Most of today's political debates in America fall into a familiar pattern. On issues ranging from taxes, health care, energy, education, and abortion to the Iraq war and government surveillance of suspected terrorists, liberals and conservatives assume distinct and often diametrically opposed positions. But in the last few years, one issue–immigration–has roiled American politics in

Earlier this week, Focus on the Family's James Dobson criticized Sen. Barack Obama, accusing him of “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit … his own confused theology,” of having a “fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution” and of appealing to the “lowest common denominator of morality.” Dobson's judgment was based on Obama's

I have now read through the Supreme Court's decision, as well as the dissents, in Boumediene v. Bush, in which the Court held that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay have constitutional rights to challenge their detention there in U.S. courts. In doing so, the Court, in Chief Justice Roberts's words, “strikes down as

Dan Balz, one of America's finest political reporters, wrote this on his Washington Post blog yesterday: The most important decision Barack Obama will make between now and the November election is the selection of a vice presidential running mate. That makes all the more remarkable his effort Tuesday to suggest that the people he has

Barack Obama is increasingly embodying the “old politics” he says he will overturn. The most recent example is his campaign's effort to distance Obama from comments he made last July. When asked if he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea “without precondition” during the first

Senator McCain's long-time adviser Mark Salter has penned an outstanding letter to Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, responding to that magazine's paean to Senator Obama. Few people are fortunate enough to receive the kind of love and tenderness we find in the Newsweek story. It is especially notable for two things. The first is that

Last week I was in London attending a Global Leadership Forum, sponsored by the Royal United Services Institute, the Princeton Project on National Security, Newsweek International, and Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP. The attendees–from both the United States and Europe–included academics, scholars, journalists, diplomatic advisers and others who inhabit the foreign policy world. The event was

The extraordinary public feud between Senator Barack Obama and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. would be an enormous threat to any candidate running for president, but it is particularly dangerous to Obama. The reason is twofold. Sen. Obama, because he is such a new figure on the American political scene, is largely undefined. People certainly

In a recent article in the Financial Times, Clive Crook wrote about the fiscal consequences of the Bush administration. According to Crook, “With ill-designed tax cuts and reeling indiscipline on spending (partly, but not only, because of the war) the Bush Administration turned this [surplus] into a deficit.” He wrote about the “fiscal incontinence of

In his appearance on Meet the Press on Sunday E.J. Dionne, Jr. said this: Hillary Clinton is running as the tough fighter, and if Obama doesn't show Democrats that he can be a tough fighter against the Republican attack machine, so-called, but in fact it is, then, you know, Democrats are going to pull back