One of my great hopes for an Obama administration — and thus one of my personal disappointments — was that he would use his bully pulpit to emphasize the importance of a two-parent family, and … more

WASHINGTON — Even Jonathan Swift, who said promises and pie crusts are made to be broken, might have marveled at the limited shelf life of Barack Obama’s promise of a “balanced” … more

WASHINGTON — A variety of insults have been deployed in opposition to Susan Rice’s likely nomination for secretary of state: She is not qualified; she’s too aggressive; she “misled” the … more

WASHINGTON — Debt fighters Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, dining with reporters Wednesday morning, discussed a White House official’s admission that the nation’s fiscal problems won’t be … more

WASHINGTON — In today’s world of social media, where everyone’s every little thing is on display, it is sometimes difficult to recall a time when exhibitionism wasn’t ubiquitous and was, in … more

Ah, the great American West, where man can generally breathe free and also inhale — woman, too. Thank you, thank you, voters in Colorado and Washington state, for legalizing marijuana. But will … more

WASHINGTON — With a chip on his shoulder larger than his margin of victory, Barack Obama is approaching his second term by replicating the mistake of his first. Then his overreaching involved … more

WASHINGTON — For all the fury and fistfights outside the Lansing Capitol, what happened in Michigan this week was a simple accommodation to reality. The most famously unionized state, birthplace of … more

WASHINGTON — After word leaked from the White House late last week that Chuck Hagel was in line to become the next secretary of defense, Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard manned the Patriot missile … more

WASHINGTON — Why are Republicans playing the Democrats’ game that the “fiscal cliff” is all about taxation? House Speaker John Boehner already made the pre-emptive concession of agreeing … more