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Obama's Trip: Some Questions Katie, Brian and Charles Should Ask

Q: Before your trip to Iraq, you said that you intend to give the military a "new mission" — all of the combat troops withdrawn within 16 months. Why bother traveling to Iraq and consulting with commanders on the ground, if you've already decided on a new mission? Q: In 2004, you called it unwise to announce a timetable. By 2008, however, you announce a 16-month timetable. Only a f ...

Steve Chapman

McCain's Confusion On Iraq

If there is any fixed position in John McCain's policy agenda, it's that we must never, ever, set a timetable for leaving Iraq. He regularly flogs Barack Obama for proposing to withdraw by the summer of 2010. So it was a surprise to hear him say Monday, when asked if our troops might depart in the next two years, "Oh, I think they could be largely withdrawn, as I've said." I guess that m ...

Susan Estrich

Children in the Middle

Good news. Britney and K-Fed have a settlement! Their lawyers were back in court — again — last week to tell the judge in the long-running battle over custody of their two sons that they had agreed that K-Fed would retain custody, Britney would get more visitation, and she would also pay more. Both sides claimed victory. Of course, as everyone conceded, it's not really over. As soon as ...

Tony Blankley

The GQ Statesman

Watching Obama glide through his foreign trip so far, nervous Republicans and other patriots have to hope that American voters will not view Obama through the eyes of a Hollywood casting director. That's because one could not cast a man who visually can portray a worldly statesman better. We all must envy his ability to effortlessly drape his tall, imperially slender form in gilded Louis XV chairs ...

Miguel Perez

Who Can Fix Immigration: Obama or McCain?

It is a political minefield so dangerous that no one dares to lead us through it. The presidential candidates dance around it as if we don't notice, but both Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain clearly are avoiding one of the most important and controversial issues in the minds of most Americans. What are they really going to do about illegal immigration? Does anybody know? Regardless of which si ...

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman

An Affair To Remember

At a reception for an emerging artist, a tipsy friend approached me to continue a private chat we had long ago. "So, you still want John McCain for president?" he said, in the neighborhood of 30,000 decibels above a whisper. Jaws dropped. Conversations stopped. I felt every cultural elitist eyeball in the gallery was on me. Awkward! First, I don't know how most of my friends vote unless ...

Thomas Sowell

Bankrupt "Exploiters"

We don't look to arsonists to help put out fires but we do look to politicians to help solve financial crises that they played a major role in creating. How did the government help create the current financial mess? Let me count the ways. In addition to federal laws that pressure lenders to lend to people they would not otherwise lend to, and in places where they would otherwise not invest, state ...

David Sirota

"Centrists" Running the Asylum

In the asylum that is American politics, beware a candidate like Barack Obama when he is lauded for moving to "the center" — because usually that means he is drifting away from it. Over the last month, the Democratic presidential nominee has backed a measure to permit warrantless wiretapping and protect telecom companies when they violate customers' privacy; sent conflicting signal ...

Debra Saunders

The Uncensored Jesse Jackson

In a Washington speech last week, former Vice President Al Gore argued that America can produce "affordable" 100 percent carbon-free electricity within 10 years. My question: Why not five years? As long as Gore sees virtue in proposing completely unrealistic solutions, as in moving America from getting 3 percent to all of its electricity from renewable energy sources in a mere decade, wo ...

Lenore Skenazy

42 Ways To Tell We're Tanking

For the average American man and woman — let's call them Freddie and Fannie — times are feeling a bit dicey. The housing market is in a swoon. The stock market is swooning right along. Consumer confidence? Lying there like a wet towel on the bathroom floor that nobody's picking up. As troubling as things are, however, are we really in bad shape? Here's a handy-dandy way to find out: &n ...