In search of a really, really big catastrophe
If you're a Democrat, lost in a restoration fantasy of taking over the Congress next year, now is the time to dream big. Reality, with its talent for smashing the fanciful, will arrive soon enough.
Pruden on Politics
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It's a carnival, and there's a monster on the midway
James Comey is a good lawyer. He was a good judge. Everyone says so, so it must be true. But he's a lousy politician, and he grew too big for his britches. He forgot who he was, and paid dearly.
The elites win a round, but in France
The good news for the elites in the land of the free and the home of the brave, driven to the point of madness by the success of Donald Trump, is that they finally have something to cheer. The not-so-good news is that the something to cheer is not here, but in France.
A squeak and a reprieve for the Republicans
The Republicans in the House finally did what they said they wanted to come to Washington to do. They voted Thursday to repeal Obamacare, but by the slimmest of margins. Speaker Paul D. Ryan needed 216 votes and he turned out 217.
A pity party for the unloved press
There was a broken heart for every wine glass and beer bottle at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night, where the White House Correspondents Association dined at their slimmed-down annual imitation of Hollywood glitz, grandeur and glamour.
Spooked by the power of words, words, words
The only thing anyone is allowed to hear on campus is a slogan. Thinking is so 20th century (and early 20th century at that). The adults paid to be in charge have retreated to a safe place, where never is heard an encouraging word and the skies are cloudy all day.
The status quo survives in France, but in ruins
The French easily embrace contradiction and chaos. It's what makes their politics work: "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose," and they said it first: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." The Sunday national election in France proved it again.
The high price of Fox hunting
The famous bimbo eruptions are back (as if they had ever really gone away), and for once Bubba appears to be in the clear. No new accusations of rude behavior have been lodged against him.
The coming death of the death penalty
The ever-cranky courts of law keep getting in the way of this Easter season's record-setting Festival of Death in Arkansas.
Donald Trump and his flexible mind
If chaos is the sign of growth -- and sometimes that's a fair description of progress -- Donald Trump is on course to build an administration that can survive the fits, starts and mistakes of a drawn-out opening night.
An about-face in a world of fright and fear
The peasants are excused if they think nobody knows what's he's doing. Mr. Nobody can't help noticing that the world seems to be careening to a destination we know not where.
An epidemic of TDS in the Marx Bros. media
Just about the time the fever on the nut left seems to be subsiding there's another outbreak of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Normal-looking folk who sound like they escaped a Marx Bros. movie fall into a relapse.
A crazy fat kid and his nuclear toys
Kim Jong-un may be "a crazy fat kid" with a goofy haircut, but he is doing what his father and his grandfather never could. With nuclear weapons to play with, he frightens the West enough to make it start thinking about doing something about the most dangerous crazy fat kid on earth.
Girding Republican loins for the war
The Gorsuch nomination finally gets a vote next week, first when the Senate Judiciary Committee approves the nomination and recommends that the Senate follow with confirmation.
The agony of finding a place for the spare Mercedes
Politics is serious business in Washington. Detroit is puzzling over how to make SUVs bigger. Hollywood is worried over how a screenwriters' strike will curtail production of tinsel in Hollywood.
Here comes the judge
Neil Gorsuch took the best shots, such as they were, of disheartened, dismayed and despondent Democrats this week, and nobody laid a glove on him. He was as fresh when it was over as when the slugging, such as it was, began.
James Comey's disappointing tap dance
James Comey, the director of the FBI, continues to act like a jerk for every season. The man who first tried to save Hillary Clinton's campaign, and then tried to wreck it at the eleventh hour, reprised his familiar tap dance Monday with Congress. It's getting stale.
The Budget Theater, now open with the follies
A president's budget has the shelf life of a shrimp. A president drafts a budget and sells it with language as chaste and extravagant as the blue sky, and his naysayers dutifully mount their soap boxes to declaim, distort and denounce.
Paranoia is what's for dinner in Washington
Paranoia is suddenly what's for dinner in Washington. The most fervent patriot can be a spy and never know it until someone posts a video of the high crime and misdemeanor of someone shaking a Russian hand.
Breaking up in the Trump Era is easy to do
Marriages, friendships and business relationships have been thrown at risk in the boiling political culture, where emotion replaces reason and millions of Americans won't have anything to do with someone with a different political opinion.
