WASHINGTON — Just what is the meaning of weird?  It’s hard to put a finger on weird when nearly everyone has turned pro, but President Obama is planning to make Mitt Romney the face of “weird.”  So go reports that Obama’s re-election campaign is plotting a personal assault on Rom...

WASHINGTON — A familiar air of indecision preceded President Obama’s pep talk to the nation.   The first draft of his schedule for Monday contained no plans to comment on the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s. Then the White House announced that he would ...

WASHINGTON — Rep. John Mica, the Florida Republican blamed for single-handedly shutting down the Federal Aviation Administration, sounded like a beaten man when he called me Thursday evening.  The usually biting chairman of the House Transportation Committee spoke with remorse about the stand...

NEW YORK — When George W. Bush took up residence in the White House in January 2001, total U.S. debt stood at $5.95 trillion. Last week it was $14.3 trillion, with $2.4 trillion more freshly authorized by Congress. Ten years and $8.35 trillion later, what do we have to show for this decade of defi...

WASHINGTON — Actually, no, Mr. Vice President, the Tea Party gang wasn’t “acting like terrorists.” They were acting like kidnappers. Let’s get our insults correct. They weren’t inflicting harm on members of a group of people in order to terrorize the larger group. They acted like kidnapp...

WASHINGTON — Who would’ve thought Allen West would go squishy?  During the Florida Republican’s successful campaign for the House, West became a tea party sensation with his speech urging supporters to take up arms against “a tyrannical government.”  “If you’re here to stand ...

  WASHINGTON — The credit rating on U.S. bonds may survive the debt-ceiling fiasco, but the president and speaker of the House, the two most powerful figures in American government, have already been downgraded....

WASHINGTON — Michael Gerson, who knows a thing or two about presidential speeches, says that President Barack Obama’s Monday night address to the nation about the debt ceiling really wasn’t about anything at all. The president was merely getting a jump on the blame game rather than advancing a...

WASHINGTON — If only the migraine problem had been Mitt’s. Or Newt’s. Or any man’s rather than a woman’s. By now Michele Bachmann’s migraine headache problem is well known. She takes prescription medications, sometimes has to be hospitalized, and reportedly is temporarily out of commissi...

WASHINGTON — Twenty Republican lawmakers crowded the Senate TV studio last week to issue a threat: Meet their demands, or they will force the United States to default.  The only way to prevent the catastrophe, these tea party faithful said, was for the Senate to pass, and the president to sig...