The 100th anniversary of the birth of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, is Sunday. On that day and during the year ahead, there will be many celebrations of the life of a man who remains one of the most beloved and respected of our modern presidents.
The president showed his greatest talent last night in his State of the Union speech -- and that talent is making a speech that makes everyone feel good.
Sarah Palin made it clear Monday in an interview on Fox's Sean Hannity show that she is not going to "sit down or shut up."
Liberals are unhappy and think their leader, President Obama, has surrendered on raising taxes to the rich without a fight.
The first date is over. Not much happened. President Obama and his new governing partners, the House and Senate Republicans, met at the White House along with the Democratic leaders and discussed the unsolvable issues between them.
This is Orientation Week for the 100-plus new members of Congress. After the drama of a yearlong campaign and the excitement of victory, the coming days will be full of briefings, meetings, social events, picking new offices and staff and the realization that a new and challenging part of their lives is just beginning.
The 2010 election is over and the voters have made an overwhelming statement: "Things need to be different in Washington and across the country." They have chosen representatives at every level to make that happen. The election results are historic and far-reaching.
Even though the American elections won't be decided until the polls close tonight, the Irish bookies late last week started paying off bettors who predicted Republicans would win a majority in the House of Representatives. And they stopped making new bets. That's a pretty definite statement!
Since 2000, one of the most popular television reality programs has been a CBS show called "Survivor." It's a show in which contestants compete against each other in a variety of humiliating and difficult tasks until one is declared the winner.
Since the early '80s, nearly every major boxing championship or featured bout has had a golden-voiced announcer, Michael Buffer, who began the bout with the pronouncement "Let's get ready to rumble!"
I have seen many campaigns in my four decades in politics, but this one is the strangest. With a little more than a month to go and many races still very close, the Democratic message to their faithful is mind-boggling.
The preliminaries are over; let the battles begin. With less than seven weeks to go, here are the conclusions of the primary season completed yesterday.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel may have gotten his get-out-of-jail card in just the nick of time.
In the first two days back from his Martha's Vineyard family vacation, President Obama gave two speeches on two important subjects.
Republican primary voters yesterday sent shock waves of earthquake proportions from Florida to Alaska.
With a little more than 10 weeks left to go, the rhetoric has accelerated and both sides are trying to find an issue that changes the dynamics of Election Day 2010.
Trying to read the tea leaves and predict elections this year is a gut-wrenching exercise in futility. And my party's march to Election Day glory is having a lot of bumps along the way.
It's become apparent that the president and his party want to run in November against George W. Bush and Denny Hastert and the alleged mess they left him. The problem with that strategy is the former president and former House speaker are long gone from the D.C. scene.
As I watched the split screen of the Petraeus hearings and the Kagan hearings this week, two views of what makes America great were clearly on display.
The Senate lost a giant and America lost a patriot with the death of Sen. Robert Byrd early Monday morning.
Two leaders have been called on to resign this week by critics and media analysts. Both men damaged their credibility by their own actions and no one else's.
President Obama has given a lot of speeches. He's given hundreds since he became president. He's given six in the last two days on his trip to the Gulf.
Who needs reality TV when we have reality politics? In spite of voters telling pollsters they are fed up with elected officials and reaffirming those sentiments by firing them at the voting booth, the politicians still aren't getting the message.
The governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, is announcing today that he will not run as a Republican for the open U.S. Senate race, but will seek that office as an independent.
As the Tea Party movement has become the vehicle for the frustration of hundreds of thousands of Americans against elected officials and the government bailout of Wall Street, I've thought many times about Gordon Gekko, the fictional character in the superb 1987 movie "Wall Street."
The political campaign season is off and running, whether you're ready or not. According to the latest CNN poll, registered voters share the polarization that now rules Washington.
If President Obama had been forthright last week at the health care summit, he would have opened the meeting by stating: "If you have health coverage, under our reform bills you are going to pay more and get less. If you are one of the 45 million elderly or disabled people on Medicare, you are going to get less. There is no such thing as free medical care. Somebody has to pay! And in the end it is you."
In the week we celebrate Valentine's Day, honor our first president, George Washington (and all the other past presidents) and begin the season of Lent, there is much to reflect on.
A grass-roots movement is growing across this country, and like the Ross Perot movement of 18 years ago, it will turn the political landscape upside down, with the consequences being felt long afterwards.
Still reeling from Tuesday's shocking upset in the Massachusetts Senate race, the political class got hammered again Thursday by the Supreme Court, which, for all practical purposes, outlawed campaign finance rules and made the already irrelevant Federal Election Commission obsolete.
The voters in Massachusetts sent a message loud and clear. Maybe even a "shot heard around the world." At least the political world. Tuesday night's victory for Scott Brown for the vacant seat held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy for 46 years was a massive win for disenchanted voters everywhere.
As our nation's politicians return from their holidays, the agenda they left behind is still front and center. Getting an acceptable compromise of the very different Senate and House health care bills is still the president's and the Democratic leadership's priority. Stopping it is still the Republicans' priority. The final details may antagonize some of the Democrats' most important constituencies and the grumbling has already started.
On the second page of the executive summary of the 9/11 commission report is a line we should all remember: "[T]he 9/11 attacks were a shock but they should not have been a surprise. Islamist extremists had given plenty of warning that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers."
We are approaching the eve of Christmas and maybe in that spirit, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid morphed into Santa Claus, giving out presents to the little boys and girls who were naughty and (not so) nice this year.
After months of review, President Obama has made a decision that will not please the base of his party. The majority of Democrats in Congress are opposed to expanding or prolonging the war in Afghanistan. Many Americans share their concern.
In this past week of very important news -- when the president presided over the memorial service for the slain soldiers of Fort Hood and departed on his first Asia trip, and the attorney general made the controversial decision to treat the mastermind terrorist of 9/11 as a criminal to be tried in a Manhattan civilian courtroom -- the story of the departure of longtime CNN anchor Lou Dobbs still jumped out.
Since its debut on October 11, 1975, "Saturday Night Live" has spoofed, ridiculed and hammered presidents and other political figures without regard to political affiliation or any other sensitivities.
The president had his first foray into the byzantine world of U.N. politics last week and walked away cheered on by the anti-America crowd.
On the international stage, this week is President Obama's most important since taking office.
President Obama is about to undertake a full-scale blitz of all the Sunday talk shows to try to convince the American people one more time of the merits of his health care plan.
The president is making a major address to the Congress and the country Wednesday night. This speech is high risk for him.
The political arena is an emptier place today. A brave and courageous warrior has left the battlefield. He will not be quickly forgotten or replaced.
One of my favorite movies is the Academy Award-winning best picture "Braveheart," a fictionalized retelling of the story of William Wallace, the Scots knight and resistance leader during the Scottish independence wars of the 13th century.
My 14-year-old daughter graduated earlier this week from middle school (8th grade) and she begins high school in the fall. As I watched her and her classmates receive their diplomas, I reflected on the world they are going to inherit from us.
Almost everybody cheers for the underdog -- maybe not those born to upper-class standing with great advantages, but those of us who weren't always want the little guy to be victorious.
The past week has not been what one would call a great week for our political leaders.
My message to the national media and political pundits on their premature obits on the Republican Party: Quit throwing dirt on our graves!
The world of politics has many players but few giants. One of the giants left the stage last week.
Today is the 100th day of the Obama administration. Judging a president after 100 days is not realistic -- and may be absurd.
Like so many politicians I have known, the man we elected president wants to be loved. He wants to be loved passionately and daily by the 69 million who voted for him and even some of the 60 million who voted for John McCain.
A president makes many decisions, but none is more important than those he makes as commander in chief. Committing young men and women to war zones where their lives are at risk is a decision that can't be easily reversed, and the consequences can be fatal.
President Obama has returned from his first trip abroad with praise ringing in his ears from the media elite and barely a word of protest from the Republican opposition.
After firing the CEO of General Motors and putting Chrysler on a path that could lead to bankruptcy, the still-popular President Obama moved from the domestic battlefield to the international one. But the subject is the same, with no relief in sight: the woeful world economy.
The lights on Broadway were dimmed Wednesday night to honor Ron Silver, the Tony-award winning actor who was buried Wednesday after a courageous battle against cancer of the esophagus.
Every great athlete has a pace. A pace is a certain speed at which they can run for very long periods of time without damaging their bodies and wearing themselves out before the race is over.
The cold winds of March have obviously affected the intelligence and thought processes of people who need to get their thinking straight.
President Obama technically didn't give a State of the Union speech Tuesday night and therefore didn't have to report on the state of the union.
I first arrived in Washington in January 1973 as a new member of the Nixon team working in congressional relations for the administration.
President Obama had his first prime-time news conference Monday, and 60 million viewers tuned in.
Sports fans argue that the National Football League is the toughest game outside of war. I would argue Washington politics is also a pretty rough arena.
President Barack Obama, our newly inaugurated 44th president, showed the millions watching around the world and the freezing millions there in person on the Mall why he won the election -- and why so many believe he can lead us in these troubled times.
One week from today, a historic presidency begins and a tarnished presidency ends.
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