Syria's thin red line UNITED NATIONS - Has Syria crossed the red line which the Obama administration warned about should there be any use of chemical weapons in the conflict? Yes, No, Maybe so. But even if there was an apparently limited albeit brutal use of the ner..
Obama making Bush look like model of restraint To a person, probably, most of Barack Obama's supporters believed - a belief the candidate encouraged - that, if elected, he would rein in the worst excesses of President George W. Bush's national-security strategy.
Too much to ask? A Congress-proof recovery? The consensus has been that the economy will continue to recover slowly but steadily unless Congress does something stupid, always a possibility, to mess it up.
President's apology: is it necessary or fair? President Park Geun-hae made an apology to the nation for her spokesman's sexual harassment of an intern during her historic visit to Washington in early May. The opposition party and the public demanded that she apologize for her staff's misconduc..
It's raining cats, dogs and scandals Please, please, there's no reason to impeach President Barack Obama and it is overreach to say we're getting Watergate all over again. But the scandals are indeed piling up on each other, or, to use another metaphor, it's not just raining. It's pou..
Pakistan's winnable war on polio LAHORE - I grew up in Pakistan throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and my parents, like parents everywhere, wanted me to be fit and healthy and to get the best start in life. I was lucky enough to be brought up in a middle-class family with good sanita..
US Military lags in fighting sexual abuse The dramatic increase in military sexual assaults, while startling, is less so I think because it is the inevitable consequence of the mixture of men and women in a profession that has been until the last few decades the sole province of men.
Obama should act more quickly on IRS Rare among nations, the United States has a voluntary tax code that actually works. It works because, by and large, taxpayers trust the code's fairness and the competency of the agency that administers it, the Internal Revenue Service.
Chavismo after Chavez CARACAS - With the death of Hugo Chavez, Chavismo has lost its supremacy in Venezuela. It does not matter that so-called Chavistas still control Venezuelas parliament, 17 of 23 provincial governments, and all key state institutions, including the..
Benghazi is biggest coverup since Watergate "There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy," President Barack Obama told the United Nations last Sept. 25. A fortnight after the deadly attack on America's mission in Benghazi, Libya, Obama surely knew that an al-Qaida-propelled assa..
Re-emerging crimes in Calif. Crime dominated California's political landscape during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s before giving way to other preoccupations.
A hacker's market? NEW YORK - Never in the history of written communication could 140 characters have the impact that they can have now. Three weeks ago, after gaining access to the Associated Press's main Twitter account (@AP), the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) poste..
Park's White House visit a sign of influence South Korean President Park Geun-hye's visit to the White House on Tuesday underscores the remarkable success and influence of her nation. Her election last December added one more name to the world's expanding roster of women leaders of nations.
Putting out fires with document dump Hillary Clinton should take these two words to heart: "document dump." This is a tested Washington tactic that could save her a lot of political aggravation, and, in fact, has in the past.
Drones and Guantanamo John Bellinger is the last person in Washington you'd expect to criticize President Barack Obama for making too many drone strikes. It was he who drafted the (rather unconvincing) legal justification for targeted drone killings when he was legal ad..
Decisions must be made on Syria "Arming the rebels - that's an option. You look at and rethink all options. It doesn't mean you do or you will. ... It doesn't mean that the president has decided on anything." - Secretary of State Chuck Hagel, May 2
Chinese turn to White House website with petitions Police officers in foreign countries are no longer nonplused when people they've arrested demand to be read their Miranda rights - the result, perhaps, of overexposure to U.S. cop shows in foreign syndication.
