Basically, we Americans are a practical rather than an ideological people. We are interested in what's right, but almost obsessed with what works. The two district court decisions that greeted us this Christmas on the constitutionality and practical utility of the National Security Agency's continuing drive to collect all available information on each of us reflects this difference. Published December 30, 2013
Baseball fans were on the edge of their seats last week hoping for news that their favorite teams would come out of Major League Baseball's winter meetings in Orlando, Fla., as winners. Published December 16, 2013
It was last March when the country's director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper, appeared before a Senate committee, and with the cameras rolling, took an oath to tell the truth, then hunched over, scratched his brow and proceeded to lie. Published December 12, 2013
I never met Nelson Mandela and like most conservatives and anti-Communists I was more than a little skeptical at South Africa's prospects as his ANC came closer and closer to bringing that country's white rulers down in the late 1980s. Published December 8, 2013
I never met Nelson Mandela and like most conservatives and anti-Communists I was more than a little skeptical at South Africa's prospects as his ANC came closer and closer to bringing that country's white rulers down in the late 1980s. Published December 6, 2013
In early November, Bill Elliot appeared on Megyn Kelly's Fox News Channel show to complain about the rock and a hard place he found himself in owing to President Obama's health care scheme. Published December 3, 2013
During his initial 2008 run for the presidency, Barack Obama attacked no-bid and sole-source federal contracting as wasteful and at least marginally corrupt. He promised that when elected, he would end "the abuse of no-bid contracting once and for all." His administration, he said, would be the most transparent in history and would do away with the cronyism that plagued his predecessors. Published December 1, 2013
Most Americans of my generation can remember where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been fatally shot 50 years ago because it was traumatic and it all but took place on television. Published November 21, 2013
All one has to do is think back over the developments of the past few months to begin to grasp the futility of making comfortable political predictions. Those in the business of doing so might as well take jobs predicting the course of the next hurricane or next month's weather. Published November 19, 2013
The top U.S. diplomat's blunder could trigger renewed violence against Israel Published November 10, 2013
Everybody does it, but nobody does it like Barack Obama Published November 4, 2013
Opposing wings of the GOP must sheathe their claws and fly together Published October 28, 2013
Now that the shutdown has been shut down, the media are busy telling us that Republicans may be eligible for endangered-species status for daring to stand up to President Obama's desire to begin implementation of a health care scheme that is not even close to being ready for prime time. Published October 22, 2013
Last month, a Spanish forensics team called in to examine the remains of six adults and two children found in a mass grave in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara raised anew charges that in seizing the area in the 1970s, the Moroccans had captured or arrested and killed hundreds of Western Saharan civilians. Published October 20, 2013
If Tom Clancy didn't create the genre of action-infused military novels that readers couldn't put down, he certainly perfected it. By the time he passed away on Tuesday at age 66, he had written a shelf-full of some of the most widely read all-American, cloak-and-.45 tales ever. Tens of millions of fans worldwide are left wanting -- if not grieving. Published October 2, 2013
Union backing for Obamacare boosted government, not workers Published September 30, 2013
As Congress and the White House pasted together and passed the so-called Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 2001 attack on the New York World Trade Center, a few conservatives raised questions about the degree to which the nation seemed ready "to trade liberty for security." Published June 13, 2013
America's gun owners are under siege on virtually all fronts. Congress is after us, and so are governors such as New York's Andrew Cuomo and Maryland's Martin O'Malley. They must think that when they run for the Democratic presidential nomination, a strong anti-gun stance will help them with left-wing primary voters. Published March 27, 2013
Washington's ideological blinders too often prevent anything approaching a rational discussion of issues. The battle lines are drawn and most everybody assumes without thinking that any suggestion emanating from "enemy" lines must be dangerous, wrong or even crazy. Published December 28, 2012
The last time Republicans held a nominating convention in Florida, Richard Nixon and his buttoned-down crew descended on Miami and got a far different reception from that accorded George McGovern, the anti-war Democrat who had been nominated in the very same city just a month or so earlier. Published August 29, 2012
