop
It's no secret that Mitt Romney is rich. He was born rich and got mega-millions richer as a financier. Nor is it...

Average is Over

By Thomas Friedman
In an essay, titled "Making It in America," in the latest issue of The Atlantic, author Adam Davidson relates a joke from...

Turkey, the New Normal

By Jackson Diehl
It would be nice to think that Rick Perry's withdrawal from the GOP presidential race last week had something to do with...

The Gusts of Gingrich

By Frank Bruni
Not long ago, a veteran Republican strategist told me that a politician could succeed with his zipper down, but not with his...

So Much For A Populist GOP

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
AIKEN, S.C. -- Members of the tea party insisted they were turning the GOP into a populist, anti-establishment bastion. Social conservatives...

Known Unknowns Will Shape Presidential Election

By Albert R. Hunt
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama may make a few headlines in his re-election year State of the Union address; in a...

Free-Market Socialism

By David Brooks
I hope President Barack Obama read about Maddie Parlier as he was working on his State of the Union address. Parlier is...

Afghanistan's Poppy War

By Jim Hightower
For a symbol of how America's decade-long war is going in faraway Afghanistan, look at the beautiful fields of red poppies flowering...

A Zero on the Home Front's Richter Scale

By Donald Kaul
Among the strange things that happened last year — and there were many — perhaps the strangest was the end of the...

What Newt Learned From Nixon

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
WASHINGTON -- Conservatives may denounce class warfare, yet by shrewdly combining the politics of class with the politics of culture, Newt...

Romney Vs. Gingrich Highlights GOP Unease

By Dan Balz
The startling outcome of the South Carolina primary did more than turn the race for the Republican presidential nomination upside down. It...

On Courting Public Sentiment

By Jules Witcover
WASHINGTON -- As the fight for the Republican presidential nomination now moves on to the Jan. 31 Florida primary, the 2012 phenomenon...

Mixing Mercy With Justice: Barbour Had A Point

By Neal Peirce
"You'll be woken in the morning by a convicted murderer."
It was some years ago (1982), and the governor of Mississippi --...

Is Our Economy Healing?

By Paul Krugman
How goes the state of the union? Well, the state of the economy remains terrible. Three years after President Barack Obama's inauguration...

Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?

By Bill Keller
OK, Mr. President, here's the plan. Some time in the next few months you order the Defense Department to destroy Iran's nuclear...