Latest Analysis
Agency scandals raise serious questions about oversight
Who is minding the store? It seems a fair question with front pages, TV and the Internet full of sensational stories, blogs and twitters about obvious government malfeasance from the FBI to the Secret Service to the General Services Administration. At first glance, the vaunted Secret Service was mor... Read more
Norway's gentle justice for a mass murderer
If you're a lunatic mass murderer, you couldn't pick a much better venue for the crime than Norway. That's the lesson from the trial that began Monday in Oslo of Anders Breivik, who has admitted to killing eight people in a bomb blast in the capital's downtown and, later that same day, 69 youngsters... Read more
What do you mean you don't want a driver's license?
Since the beginning of the Republic, the nation has been afflicted with a breed of scholars, social critics and think tankers who take indecent relish in predicting the decline, even the imminent demise, of the United States. I've always thought this a harmless kind of nuttery, akin to the doom... Read more
Smartphone anti-theft plan seems, um, smart
Cellphones readily lend themselves to theft. People strolling along city streets chatting away on cells are not paying attention to their surroundings -- you can see it in that faraway look when they talk -- and are easy prey for snatch-and-run robbers. When cellphones became smartphones, they beca... Read more
NRA should take a hit for gun deaths in schools
Oh, another week, another school shooting. Once again, America yawns. This one took place on April 1, when another mentally ill person secured use of a handgun and killed students at a private Christian university in East Oakland, Calif. At the time of this writing, seven were dead and three wounded... Read more
Will there be a fourth wave of feminism?
There's a lot of talk about a fourth wave of feminism. A New York Times article last week posed the following question: Who will succeed Gloria Steinem (leader of second-wave feminism) as head of the next wave of feminism? But I have a question that precedes the question posed by the Times: Will th... Read more
The unintended unmaking of Afghan hearts and minds
A decade of war and American sacrifice half a world away has come down to this: Afghanistan's mountains, valleys, plateaus, cities and farmlands are reverberating with the sounds of hearts and minds shattering. Among them are hearts and minds that once seemed securely won. Young boys, military-aged... Read more
Hu and Wen are leaving. China asks: What next?
Once every 10 years, the inner circle of China's ruling Communist Party retreats behind closed doors and quickly re-emerges to inform the Chinese people, and the world, who the new leaders will be. The hierarchy is very likely horrified by the messy primary, caucus and convention process by which t... Read more
Obama will get credit or blame for gas prices
There are many reasons for high gasoline prices. Some of them: surging demand in newly emerging industrial powers like China and India; Japan's shift from nuclear to oil for power generation following the tsunami; unrest in oil producers Sudan and Yemen; Libya still recovering from its civil war; u... Read more
GOP foolishly turning off women voters
When will Republicans awaken to the dangers of alienating women, a growing number of whom now regard them as anti-female, not just anti-feminist? Maybe some GOP leaders, if there are any these days, already have seen the potential disaster such an image portends. But they seem helpless to avoid it i... Read more
Stop beating the drums for war with Iran.
Out of the blue, an old buddy this week sent me some photos of us as soldiers in Vietnam back when we were young and stupid. That lamentable war seemed a good idea at the time, and for my part I remain proud that I served, but over the years I have come to think that the statesmen who sent us were t... Read more
Don't tie U.S. debt reduction to future 'kids'
Fiscal conservatives unwittingly sabotage themselves by invoking "the children" when explaining the dangers of America's ballooning national debt. They should spend lots more time discussing how federal red ink harms adults today. Tying debt reduction to parenting causes two problems:First, if Amer... Read more
Middle East Requires New Mode of Thinking
As the crisis with Iran continues to simmer, Albert Einstein's often-cited remark, in its own way as profound as his theory of relativity, comes to mind: "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." This rema... Read more
Problematic voter rolls undermine confidence
Reports of dead voters are greatly understated. While Democrats dismiss voter fraud as a collective Republican hallucination, a study released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States confirms the GOP's concerns. The ghosts in America's voting machines may be the least of our worries. Pew has discov... Read more
The blood-stained reign of Bashar al-Assad
The bloody slaughter of civilians in Syria was playing in cable-news snippets on television sets throughout the White House West Wing and State Department on Tuesday, as the man who expects to become China's new leader this year met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and was fe... Read more
Prisons must cope with surge in elderly inmates
In the mid-1990s, there was a mini-wave of "granny dumping." Elderly people, abandoned by families, showed up at hospitals and Salvation Army facilities, often with a note to the effect: "Please take care of her. We no longer can." That cold-hearted solution is not available to a U.S. prison system... Read more
U.S. NATO to depart Afghanistan early
President Barack Obama's military advisers plan on the U.S. and its NATO allies ending combat operations in Afghanistan perhaps as soon as mid-2013, a year and a half early. That lays the groundwork for the coalition leaving well before the announced 2014 deadline. The accelerated withdrawal still ... Read more
With Iran, are sanctions working?
There's pain and then there's pain. Getting stung by a bee hurts. Having a Doberman sink his teeth into your thigh is a more intense experience. By the same token, there are sanctions and then there are sanctions. For years, the sanctions imposed on Iran were an irritation, a not-entirely-convinci... Read more
Economic freedom declines in U.S.
Good news! On economic freedom, America is in the global Top 10. Bad news: America is No. 10 -- one blond hair ahead of Denmark. According to the 18th annual Index of Economic Freedom, released Thursday by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, Hong Kong enjoys Earth's freest economy.... Read more
A public appeal to stop privatization
Will the political genius who invented privatization please step forward so those of us who know what a flop it is can haul out our rotten tomatoes and dispose of them accordingly? Thank you! Privatization is a movement now virtually overtaking cash-strapped city, county and state governments. Supp... Read more
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