Just because you can leak embarrassing, classified national security information doesn't mean you should. And just because the American government may be able to prosecute someone for it doesn't mean they should, either. But in the case of the Wikileaks, prosecution - to the extent that U.S. law allows it - is warranted. Because Julian […]

To be sure, Wikileaks' release this weekend of a quarter million diplomatic cables is a devastating blow to the national security interests and foreign policy of the United States. And the secret assessments they contain regarding U.S. allies and potential partners like Germany's Angela Merkel ("avoids risk and is rarely creative"), Nicolas Sarkozy ("emperor with […]

This weekend, Americans learned of a new domestic terror threat in Oregon. According to the FBI, Somali-born student Mohamed Osman Mohamud planned to detonate a bomb during the annual Christmas tree lighting in Portland. But while all eyes are now fixed on the tree lighting plot, down the road in Salem the trial of alleged […]

What's the difference between Richard Nixon and Sarah Palin? Lipstick. (Well, that and military service, graduate education, a keen intellect, years of national political experience and a proven grasp of policy foreign and domestic.) But as a fellow "serial collector of resentments", the half-term Alaska governor is Nixon's heir. When it comes to the paranoid […]

On the day of his booking on conspiracy and money laundering charges five years ago, disgraced House Majority Tom Delay proclaimed, "Let people see Christ through me." Now a convicted felon, Delay isn't turning the other cheek but instead decrying "the criminalization of politics." If that sounds familiar, it should. For over a generation, Republicans […]

Despite a decade of Bush tax cut windfalls for the wealthy pushing income inequality to levels not seen since 1929, Republicans are calling for another $700 billion, 10-year payday for the richest Americans. So it should come as no surprise that as corporate profits reached an all-time record in the third quarter, leading voices in […]

Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it. So it is with the uproar from disingenuous conservatives trying to capitalize on the public outcry over the TSA's airport body scans and aggressive pat-downs. While Charles Krauthammer now spouts "don't touch my junk" and Rush Limbaugh declares, "Keep your hands off my tea […]

In a rare moment of candor last week, the third-ranking Republican in the House admitted the failure of the Bush tax cuts. "You know, I think it's fair to say, if the current tax rates were enough to create jobs and generate economic growth we'd have a growing economy," Mike Pence acknowledged, adding, "It's not […]

As the American auto industry teetered on the brink of collapse in December 2008, Vice President Dick Cheney beseeched his GOP allies in Congress to back an aid package, warning, "If we don't do this, we will be known as the party of Herbert Hoover forever." Which is exactly right. Because while Republican leaders were […]

Tea Party favorite and failed Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle is no fan of democracy. Angle, after all, declared if her supporters failed to help her "take out" Harry Reid, they should resort to "Second Amendment remedies." Now, two weeks after her defeat at the polls, the Las Vegas Sun revealed that Sharron has a […]