By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
Barack Obama can relax and get to work on his hook shot and his putting. The presidential legacy he has fretted over is now clear, well established, safe and secure. The presidential historians can fire up their laptops and let the processing of words begin.
Left-leaning New York Times' columnist Maureen Dowd has jumped ideological camp and ripped into President Obama, calling him out for what she characterizes as leadership failures in the gun control debate.
Behold, some Earth Day news of a different sort. Recall that while in office, President George W. Bush relished his time outdoors in the Lone Star State, and he drew much derision from the liberal press for his habit of clearing out brush on his ranch, by hand, the old-fashioned way. Mr. Bush's basic penchant for earthy fare is still active. Very active, in fact.
For a book that has yet to be released, Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" _ part feminist manifesto, part how-to career guide _ has got a lot of people talking.
The scene: Tehran's Mehrabad airport, January 1980. Six U.S. diplomats, disguised as a fake sci-fi film crew, are about to fly to freedom with their CIA escorts. But suddenly there's a moment of panic in what had been a smooth trip through the airport.
November isn't even over, and the nation already is in the grip of RG3 Mania. Jimmy Johnson, the erstwhile Dallas Cowboys genius, said on TV on Sunday that if he were starting an NFL franchise, the first player he'd pick would be Robert Griffin III.
It was inevitable that a heroic quarterback in the nation's capital gets politicized: some now say President Obama could take a few political pointers from Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III.
The chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is rattling a left-wing Irish politician who wants to erect a statue to Ernesto "Che" Guevara, one of the most blood-thirsty rebels of the Cuban revolution — the same Che whose iconic image in a beard and beret adorns the T-shirts of starry-eyed fashionistas from Rodeo Drive to the Champs Elysees.
I think what's generally expected of a seventh-generation Texan, not to mention a Rick Perry voter, reviewing a New York writer's put-down of his homeland is some high-class fuming and frothing. I close Gail Collins' cantankerous book in unaccountably good temper.
Jesse Jackson is right. In response to the faceoff in Arizona between President Obama and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer last week, Mr. Jackson said, "Even George Wallace did not put his finger in Dr. King's face." It's true; he didn't. Similarly, not even Joseph Stalin wrote two autobiographies the way Mr. Obama has. And even Genghis Khan didn't have a Swiss bank account the way Mitt Romney did.
Pressure is mounting on Barack Obama to throw in the cards and announce that he won't seek re-election as president. Surprisingly, the push is coming from the left. This has many in mainstream America scratching their heads asking why liberals want to dump the most hard-left president in American history. The answer is they're worried Mr. Obama has moved too far, too fast - and revealed too much of their big-government agenda - to win a second term. This is Hillary Clinton's moment.
America's economy is in free-fall. Growth is anemic. The stock market is collapsing. Real unemployment - combining the high jobless rate with rampant underemployment - is higher than 16 percent. Manufacturing is dead. Deficits, debt and government spending are at record levels. Our credit rating has been downgraded for the first time in history. The trade deficit has exploded to the highest in years.A possible Great Depression haunts the land. Primarily one man is to blame: President Obama.
Who on Aug. 18, 2010 - almost one year ago - said, "I now think it is clear even to official Washington that President Obama is the worst president of modern times. President Jimmy Carter is redeemed"? Yes, it was I, and I threw the entire weight of the American Spectator behind that asseveration, putting both Jimmy and Barry on the cover.
Sarah Palin is the hottest act in town, and the critics can only grind their teeth. She's playing the media like a violin, though the likes of Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd look more like bass fiddles.
Bob Dylan doesn't understand all the fuss about his tour last month in China.
What's more, she said, "he doesn't want to learn, or to even hire some clever people who can tell him how to do it or do it for him," Politico reported
He could have taken control and led the Senate to pass expanded background checks for gun buyers, given the number of polls that showed the majority of Americans favored this policy reform, she said.
