The political commentariat doesn't know what to make of those thousands of Americans who have spontaneously thronged to tea parties and town hall meetings to oppose the big government programs of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders.
There's a lively debate going on in the blogosphere and the press about whether Democrats would be better off passing or not passing a health care bill.
"Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.
What's the worst piece of legislation before Congress associated with the letter H? Most conservatives and Republicans, many moderates and independents, and even some liberals and Democrats would answer: one of the health care bills.
"More talk, no deal" was The Wall Street Journal's headline on Thursday's Blair House health care summit. "After summit flop, Democrats prepare to go it alone on Obamacare," proclaimed the headline here at The Washington Examiner. These were appropriate verdicts if you viewed the summit as an attempt to reach bipartisan agreement or even a limited consensus.
You are victims. You are helpless against the wiles of big corporations and insurance companies, and you need protection. You need the government to take over and do things you cannot do for yourself.
No president enters office knowing everything he needs to know. His experience is limited to some greater or lesser extent; his knowledge of the people from whom he will choose appointees is incomplete; his mastery of the substance of public policy, after years on the campaign trail, is likely to be out of date. And like all of us, he does not know what the future will bring.
In his bestseller "Inside U.S.A.," the hugely readable journalist John Gunther described America as it was in the last year of World War II. He interviewed hundreds of politicians, businessmen and journalists, but only four men rated a separate chapter -- three politicians and Henry J. Kaiser, the California construction magnate who built dams and ships and manufactured concrete and steel and aluminum.
How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration.
Growing up in Michigan in the heyday of the United Auto Workers, I long assumed that labor unions were part of the natural order of things.
Quick, name the most distrusted occupations. Trial lawyers? Pretty skuzzy, as witness the disgraced John Edwards, kept from the vice presidency in 2004 by the electoral votes of Ohio. Used car dealers? Always near the bottom of the list, as witness the universal understanding of the word "clunker."
Just whom are we trying to impress?
That's a question that occurred to me when, on his second full day in the presidency, Barack Obama announced we would close the Guantanamo detainee facility within one year.
Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts' special Senate election was for Democratic leaders a moment that can be described in two words, of which I will only print the first here, which is "oh."
When the New York Times columnist David Brooks first sat down with Barack Obama, they talked a lot about Burke. That's Edmund Burke, the 18th century conservative British politician and philosopher. Not Jimmy Burke, the 20th century Massachusetts pol, who said that all you had to know to serve in Congress was "Social Security and shoes."
The final percentages aren't in as this is written, but it's plain that Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley by a substantial margin in the race for the remainder of the late Edward Kennedy's Senate term. In Massachusetts. The state that in the last four presidential elections has voted on average 61 percent Democratic and 33 percent Republican. That's a bigger margin than in any other state.
Year One of the Obama administration ends Wednesday. Another era may come to an end the day before, when Massachusetts voters -- or at least those of them motivated enough to vote -- choose a senator to fill the three years remaining in the term of Edward Kennedy, who held the seat for 47 years.
In his New York Times column last week, David Brooks contrasted "the educated class," which supports Barack Obama and his liberal worldview, with the tea party movement, "a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against ... the concentrated power of the educated class."
In Evelyn Waugh's novel "Scoop," the best book on journalism ever written, Lord Copper, proprietor of the Daily Beast, is followed around by a flunkie who responds to every statement he makes. When Lord Copper says something that is true, the flunkie says, "Absolutely, Lord Copper." When he says something that is false, the flunkie says, "Up to a point, Lord Copper."
A year ago, I was privileged to be one of several guests at a dinner with President-elect Barack Obama. One thing that struck me and others, aside from his courtesy and fluency, was his air of self-confidence.
It looks like a happy new year for you -- if you're a public employee.
