On Tuesday, Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan immigrant who was a teenager in Queens during the Sept. 11 attacks, pleaded not guilty to federal terrorism conspiracy charges in New York.
As Sen. Max Baucus tries to squeeze a health care bill out of the Senate Finance Committee, and as Sens. Barbara Boxer and John Kerry race to meet their latest deadline to introduce a bill to reduce carbon dioxide, some Democrats wonder whether their congressional leaders and the president who has deferred to them have sought only limited changes rather than more fundamental reform on both health insurance and carbon emissions.
Listening closely to the politicians with the most clout in the debate over health care, it is startling to discover how little they actually seem to know about the subject.
"Rome was not built in a day," Montana Democrat Max Baucus said with resignation after the Senate committee he heads voted to reject a "public option." A government-run health plan that would compete with private insurers' offerings, the public option is a means to curb spiraling health care costs.
He had sex with a 13-year-old girl. He got her to go to Jack Nicholson's house by promising that she would be in a photo shoot. When she got there, he fed her a Quaalude and alcohol -- champagne for a 13-year-old, how enticing -- and then he raped her.
The gist of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's analysis that presumably will be presented to President Barack Obama is: If 1) you and Congress fully resource the effort (troops, materiel and civilian aid) and 2) if we get much better at coordinating all our assets -- Defense and State departments, the U.S. Agency for International Development, intelligence, contractors, NATO and others -- then 3) there is a better than even chance of success in Afghanistan, which will take 4) between five and seven more years.
Nearly as unappetizing as the video of ACORN workers explaining how to run a prostitution business, cheat on taxes and import underage streetwalkers from Central America is the presence of Michael Moore's mug on TV screens everywhere.
Our Betters in Europe, of course, are outraged that Switzerland arrested and may allow the extradition of film director Roman Polanski, 76, a fugitive from California justice after he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old in 1977.
"It is my deeply held belief," Barack Obama told the United Nations General Assembly, that "in the year 2009 -- more than at any point in human history -- the interests of nations and peoples are shared."
Attendees of the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh and members of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington should carefully read a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
When the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, few political pundits saw it coming. But such a prospect in 2010, particularly a GOP takeover of the House of Representatives, is already being discussed as a real prospect.
It's hard to argue with the FDA's decision, announced this week, to ban the sale of flavored cigarettes. To be honest, I always thought cigarettes came in regular and menthol, not chocolate and strawberry. The legislation passed earlier this year giving the FDA authority over tobacco products specifically authorized it to ban flavored cigarettes, while protecting the kind that I got hooked on.
With admirable calm, President Obama has sought to deflect the supercharged politics of race by expressing his optimism about American attitudes and ignoring the most extreme statements by his critics. For his own sake, as well as the nation's, he is wise to give a pass to the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. That is not, however, what they deserve.
Every time the economy swoons and the racks groan with the weight of unsold women's clothing, purveyors of fashion talk up "investment dressing." Investment dressing entails buying a few well-constructed garments that will endure both physically and stylistically for several years.
In the early 1980s, while planning a vacation in Latin America, I went to bookstores to look for histories of the region. All I could find were Marxist tracts arguing that "the people" were exploited by greedy corporations and military dictators, all propped up by the United States.
As the town hall meetings on health care started in early August, the Democratic Party's talking points accused the attending citizens of being "demonstrators hired by K Street lobbyists." Then they started calling them a "mob." Getting into the spirit of his party, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called those who oppose Obamacare "evil." Then House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called the dissenters "un-American." For good measure, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused them of being Nazis.
Last weekend, The New York Times reported on its front page that former Senator, vice presidential candidate and presidential candidate John Edwards was considering "publicly" acknowledging paternity of his mistress's baby, but had not yet brought his wife around to the idea.
The debate over what kind of health care system we should have often includes the kinds others have. The programs in Canada and France have received special attention, and so those countries' efforts to fix their own programs should be of interest.
It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of his office to shut criticism down.
Democrats seem to have shifted their thinking on a number of issues since President Obama took the oath of office. Figure some Dems have more faith in government with a like-minded man at the helm, and besides, circumstances have changed. But also figure that some Democrats were just looking for sore spots -- and their anti-Bush rhetoric was based not on principle, but raw opportunism.
