Gene Healy
Line-Item veto is no quick-fix
How do you solve a problem like massive spending? From time immemorial, the Republican Party has answered, “with a line-item veto!” Supposedly, if we give the president the right knife, he can go through appropriations bills line by line, slicing out the fat.
Don’t trust anyone under 30?
Surely even in his darkest moments, the 20-year-old Pete Townshend who penned the lyric “hope I die before I get old” never imagined himself as a paunchy geezer of 64, lurching his way through the geriatric wasteland of the Who’s recent Super Bowl halftime show. Such are the indignities that come with age.
Tea partiers should get serious
Anyone who’s been to a Tea Party rally knows this is no Astroturf movement. These are ordinary citizens, rightly furious that the federal government has sold the country a junk mortgage on its future, sticking America with an unsustainable debt.
Time for question time?
It’s no surprise that President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address was a snooze: the speech has long been a dull and pompous ritual. But no one was bored two days later when the president showed up to a House Republican confab in Baltimore for a lively, unscripted tussle with his opponents.
South of the border, the cult of the presidency
You could almost hear a collective groan go up when Barack Obama announced that he planned to deal with his recent setbacks by “speaking directly to the American people.” After 158 interviews and 411 speeches in 2009, who’s clamoring to hear more from a president whose microphone addiction rivals Bill Clinton’s?
If you think we’ve got [...]
Tuning out the State of the Union
Tomorrow night, an embattled President Obama will deliver his 2010 State of the Union. He originally wanted to give it on Feb. 2, but — adding to a string of recent indignities — had to yield after irate Lost fans made clear they wouldn’t put up with their season premiere getting pre-empted by a lousy [...]
