Steve Chapman from Creators Syndicate

The Republican Health Care Failure for 09/13/2009

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Republicans fault President Obama for plans that would greatly expand federal outlays on health care, enlarge the federal role in the provision of medicine, doom private insurance and wrestle Aunt Sally into the grave. They have some valid points. But while they're heaping blame on Obama, they need to save a share for someone else: themselves.

His GOP critics in Congress, after all, have ...

Updated: Sun Sep 13, 2009

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The Revenge of Ross Perot for 09/17/2009

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

For years, I've been wishing for another Ross Perot — a leader who would awaken the American people to the dangers of living beyond our national means through huge federal budget deficits. Now, at last, we have that leader. His name is Barack Obama.

Perot ran for president in 1992 as a third-party candidate, and an unlikely Pied Piper he was — a short, crew-cut scold with a t ...

Updated: Thu Sep 17, 2009

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Race and the Opposition to Obama for 09/20/2009

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

A new president, pursuing policies well within the political mainstream, evokes weirdly angry and intense denunciations from opponents — a reaction hard to explain in terms of anything he has actually done. Does that suggest, as Jimmy Carter insists, that their true motivation lies in racism?

No, it doesn't, because I'm not talking about Barack Obama. I'm talking about George W. Bu ...

Updated: Sun Sep 20, 2009

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What Do We Owe Exonerated Inmates? for 09/24/2009

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

Editor's Note: Steve Chapman is on vacation. The following column was originally published in August 2006.

Michael Evans won an Illinois lottery. The state presented him with a check for $162,000. But forgive him if he's not as grateful as most Lotto winners. His payout didn't come to him because he selected some winning numbers. It came because he spent 27 years in prison for a rape and ...

Updated: Thu Sep 24, 2009

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Sweet Lies About Kids and Smoking for 09/27/2009

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

At least since 1994, when seven tobacco executives testified before Congress that they didn't think cigarettes were addictive, the public has not put great trust in those who sell carcinogens for a living. What Americans may not realize is that they also shouldn't believe the people who are supposed to protect us from tobacco. When it comes to cigarettes, the federal government can blow smoke w ...

Updated: Sun Sep 27, 2009

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The Tragedies of Afghanistan for 10/01/2009

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

If Shakespeare had ever written a play about Afghanistan, it would have been a tragedy, not a comedy. For the United States, Afghanistan has been one tragedy after another, with more looming ahead.

In that part of the world, the only thing more dangerous than failure is success. It was America's success in helping the mujahedeen rebels defeat the Soviet Union that spawned later troubles. ...

Updated: Thu Oct 01, 2009

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Chicago Wins by Losing for 10/04/2009

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Abraham Lincoln was once asked how he liked being president. Bedeviled by secession and war, he recalled a story about a man who, when tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, commented that "if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk." Chicago didn't get the honor of hosting the 2016 Olympic Games, but it should be grateful.

Athletes who mak ...

Updated: Sun Oct 04, 2009

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Obama and the 'Socialist' Canard for 10/08/2009

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

Since he's under attack for allegedly being a covert socialist, you would think President Obama would get some love from the overt socialists. But they sound about as enamored of him as Sean Hannity is.

"Obama's a market guy!" fumed Frank Llewellyn, head of the Democratic Socialists of America, in an interview with Politics Daily. "He's not any kind of socialist at all. He ...

Updated: Thu Oct 08, 2009

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Fattening the Nanny State for 10/11/2009

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Obese people and public-health scolds have one thing in common: a compulsion to keep behaving in a way that does not produce helpful results. The obese tend to keep eating too much and exercising too little regardless of what others say. Disciples of maternal government persist in meddling in individual choices whether it works or not.

One of the pet campaigns of the second group, ostens ...

Updated: Sun Oct 11, 2009

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Mortgage Madness, Again for 10/15/2009

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

Watching Washington policymakers in action, I sometimes think they make mistakes because of unrealistic goals, flawed thinking, blind obedience to party or dubious information. And sometimes I think they make mistakes because they are — how to put this? — clinically insane.

There is no other way to explain what is going on at the Federal Housing Administration, which provides ...

Updated: Thu Oct 15, 2009

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Treating the Elderly Like Spoiled Brats for 10/18/2009

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

When inflation hits, every dollar in your bank account is worth less each day. Deflation is just the opposite: You put your feet up and watch your money grow in value. The latter is what is happening now to America's seniors. And politicians think they should not have to stand for it.

The other day, the federal government announced that for the first time since cost-of-living adjustments ...

Updated: Sun Oct 18, 2009

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From Obama, Sanity on Marijuana for 10/22/2009

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

In 1973, Robert Randall was going blind from glaucoma when he discovered that smoking marijuana seemed to help his condition. That didn't matter to police when they found the Washington, D.C., resident growing cannabis and arrested him. Preferring to keep his sight, Randall sued the federal government, arguing that he was entitled to smoke pot as a "medical necessity."

It was a ...

Updated: Thu Oct 22, 2009

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Health Care Delusions, Left and Right for 10/25/2009

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

If you've been following the health care debate over the last couple of years, you may have heard the grim tale of Nataline Sarkisyan. Just 17 years old, afflicted with leukemia, she needed a liver transplant, but the insurance company Cigna refused to cover the surgery. After being picketed by nurses and the family, the insurer relented, but too late: She died that same day.

When he ran ...

Updated: Sun Oct 25, 2009

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The Unhealthy 'Public Option' for 10/29/2009

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

If Medicare were a bank, federal regulators would be closing its doors, selling its operations and sacking its managers. Thanks to soaring costs, the program is fast running out of money — even though it pays such low fees that many doctors refuse to take Medicare patients. Meanwhile, Medicare fraud costs taxpayers some $60 billion a year, according to a report by CBS's "60 Minutes,& ...

Updated: Thu Oct 29, 2009

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A Big, Fat Political Mistake for 11/01/2009

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I have seen the future of American politics, and it is big. Big and fat.

You can get a glimpse of it in the New Jersey governor's race, which pits the slim, distance-running, Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine against Republican Chris Christie, who is built for comfort, not for speed. Corzine ran a TV ad accusing the challenger of "throwing his weight around" to beat traffic tick ...

Updated: Sun Nov 01, 2009

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America Only Seems Polarized for 11/05/2009

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

Barack Obama held out hope of overcoming partisan divides, lowering the temperature and bringing Americans together. How's that working out? Not well, it appears. One year after he was elected, Americans look more polarized than ever.

In a special House election in upstate New York, a Conservative Party candidate, backed by Sarah Palin, took on a moderate Republican whom his supporters c ...

Updated: Thu Nov 05, 2009

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Our Dangerous Cold War Nostalgia for 11/08/2009

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Communism was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, and one of the greatest in human history. Twenty years ago, suddenly and improbably, it fell into its death throes.

The end began the night of Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall was opened, allowing East Germans to leave the prison that constituted their country. Throughout Eastern Europe, one Communist regime after another disi ...

Updated: Sun Nov 08, 2009

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Muslims and Mass Murder for 11/12/2009

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

Mass murders are usually a mystery. When Maj. Nidal Hasan allegedly committed one last week at Fort Hood, though, there was no time wasted in solving the mystery by blaming the massacre on his religion, which is Islam.

Maybe Hasan is just a homicidal lunatic set to work by fevered demons inside his brain. But post-9/11, you can't be a killer who happens to be a Muslim. If you're a killer ...

Updated: Thu Nov 12, 2009

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Gay Marriage Lost, But It's Not Losing for 11/15/2009

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Opponents of same-sex marriage waxed triumphant recently when voters in Maine rejected a measure allowing gays to wed. Maggie Gallagher, head of the National Organization for Marriage, crowed, "This victory in Maine interrupts the cultural narrative that was being manufactured, that somehow American opinion is shifting on the gay marriage issue."

But she and her allies are the ...

Updated: Sun Nov 15, 2009

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Palin and the Conservative Descent for 11/19/2009

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

The 19th century American writer Henry Adams said the descent of American presidents from George Washington to Ulysses S. Grant was enough to discredit the theory of evolution. The same could be said of the pantheon of conservative political heroes, which in the last half-century has gone from Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan to Sarah Palin. That refutation may be agreeable to Palin, who doesn ...

Updated: Thu Nov 19, 2009

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