This is a repost of my commentary from last year on the State of The Union speech. this year of course we will have a slightly different take because of the campaign aspects to the address. Both President Obama and Governor Daniels are likely to add more rhetoric and a bit more of a partisan tilt to their speeches. But overall I think the commentary stands As we move closer to the time for the State of The Union...

There are a couple of observations I have been meaning to make about Mr. Gingrich’s “magnificent, bold and fearless” debates performance. On the first observation, New York Times’ David Firestone beat me to the punch and I am glad because he elucidates it much better than I ever could. Firestone ascribes a lot of Gingrich’s “successes” in the two previous South Carolina debates to the (red-meat)...

Now that future Presidents Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have had their say, a person named Barack Obama, who claims to hold the office, will face TV cameras tonight with what purports to be a State of the Union address. Fact-checking of Gingrich and Romney eliminates many of their more stimulating claims, reducing Mr. Obama to such boring proposals as refinancing for homeowners in trouble, tax breaks for companies...

At the close of Monday’s hearing on Washington State’s proposed same-sex marriage law, Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Island) became the 25th Senator to pledge to vote for the bill. In a written statement, she said: I happen to be the 25th [vote] because I insisted on taking this much time to hear from my constituents and to sort it out for myself, to reconcile my religious beliefs with my beliefs...

In these days of ideology and partisan-based new and old media commentary, it’s extremely hard to find a book that lays out solid information, is packed with research that recounts and analyzes current events, is reliable as a valuable reference tool for anyone of any party or ideology, and is written in a style that’s lively but as seriously and skillfully as columns by the Washington Post’s...

Back in September of 2009, I started one of my several articles on the Afghanistan War as follows: As the fighting in Afghanistan intensifies; as that war claims more and more casualties; and as critical decisions loom on national objectives, strategy and corresponding troop levels and deployments there, the debate also intensifies. As the war has continued unabated and has indeed claimed more and more young...

This absolutely, totally made me cry. This post at BlogHer is also worth reading for a number of the links and information on the news.

Talk about your mixed messages being sent. Former Congressman, Speaker of the House and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich won the female vote in South Carolina, according to exit polls and despite reports to the contrary, just the day before, of a significant gender gap that should have helped former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, if it really existed — which it...

Joe Paterno, the longtime Penn State coach who won more games than anyone in major college football but was fired amid a child sex abuse scandal that upended his reputation for integrity, died this morning. Paterno, 85, built his program on the credo “Success with Honor” en route to winning 409 games. He took Penn State to 37 bowl games and two national championships, while More than 250 of the...

A Sikh ready for the holy bath at Golden Temple in Amritsar in northern India. Ever heard of a place where you can enjoy live Western classical music round-the-clock? Perhaps there is none. However, if you are interested in attending a non-stop Indian classical music concert round the year, then the place to visit is the Golden Temple (or Harmandir Sahib) at Amritsar in northern India. This place is the rallying...

Proponents dubbed the bill the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.” Critics say that the name is misleading because the bill would create a database of every “every digital act by every American.” The Obama Administration Department of Justice has lobbied for these expanded record-gathering and -keeping powers. According to the CRS bill summary for HR 1981 (wow,...

Not exactly the best news coming out of Cairo as they announce election results. The only quasi good news is that the super hard liners won 25% of the vote while the ‘moderate’ Muslim Brotherhood got 47%. We shall see how ‘moderate’ they are.

Israeli Ambassador to the USA Dr. Michael Oren (a native of New Jersey) spoke this evening at Cincinnati’s Mayerson JCC. It is still rather icy out and over 700 people came to hear him. These are not his exact words, just my notes on some things he said: Someone asked how we live with uncertainty – we do it every day and have done so since 1948. Keeping in mind what Iran has done without...

[Adapted from Feb 5, 2008's, "Waiting To Breathe."] A pause before the oncoming secessionist storm. Well, here it is:  Super Duper Mega Hyper Tuesday — that monument to electoral greed pioneered by Southern Democrats in creating the first “Super Tuesday” in 1988. 24 states* now “Me-Too” it today. Which guarantees that campaigns will be mostly about media buys, and NOT about creating...

The tone of Thursday night’s GOP séance was set in the first minute, not by the candidates or moderator, but whooping and applause of hand-picked partisans in the hall when Newt Gingrich attacked CNN’s John King and all the media as “despicable” for asking about his second wife’s character charges against him that had dominated the news cycle all day. In contrast, for 1960’s first presidential debate...

This isn’t really news, Pew showed Newt’s weakness with women back in December. But The State is out with this article today, in pertinent part: Who will win? It could depend on who votes — men or women — and where they live — the Upstate or coast. “It may be very close,” Matt Moore, executive director of the S.C. Republican Party, said Friday. Polling shows Gingrich and Romney running...

One of my great blogging joys used to be mocking David Brooks.  Now Sir David would have been at home in England a few decades ago.  A rather worthless fellow who was lucky enough to have a title and a stage to to spew nonsense.  An easy target for a desperate blogger.  But all good things must end and David Brooks mocking ended with Charles Pierce. The applause came from deep in the plush leather armchairs...

by WALTER BRASCH “Ola, Amigo! Pack your bags, we’re going to Mexico!” bubbled Dr. Franklin Peterson Comstock III, faux physician and money-maker. “Yeah, I could use a decent vacation,” I replied, figuring he’d pay for both of us since he had just set the world record for the most nose jobs in a 24-hour period. “What vacation?” he said. “I’m setting up practice.” “And give up catering...

The Washington Post: Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in 1999 asked his second wife for an “open marriage” or a divorce at the same time he was giving speeches around the country on family and religious values, his former wife, Marianne, told The Washington Post on Thursday. Marianne Gingrich said she first heard from the former speaker about the divorce request as she was waiting in the home of her...

Apology is overdue to George W. Romney for my remembering him only as an unsophisticated man whose remarks about being “brainwashed” in Vietnam cost him the 1968 GOP nomination. In Rolling Stone, Rick Pearlstein summons up the elder Romney, with ancient videotape, to recall a time when some politicians still tried to tell the truth, even if it derailed their ambitions. The lessons Mitt Romney drew from his...

I stopped eating meat about 15 years ago not on philosophical grounds or because I embraced a vegetarian or (heaven forbid) vegan diet, but because meat was expensive and I realized that I felt better without it. And so except for the very occasional greasy Philadelphia-style cheese steak with fried onions and mushrooms, I have become a so-called flexitarian with a diet that is substantially meat free. Americans,...

For the Obama re-election campaign, Mitt Romney is the gift that keeps on giving. At least so far. Never mind that the former Massachusetts governor is supposed to be the un-Obama, a man who has the expertise to turn around the economy by creating jobs while reducing the federal budget deficit. Today, three days before the South Carolina primary, which will validate Romney as the Republican presidential nominee,...

GQ’s Top 25 Power People in DC? One and a half women. One and a half. And a whole lotta white guys. Here’s the full list of 50 from Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook: FIRST LOOK – GQ’s “The 50 Most Powerful People in Washington (People with the last names Obama and Biden not included,” by Reid Cherlin, Rob Fischer, Jason Horowitz and Jason Zengerle: 1) Eric Cantor 2) Mitch McConnell 3)...

The same Republican presidential wannabe who would send U.S. troops back into Iraq and thus would most likely again need the use of Turkish land and air space to provide logistics support to our troops there, now labels that nation a country that is being ruled by Islamic terrorists — and worse. During Monday’s GOP presidential candidates debate in South Carolina, Texas governor Rick Perry also...

Does being a CEO of an organization mean you are better qualified to be President of the United States? While I was studying for a masters degree in Political Communications, this was the most interesting question that I came across. It is a question I asked myself when I was studying George W Bush’s candidacy in 2000 and it is a question I have been asking myself as I have watched Mitt Romney’s campaign. As...