Can America still lead?

The first week of August 2011 will be remembered as a singularly irrational, wasteful and shameful moment in the political and economic...

America downgraded!

My father was a product of the Great Depression and World War II. Like so many others of his generation, he, like his parents before him,...

Grand fix for the supercommittee

WASHINGTON — Conventional wisdom holds that the congressional supercommittee established by the debt-ceiling deal to propose further...

Economic madness and the new austerity

Is it time to toss my Samuelson?

QUOTABLE

"I totally deny all these charges."

Hillary for president

During the 2008 presidential primaries, Hillary Clinton ran an ad called "3 a.m. phone call." The ad juxtaposed pictures of sleeping...

Cartoon caption contest

We have to protect every single penny of revenue the city takes in.

Spare us the sermons, Mr. President

During the recent debt crisis, President Barack Obama talked about the need for bipartisan compromise and, as in the past, urged civility....

It's how the system is supposed to work

I'm thinking the reaction to the solution of the debt ceiling crisis has been overwrought. What happened, after all, is exactly what was...

Standing on bizarre principles

— Actually, no, Mr. Vice President, the tea party gang wasn't "acting like terrorists." They were acting like kidnappers. Let's get...

Time for book publishers to fight dirty

Last month a fellow bibliophile, someone with whom I work at a bookstore in Portland, Ore., described one of Kindle's newest TV commercials....

Restoring trust and saving the U.S. credit rating

The curtain has fallen on the first act of the three-ring circus of America's high-wire debt ceiling agreement. The ink is hardly dry and U....

Recipe for budget fights

A "sugar-coated Satan sandwich." That's what Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus,...

Quotable

"It's often poor people, the young and the elderly that get the short end of the stick. Somehow I don't think the Defense Department is...

Our summer of extreme discontent

Am I the only person who feels we're living through a bad and scary pastiche of old disaster movies, like "The Day the Earth Stood Still"...

The truth hurts: Bleak indicators

The fierce debate over raising the federal borrowing limit has had at least one happy result: The public's newly found awareness that...

Petition for bankruptcy

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER COLUMN

WASHINGTON -- We're in the midst of a great four-year national debate on the size and reach of government, the future of the welfare state,...

Don't underestimate Ryne Sandberg

There's a popular belief in Major League Baseball that Hall of Fame players don't make good managers. The game comes so naturally to them...

It's the elderly, stupid

If leadership is the capacity to take people where they need to go — whether or not they realize it or want it — then we've...

Reagan playbook no longer applies

The worst thing about the 2008 primaries — other than, you know, the result — was the huge amount of time wasted on what...

Cartoon caption contest

WINNER:

The siren song of Google+

Google+, which launched a month ago to great fanfare, is so far feeling more like Google nonplussed. Reported to have crossed the 20-...

OMG! Can parents learn 2 txt?

Today I got a text from my parents' cellphone that read, "Hi." About 10 minutes later, I got a follow-up text clarifying, "Dad is learning...

Sticking it to Putin

When I was America's biggest diplomat, I made a really bad mistake. This is how it happened.

Terrorism has no religion

No one was surprised to learn that the perpetrator of last week's devastating attacks in Norway was a religious fanatic. The religion he...

Lake vacations and lessons of love

My old man suspected something.

Don't gamble with Gaming Board's authority

Subject only to the stroke of Gov. Pat Quinn's pen, Illinois is on the brink of the greatest gambling expansion in its history. Under the...

QUOTABLE

"I'm sure they consider it some form of torture, but I actually think it's therapeutic and it'll be helpful for them one day.

Breivik's real enemy: Himself

Anders Behring Breivik, the far-far-right-wing monster charged in Norway with the biggest mass murder by a single gunman in modern memory,...

Protect our patients' access to physicians

The wait time before a sick child can see a medical specialist these days is, on average, three to six weeks, according to a study last...

Green cops aren't better for the planet

The suffocating dome of heat that has settled on America appears to have addled some minds over at the United Nations.

Big push for the Half-Trillion plan

WASHINGTON — The debt ceiling looms. Confusion reigns. Schemes abound. We are deep in a hole with, as of now, only three ways out: the...

Temper those mayoral 'temper' stories

Despite the events of last week, I'm standing pat on my "never" bet in the "Pick the Moment Rahm Totally Loses It Sweepstakes" announced...

The anti-Obama

— When you pick up a glossy, multipage color brochure at a presidential campaign event, you expect to see a candidate's image on the...

Basement Man

The sun is a furnace. The sun is an oven. The sun is cliches he hasn't even thought of yet.

Juan Williams' payback time

Revenge is a dish that is best served cold, an old saying goes. Juan Williams, the Fox News political analyst who was famously fired last...

Rule of politics: Educating Cain

WASHINGTON — Politics Rule No. 1: Never say what you really think, especially before you think.

Treat her like a lady?

On Tuesday, Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., told House Democrat and fellow Floridian Debbie Wasserman Schultz that she was a coward. Her behavior...

Rape in war: No more excuses

Last month, the first woman ever was convicted of genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Pauline Nyiramasuhuko,...

Cartoon caption contest

Wow, how long was I stuck on Lake Shore Drive?

The real effects of gambling

Gambling has proliferated in America in recent years, and it's not about to stop. The Illinois Legislature has approved a bill authorizing...

Our violent ways

"Let's see if we can make a connection here. Slavery. Segregation. Black codes. Jim Crow. What do they all have in common? Government-...

Now is not the time to quit

English poet Robert Browning wrote that a person's "reach should exceed his grasp." That's always been the story of America, from our...

Quotable

"This is unusual. There's no sugarcoating anything here."

Can journalism survive Murdoch?

"You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion...

Bachmann's 'submerged' benefits

She's a famous foe of "big government" in her presidential campaign. Yet Rep. Michele Bachmann says it is no big deal that her family is...

Why not corporate patriotism for a change?

The fireworks and celebrations that mark Independence Day are over. But the need for a national conversation on corporate patriotism has...

My life as the devil's double

During the late 1980s, I was working as an officer in the Iraqi army when my commanding general received a letter that demanded I report...

How banks are assaulting the housing market

America's big banks, among others, that helped send us spiraling into the Great Recession are at it again. They're warning of even more dire...

10 things you might not know about punctuation

First of all, let's explain why the serial comma is important to some people. A blog on economist.com cites an apocryphal example: "I'd like...

KATHLEEN PARKER COLUMN

Washington -- A debt crisis is a terrible thing to waste in a presidential election season, and Democrats and Republicans alike are...

Get in that corner. NOW!

With the fiscal fate of the nation hanging in the balance, it's hard to fathom why congressional legislators are acting like kindergartners....

Jaycee Dugard and the feel-good imperative

To watch Diane Sawyer's interview Sunday night with Jaycee Dugard was to wonder at times if that was Dugard herself on screen or an...

QUOTABLES

"Enough is enough. … This shouldn't be about positioning in politics, and I'll see you all tomorrow."

Republican show-and-tell

A lot of conservatives are having fun at President Barack Obama's expense after his latest gaffe. In the midst of testy debt-limit...

CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Look, now even the air show's being scaled back due to budget cuts.

Do not resuscitate … do not feel remorse

It's amazing what you can get over the Internet — even a DNR. I live 1,500 miles away from my 95-year-old mother, yet I can access the...

Kody Brown and his 'wives'

When it comes to sexual relationships and cohabitation among consenting adults, Utah takes a permissive approach. If a guy wants to shack up...

Quotable: Hillary Rodham Clinton

"President (Bashar) Assad is not indispensible, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power."

The death penalty and the costs of an obsession

The unseemly love affair some American politicians have with the death penalty is bad for justice and bad for our country's standing in...

Cartoon caption contest

Tribune editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis will create an original sketch each Wednesday...

Crazy like a GOP fox

President Barack Obama needs to get Eric Cantor out on a golf course — and bury him up to his chin in a sand trap.

Voters won't ignore new economic stats

You can relax now, America. The Obama administration would like you to know that unemployment won't be a factor in your 2012 presidential...

QUOTABLE

"Dammit, make a decision."

Britain's tabloid scandal sounds familiar

It is with a mixture of outrage and envy that an old-school newspaper veteran like me views Great Britain's newspaper hacking scandal.

Don't let the space program die forever

If Americans had regarded frontier exploration in the early 1800s with the same indifference that they view the manned space program,...

Stop searching for an Obama Doctrine

Every few months, commentators find a new grand strategy that animates Barack Obama. First he was the antiwar candidate, because his rise in...

Secret adviser has a nose for what Blago should say

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, like many convicted felons awaiting sentencing, is in a box: When addressing the court he will need to...

Sometimes justice is hard to take

As much as I tried to avoid being taken in by the drama of the Casey Anthony trial, I was jerked alert by its conclusion, the most...

Defense cuts?

Politicians often rail against government spending, except when it goes to the military. Conservatives believe there is no such thing as too...

You pay your money ….

Who will bat against 'Alibi' Obama?

"If he popped up in the pinch he should of made a base hit and the reason he didn't was so-and-so. And if he cracked one for three...

Romney fumbles the economy

Any candidate for president can fall victim to occasional stumbles, lapses, gaffes and clunkers. But Mitt Romney has a shot at raising...

Best Tweets Obama didn't answer

Why is so little being done for the 6.2 million long-term unemployed? Why have 99ers been abandoned by Congress and White House?

Some scandals won't sit still

It's hard for a social commentator to keep up with all of the legal, moral and political lessons offered up by the still-unfolding Dominique...

Gay marriage across the land: Not so darn fast

The recent legalization of same-sex marriage in New York proves that it's no longer an issue in the United States, right? Gay marriage...

Bin Laden's efforts to rebrand al-Qaida

One thinks of that scene from "The Wizard of Oz" where Toto pulls back the curtain and the "great and powerful Oz" is revealed to be only an...

Michele Bachmann the believer

If I had a dollar for every time a Sarah Palin supporter accused me of not taking her seriously because I'm jealous of attractive women who'...

How Obama's stimulus failed

Mired in excruciating negotiations over the budget and the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama might reflect that things didn't have to...

Another whack at Illinois' culture of corruption

A federal jury appeared to end former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's long-running drama when it found him guilty Monday on 17 of 20...

Who takes us to war?

WASHINGTON — Is the Libya war legal? Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, it is not. President Barack Obama has exceeded the 90-day...

Big Brother gets really ugly

It's not unusual for the federal government to provoke widespread retching among its citizens, but it rarely does so intentionally. The...

Anti-gay bullies are no joke

Americans seem to find a lot of entertainment value in watching celebrities destroy themselves. Witness, for example, the initially brisk...

Another Texas Republican for president?

The Republican presidential field looks less like an assemblage of candidates than a collection of fatal mistakes and irreparable flaws,...

All sex offenders are not equal

I wish I could tell Walt Teichen not to worry, that common sense will surely prevail in the sad, scary story of his son.

Failure is now fashionable

Nothing succeeds like success, but don't sell failure short.

Life after Weinergate? It happens

Hope is still alive for former Rep. Anthony "the Twitter" Weiner. In today's America, failure is only the first step to your next success,...

10 things you might not know about fictional fathers

From "King Lear" to "Leave it to Beaver," works of fiction have featured memorable dads. Here's a Father's Day sampler:

The obsolete alliance

Defense Secretary Robert Gates went to Europe recently to announce that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization may have a "dismal future"...

Are you smarter than a scam artist?

To judge from my inbox, London is a perilous place. In the last several years, I've received dozens of anguished emails from friends...

Republicans vs. the environment

Kicking off her recent bus tour, Sarah Palin attended a motorcycle rally and took a deep breath. "I love that smell of the emissions," she...