Wacky, bewitching Michele Bachmann, whose candidacy is melting, melting, actually has offered something of substance to voters just before she becomes a vapor. She’s called the hand that has suddenly doused her campaign with her own tea-steeped brew, the hand of Rick Perry. So doing, she's made a very important point. …
DetailsDo the geese talk all the way? It’s work enough — winging from Canada’s marshes to America’s heartland — without also flapping one’s bill nonstop. That appears to be the case, however. All I know is that when the Canada geese are over my head in in Colorado, south-bound now, they…
DetailsIt’s a dirty shame that the Pew Research Center, in seeking a head count of extremism among Muslims in the United States, didn’t seek the same of extreme Christians. You might have noticed the story — the polling organization, at 10 years post-9/11, getting a sense of what American Muslims are thinking. …
DetailsThis is the way the world works — at least our corner of it. In 2006, drug giant Pfizer faced an embarrassing controversy, only not about what it was doing that was truly disgraceful. Red faces were in bloom over a series of TV and newspaper ads touting cholesterol-lowering drug…
DetailsLights, sequins, syncopation. They do put on a performance. Governing? No. But glitter, glam and that good old anti-government sound? Oh, yeah. You can almost hear the Gipper tapping his toe. They are the show that’s trying to stop the show. They are The Extremes. Michele. Rick. Rand. There’s Texas right-winger Louie…
DetailsIt doesn’t come often in the average person’s life — maybe never: the transformative thought. The light bulb of invention and inspiration. It came often to Einstein, Edison, Tesla. For us? Not so much. For the sake of America’s children, let’s hope the one Arne Duncan just announced isn’t it — that epiphany…
DetailsThe convention center was a multicolored whirl of abstinence education — in every room — from teen girls learning about the exploitation that can come with a grown-up suitor, to adolescents making a reach into a purple velvet “grab bag” only to find a deathly dilemma in hand, like AIDS or syphilis. …
DetailsRick Perry was in Aspen last week long enough to disappoint a packed room of western conservatives. The Texas governor, you might have heard, is primping for the presidency. And let's admit: He's the kind of candidate to get tea party hearts arrhythmic. It’s not just the hair. It’s not just the square jaw.…
DetailsWhat we’re seeing is this: a cross between The Missiles of October and Dr. Strangelove — a standoff of nuclear proportions. A nation stands on the brink of — stock-market armageddon? A credit-rating mushroom cloud? By air, the missiles of a warring party — the tea party — are observed registering red on the map,…
DetailsFace it. Regression is in. Let us return to yesteryear. Actually, let’s return to the day before that. A marginal candidate wins the Senate seat from Kentucky saying the Voting Rights Act is obsolete. An even more marginal candidate emerges as the Republican presidential favorite in Iowa. Her husband makes his living…
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