Michael Barone from Creators Syndicate

Tom Friedman Hails China's One-Party Autocracy for 09/14/2009

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The dwindling number of readers of The New York Times were treated Wednesday to a column by Thomas Friedman extolling China's "one-party autocracy," which, he told us, "is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people."

China's leaders, he reported, are "boosting gasoline prices" and "overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, bat ...

Updated: Mon Sep 14, 2009

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Job-Killing Policies Could Doom Democrat Hopes for 09/17/2009

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

"The level of unemployment is unacceptably high. And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years."

Who do you suppose said that? A Republican political operative? A Fox News political analyst? One of those several hundred thousand Tea Partiers who assembled in Washington on Sept. 12? No, it was Lawrence Summers, the director of Barack Obama's National ...

Updated: Thu Sep 17, 2009

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Strangers to Dissent, Liberals Try to Stifle It for 09/21/2009

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling &q ...

Updated: Mon Sep 21, 2009

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Obama's Time Warp: The U.S. Is Still the Bad Guy for 09/24/2009

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In the early 1980s, while planning a vacation in Latin America, I went to bookstores to look for histories of the region. All I could find were Marxist tracts arguing that "the people" were exploited by greedy corporations and military dictators, all propped up by the United States.

Available literature on Latin America today includes much more sensible accounts. But some peopl ...

Updated: Thu Sep 24, 2009

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With Obama, Too Much Nuance, Not Enough Power for 09/28/2009

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

"It is my deeply held belief," Barack Obama told the United Nations General Assembly, that "in the year 2009 — more than at any point in human history — the interests of nations and peoples are shared."

That is, of course, the year Obama became president, and he wasn't shy about referring in his second paragraph to "the expectations that accompany my ...

Updated: Mon Sep 28, 2009

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Democrats Win Lobbyists but Lose Basic Reforms for 10/01/2009

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As Sen. Max Baucus tries to squeeze a health care bill out of the Senate Finance Committee, and as Sens. Barbara Boxer and John Kerry race to meet their latest deadline to introduce a bill to reduce carbon dioxide, some Democrats wonder whether their congressional leaders and the president who has deferred to them have sought only limited changes rather than more fundamental reform on both heal ...

Updated: Thu Oct 01, 2009

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A War of Necessity Turns Out Not So Necessary for 10/05/2009

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

"This is not a war of choice," Barack Obama told the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Aug. 17. "This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9-11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaida would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to t ...

Updated: Mon Oct 05, 2009

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Weak Himself, Obama Draws Strength From Bush for 10/08/2009

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In trying to understand what is happening in the nation and world, we all employ narratives — story lines that indicate where things are going and what is likely to happen next. We can check the validity of these narratives by observing whether events move in the indicated direction. If so, the narrative is confirmed. But if things seem to be moving in an entirely different direction, it' ...

Updated: Thu Oct 08, 2009

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'Conceptual Language' Hides Health Care's Costs for 10/12/2009

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Some of the headlines in recent days are not worthy of belief. No, I'm not referring to the headlines that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, however odd that many seem to many (including, it seems, Obama himself). I'm referring to the headlines earlier in the week to the effect that the health care bill sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will cut the federal deficit ...

Updated: Mon Oct 12, 2009

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The Trouble With Health Care Is Paying for It for 10/15/2009

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The legislative process can also be a learning process, and as Congress considers health care legislation — the latest act being the Senate Finance Committee's vote in favor of Chairman Max Baucus' bill, or "conceptual language" — we have been learning something useful. It's that legislators would like to provide generous, even gold-plated health insurance coverage to almo ...

Updated: Thu Oct 15, 2009

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Unlike Obama, Americans reject European model for 10/19/2009

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

An interesting paradox. Last year, America elected a president who, in attitudes and policies, is closer to the elites of Western Europe than any of his predecessors. Yet in the nine months that he has been in office, ordinary Americans have been moving away from those attitudes and policies and have increasingly embraced positions that over the years have made Americans distinctive from those ...

Updated: Mon Oct 19, 2009

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Obama Hits Opponents With Chicago Brass Knuckles for 10/22/2009

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

"His father was a great friend of my father." The reference to William Ayers' father was how Mayor Richard M. Daley began his defense of Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Daley's father, of course, was Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers' father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based ...

Updated: Thu Oct 22, 2009

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Obama at Odds With His Own Vision for the World for 10/26/2009

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Barack Obama, who found time to go on a 24-hour jaunt to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to seek the 2016 Olympics games for Chicago, apparently cannot find the time for a 24-hour trip to Berlin on Nov. 9 for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well, we all have our priorities, and the president can't be everywhere at once, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sure ...

Updated: Mon Oct 26, 2009

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Four Races Will Test the Strength of Obama's Majority for 10/29/2009

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Five days from now the voters of New Jersey and Virginia will elect governors. Voters in the 23rd district of New York and the 10th district of California will elect new members of the House of Representatives to replace incumbents, a Republican and a Democrat, who were appointed to positions in the Obama Defense and State departments.

All four of these constituencies voted for Barack Ob ...

Updated: Thu Oct 29, 2009

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Hold the Champagne -- Happy Days Aren't Here Again for 11/02/2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The recession is over, we are told. The Commerce Department announced Thursday that the economy grew in the third quarter of 2009 by 3.5 percent. Great, huh?

Maybe not. About half that growth came from the Cash for Clunkers program, which transferred into the third quarter auto sales that would have occurred later. The expiring tax credit of $8,000 for first-time homebuyers stimulated so ...

Updated: Mon Nov 02, 2009

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Virginia, New Jersey Races Showing Voters Changing Course for 11/05/2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

As the final votes were being counted, it was possible to draw some lessons from Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in Virginia and the close, three-way governor's race in New Jersey, never mind that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has taken to saying that the elections don't mean much.

The odd-year elections — held in the first year of a presidency — have been meani ...

Updated: Thu Nov 05, 2009

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Freewheeling Young Voters Scare Both Parties for 11/09/2009

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

In November 2008, 658,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 782,000 did so in Virginia. In November 2009, 212,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 198,000 did so in Virginia. In other words, young-voter turnout this year was down two-thirds in New Jersey and three-quarters in Virginia.

These numbers are extrapolations from exit poll results and should be regarded as ap ...

Updated: Mon Nov 09, 2009

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History Is Calling -- Will Obama Answer? for 11/12/2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Anniversaries are opportunities to reflect on the past and on what it might mean for the future. Monday saw the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, even if Barack Obama could not find time to travel once again to Berlin to attend the commemoration there. And Wednesday is the 91st anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I.

The two events being remembered can be seen ...

Updated: Thu Nov 12, 2009

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Pushing Health Reform When Job Losses Are Rising for 11/16/2009

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Barack Obama told the House Democratic Caucus before the roll call vote on health care on Nov. 7 that they would be better off politically if they passed the bill than if they let it fail. Bill Clinton speaking to the Senate Democrats' lunch on Nov. 10 cited his party's big losses in 1994 after Congress failed to pass his health care legislation as evidence that Democrats would suffer more from ...

Updated: Mon Nov 16, 2009

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Obama Bows, but the World Refuses to Bow Back for 11/19/2009

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

On his 10-day trip to Asia and in his 10th month in office, Barack Obama is beginning to encounter limits on his ambition to change the world. Even as he bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia last April and to the emperor of Japan last week, the world refuses to bow back.

This is not how it was supposed to be. "I am absolutely certain that generations from now," he said on the nigh ...

Updated: Thu Nov 19, 2009

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