The “reset” with Russia had a brief, unhappy life. It began with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presenting her Russian counterpart with a mistranslated reset button reading “overcharged.” It ended with current Secretary of State John Kerry denying knowledge of the late, unlamented policy on “Meet the Press”: “Well, I don’t know what you mean […]

The Obama administration says that we need to end what it calls “the era of austerity” in Washington. Notably excluded from this admonition is the one department of government that is actually experiencing austerity worthy of the name. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel unveiled a military budget that will reduce the U.S. Army to pre-World War […]

Secretary of State John Kerry is reporting for duty in the war against climate change. In a speech in Jakarta, Indonesia, he declared climate change “another weapon of mass destruction.” Indeed, in what might be news to the 50-megaton hydrogen bomb, he declared it “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” If climate […]

What a waste of pomp and circumstance. The State of the Union had all the customary dignitaries, ritualistic applause, prime-time pre-emptions on broadcast TV — and even less interest than usual. The checklist of the Obama presidency is clear enough: We’ve got the august trappings of imperial power. We’ve got the smack talk of ruling […]

Perhaps the slogan of the Wendy Davis campaign should be that behind every successful woman is a good man. The Texas gubernatorial candidate needs no introduction. Her filibuster of a bill to ban abortion in Texas after 20 weeks made her an instant star for progressives and much of the media — because few things […]

The movie “Lone Survivor” didn’t get any major Oscar nominations. If it had, perhaps it should have been nominated for Most Unlikely Politically Incorrect Picture of the Year. It’s based on the true story of a mission in Afghanistan that goes disastrously wrong. A four-man team of Navy SEALs hunting down a Taliban commander is […]

Robert Gates has roiled the Beltway with perhaps the least surprising bombshell ever to appear in a tell-all Washington memoir. Did anyone believe that President Barack Obama was passionately committed to the Afghanistan War that he escalated at the same time he announced a withdrawal date? If what Gates tells us isn’t particularly new, it […]

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio gave a St. Crispin’s Day speech for progressives at his New Year’s Day inauguration ceremony. He evoked a city ravaged by a crisis of inequality. What Rudy Giuliani was to out-of-control crime, de Blasio wants to be to rampant inequality — its scourge and vanquisher. Yet for all […]