On the face of it, this has been a good week for President Obama.  First, he dispatched the notion that he is ineligible to serve as president by producing his birth certificate.  Then U.S. special forces caught up with and killed Osama bin Laden, terrorist mastermind of the 2001 attacks against America.  Both developments cast the [...]...

Regime change is not the stated objective, but if Libyan despot Colonel Gaddafi is deposed by rebels and replaced by a democratically elected government, President Barack Obama will look like a genius.  Why? Compare this outcome with the drawn-out process in Iraq that led to the replacement of Saddam Hussein.  George W. Bush invaded with [...]...

Amongst the devastation of the worst earthquake to hit Japan in over one hundred years, a series of man-made structures stood firm.  Japan’s nuclear reactors have come under a critical media spotlight in recent days but the real news is how well these second generation reactors successfully shut down to sub-criticality and maintained their integrity [...]...

Before the NFL playoff games this weekend, a friend drew a fascinating comparison between the personalities of two of the competing football coaches and two Republican presidential hopefuls.  Sarah Palin and New York Jets coach Rex Ryan are big personalities.  They are visible, fired up and energetic. By comparison Mitch Daniels and New England Patriots [...]...

Sarah Palin is right to rip into those blaming political rhetoric for the Tucson shooting.  Early reporting set the tone of the debate, erroneously speculating that the gunman was a Tea Party supporter and implying that this was a far-right attack on Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.  Leading conservatives were unceremoniously indicted by liberal commentators like [...]...

The New Year is beginning with some optimism following Barack Obama’s Christmas capitulation on tax rates.  On 17 December, the president signed legislation extending George W. Bush’s income tax cuts by a further two years, thus infusing some seasonal joy into the pocketbooks of hard-pressed Americans.  In truth, extending current rates for such a limited period [...]...

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says it wants to double the number of tigers in the world by 2022.  It’s a noble aim but if WWF really wants this to happen, it will pack up its bags and have nothing more to do with tiger conservation.  WWF was a major force behind the [...]...

Decisions made in the White House can have a significant impact in other nations so an argument could be made that the choice of the leader of the free world should be open to citizens well beyond the borders of the United States.  That isn’t going to happen, of course, but opinion polls published by [...]...

Does he get it?  In his first two years of office, President Obama delivered more speeches and made more appearances on popular television shows than any predecessor.  Yet his response to the voters’ repudiation of his record in office was to tell Matt Lauer, in yet another television appearance, that his administration needs to communicate [...]...

When President Obama was asked by his Congressional colleague Marion Berry why the Democrats shouldn’t expect a 1994-style electoral blowout in 2010, he responded smugly:  “Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.”  We can only imagine the look on Bill Clinton’s face when he heard about that one.  In some [...]...