For most of our nation's history, our approach to economics has favored enterprise, self-reliance and the free market. While the American economy has never been entirely laissez-faire, we have historically cared more about equality of opportunity than equality of results. And while Americans have embraced elements of the New Deal, the Great Society and progressive

The death of Father Neuhaus is a terrible blow. Not for him, who is now united with his Savior and his Redeemer, in whom Father Neuhaus placed all of his trust and all of his hope; but for us, who have lost one of America’s leading public intellectuals, a man of profound wisdom and learning,

Barney Frank is deeply offended by Rick Warren, and he wants to the world to know it. On CNN's Late Edition yesterday, Representative Frank criticized President-elect Obama for inviting Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. According to Frank, Mr. Warren compared same-sex couples to incest. I found that deeply offensive and unfair. If

We live in an age in which pragmatism is hot and ideology is not. Barack Obama is being praised for the centrists he is appointing to his Administration. It is said that the Obama team includes “the best and the brightest,” individuals driven by empirical evidence rather than political philosophy. “They [the American people] don't

Some thoughts on the task ahead for the GOP: 1. Right now the attention of the country is (understandably) riveted on Obama and the Democratic Congress. There's not a great deal Republicans can, or even should, do about that. Democrats hold the reins of power; their fate is now largely in the hands of Democrats.

Regardless of what happens Nov. 4 — whether Barack Obama wins handily or John McCain ekes out a victory — Democrats are almost certain to increase their margins in the House and Senate. In the aftermath of this election, Republicans and conservatives need to examine what has gone wrong and why. To be useful, those

In early January 2007, 71 percent of Americans said the Iraq war was going moderately badly to very badly. Indeed, the war had been unpopular for much of the previous years, at times deeply so. But by this past September, a nationwide Pew survey found “a striking rise in public optimism about the situation in

**A complete version of this article with footnotes is available as a pdf download here.**  As my Ethics and Public Policy Center colleagues, Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin, documented in an insightful Commentary essay last year, the United States has made substantial, if unheralded and under-reported, progress on a number of social indicators in recent

Bob Woodward has written his fourth book in six years on the Bush presidency. They have ranged from fairly glowing (Bush at War) to excoriating (State of Denial). The latest, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, while less harsh on Bush than State of Denial, is still plenty critical. Based on interviews

Yesterday General David Petraeus handed over the flag of his command, known as the Multi-National Force in Iraq, to General Raymond Odierno. The ceremony, held at the U.S. military headquarters at Camp Victory on the western outskirts of Baghdad, was moving and memorable. Graced by the presence of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, it marked