WASHINGTON — Jobs, jobs, jobs, we keep hearing. But for whom, whom, whom? Certainly not for the many young Americans being graduated from colleges that have prepared them inadequately for the competitive marketplace in which they find themselves. The failure of colleges and universities to teach b...

WASHINGTON — Unless you are an NPR loyalist, you may have missed a political drama unfolding far beneath the radar of human consciousness having to do with — OK, open your eyes —table saw safety. Don’t laugh. This is serious business, especially if you’re one of those for whom “safety”...

WASHINGTON — As a rule, I’m not one to occupy a bench in the whiny women’s section. In fact, I’ve built a career around this disinclination....

WASHINGTON — I stayed up late Wednesday night in hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court would call off the execution of Troy Davis. Instead, at 11:08 p.m., he was pronounced dead. One minute he was lifting his head from the death gurney, pleading his innocence in the killing of a police officer 22 year...

WASHINGTON — Let us begin by stipulating that President Barack Obama’s new budget plan is unrealistic, highly partisan and a nonstarter on Capitol Hill.  That’s what’s so good about it.  At last, the president hasn’t conceded the race before it began, hasn’t opened the bidding ...

NEW YORK — Are Republicans stupid? This seems to be the question du jour. Chris Matthews entertained this idea with guests recently, pointing to several Republican presidential candidates as evidence. How else to explain why so many in the GOP seem proud of their know-nothingness, as Matthews put ...

WASHINGTON — The legacy of 9/11 can’t be fully measured even now, but perhaps the most damaging aspect can be found in our national discourse. Taking the long view, it is possible to see the roots of today’s political dysfunction — the hate, fear, anger and resentment — firmly planted in t...

I wanted to write something for the anniversary of 9/11 but I didn’t want to write about the falling towers or the burning Pentagon. We’ve all seen way too many pictures of the incredible carnage, the soot-smudged faces and crushed fire trucks. We have all cried and mourned for the fallen and as...

WASHINGTON — As my Washington Post colleague Perry Bacon reported in detail this week, Rick Perry has jettisoned the “compassion” that sometimes leavened the conservatism of his predecessor in the Texas governor’s mansion.  If Perry’s style resembles anybody’s in George W. Bush’s ...

At a time when government seems unable to address our most pressing problems, we are about to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with rare evidence that Washington can work. In the decade since 9/11, our government has answered the threat of terrorism by transforming itself in ...