The Washington Times

The time has come to ask: Is there any issue of principle over which either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is prepared to lose an election? When Democrats decide that they are going to back off on gun control because they are losing votes in the South, as news reports this summer described, and when Republicans find that they can fund stem-cell research provided that the blastocysts creating the stem-cell lines were destroyed outside the federally funded system, meaning the hard-line pro-life position has been jettisoned, then the question is hardly premature.

Continue reading →

The Washington Times

I will admit to a certain personal fondness for the federal budget surplus. It is the source of an entirely unwarranted and perhaps even irrational feeling of virtue: my country, my surplus. The sentiment is precisely the opposite of the vague feeling of tawdriness, no less warranted and no more rational, that was generated by budget deficits. Of course, one doesn’t personally deserve credit for the surplus, or blame for the deficit, nor would any serious economist tell you that a deficit is always bad and a surplus is always good; hence the unwarranted and even irrational character of the feeling. But it is, I think, fairly widespread, if only in the most inchoate terms: surplus good, deficit bad.

Continue reading →

The Washington Post

There is a famous convention among political commentators and practitioners never to admit being surprised by a turn of events – as if politics were so predictable that being taken by surprise is a sign of weakness.

Well, I will admit I was surprised by President Bush’s decision in favor of limited government funding for stem cell research. And I will tell you why: because it really is a new development, a break with the past. And the political implications are potentially momentous.

Continue reading →

The Washington Times

Let us grant, for purposes of argument, that President Bush did indeed wrestle long and hard with the issue of federal funding for stem cell research, that his quest for the best answer to a difficult problem was in earnest, that he approached the issue only on the merits, and that his conclusion was both serious and heartfelt. OK. Now, let’s talk politics.

Continue reading →

The Washington Times

President Bush had a good week politically, coming off of a couple of bad weeks. In itself, this serves as a useful illustration of the ebb-and-flow character of Washington politics. When Mr. Bush (or any president) is riding high, his supporters tend to think this is the natural condition of things, and when he’s stumbling, his opponents think they’re one step away from permanent victory. Neither is the case.

Continue reading →

The Washington Times

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Rolling blackouts, the bankruptcy of a major public utility whose stock was held in great quantity by pensioners looking for a safe place for their small nest eggs and the sudden depletion of an $8 billion state budget surplus: That is the legacy so far of the California power crisis. Because the effects were largely confined to one state (albeit the nation’s largest and most important) and because of the sheer complexity of the developing crisis itself, it has been altogether too easy for outsiders || including many in Washington || to minimize the significance of this failure. It’s, like, another one of those California things.

Continue reading →

The Washington Times

It’s hard to spend even a little time on the web site of the Genoa Social Forum (GSF), the group “coordinating” (if that’s the word) the protests at the recent G-8 meeting of industrialized nations in Genoa, Italy, without taking away the impression that demonstrating against globalization would be a fun way to spend your summer vacation. Ah, to be 21 again, and to have grown up in a world in which war and strife are running at an all-time record low, prosperity at an all-time high, such that one can now quite reasonably place “the environment” at the top of the international agenda.

Continue reading →

The Washington Times

Looking back, I see I missed something in the 2000 election aftermath that is worth a few words, not so much for further illumination of the battle for Florida, but as an illustration of a phenomenon that is common in Washington: partisan politics masquerading as something higher. Consider the timely arrival in Florida of two former secretaries of state, Democrat Warren Christopher and Republican James A. Baker III, to serve as spokesmen for the post-election efforts of the candidates of their respective parties.

Continue reading →

The Washington Times

The spectacular collapse of campaign-finance reform in the House this month, with the speaker actually losing control of the floor, obscured something important, namely, that some form of the legislation continues to get closer to passage.

Continue reading →

The Washington Times

To judge by the street demonstrations that greeted the surprise decision of the government of Serbia to extradite former Yugoslavia leader Slobodan Milosevic to an international tribunal at the Hague to face war crimes charges, the politics of post-Milosevic Yugoslavia remain an edgy and unsettled affair.

Continue reading →