Free Republic

Few are the men and women in American public life who haven't heard Mr. Dooley's famous aphorism: "Politics ain't beanbag." John Boehner, currently serving out his community service as speaker of the House, appears to have been meditating on Mr. Dooley's cautionary wisdom. At the Ripon Society last week he said the Obama administration was trying "to annihilate the Republican Party." Better late than never, Speaker Boehner now sees that Barack Obama's notion of political competition is Mad Max inside the Thunderdome: "Two men enter, one man leaves." Last week during the president's second inaugural address, if one can employ...

Few are the men and women in American public life who haven't heard Mr. Dooley's famous aphorism: "Politics ain't beanbag." John Boehner, currently serving out his community service as speaker of the House, appears to have been meditating on Mr. Dooley's cautionary wisdom. At the Ripon Society last week he said the Obama administration was trying "to annihilate the Republican Party."

Republicans are failing to define their party's purpose during the fiscal-cliff talks. After the presidential election, the biggest question out there is: What should the Republican Party stand for? The fiscal cliff, no matter the result, was an instant opportunity to elevate the party's basic beliefs. Instead the GOP is disappearing beneath waves of Beltway process. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have worked hard to keep their thumbs stuck in the dam of rising tax rates. Still, the fiscal cliff is looking more each day like an inside-the-Beltway CYA operation. Does anyone in the country beyond the halls of Congress...

The campaign-finance laws have made the presidential selection process a self-destructive mess. Eliminate the limits on individual donations. In what all say is an "historic" election, the GOP is fielding its B team while the A team sits in the locker room. Since when does that win the big games? Mitt Romney, stuck forever at 25%, has been a front-runner out of a Henny Youngman joke. Take my candidate—please. Gov. Romney has been such a front-runner that virtually any new face in the race momentarily catches him—Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry and now even an old face, Newt Gingrich....

Democrats say they won't vote to raise the debt limit unless they get someone in the private sector to pay higher taxes. Republicans say they won't raise the debt limit unless they get reductions in public-sector spending without raising taxes. Shall we put this to a vote? Not a vote of Congress, but of the American people—the 130 million or so who will vote for president in November 2012. The debt-limit fight is being depicted as mostly a green-eyeshades funding technicality, dating back, not surprisingly, to 1939. It's bigger than that. When Congressman Paul Ryan says we have arrived at...

Here's a quiz: For which of the following reasons is the 44th president of the United States bad-mouthing Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, bankers, mine operators, insurers, Glenn Beck, the tea party, the Supreme Court and whoever he hammers as we go to press: a) He's rallying his base. b) He's rallying the Democrats' base (one overlaps but does not equal the other). c) He's changing the subject from 9% unemployment. d) To reverse his sinking approval ratings. e) It's what Saul Alinsky would do. f) It's what Barack Obama likes to do.

There may be good reasons for Obama to go negative, but doing so could wreck his presidency. Here's a quiz: For which of the following reasons is the 44th president of the United States bad-mouthing Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, bankers, mine operators, insurers, Glenn Beck, the tea party, the Supreme Court and whoever he hammers as we go to press: a) He's rallying his base. b) He's rallying the Democrats' base (one overlaps but does not equal the other). c) He's changing the subject from 9% unemployment. d) To reverse his sinking approval ratings. e) It's...

With voter anger at federal profligacy and states teetering on the verge of financial collapse, the moment is ripe for an historic reordering of American politics. Anyone who isn't welded to the Obama-Pelosi-Reid ball and chain has their campaign issue for November's election and 2012: spending. Republicans, Lieberman-Bayh Democrats, tea partiers, it doesn't matter. Spending, spending, spending. This is bigger than drill, drill, drill. Way bigger. Finally, after a nonstop, nearly 80-year upward climb, government spending has hit a wall. It didn't seem possible but this is a big wall. It's the American voter. This has been an unforgettable year...

If you're an elected Democrat anywhere to the right of Barney Frank, and trying to defend a competitive seat next November, you've got to be starting to sweat. You wake up in the morning and just like every other morning as far as the eye can see the only thing in the news is the president's health-care reform. It's starting to look like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are leading the Donner Party, the snowbound emigrants who bogged down in the Sierra Nevada winter in the 1840s and resorted to cannibalism to survive. The betting is that with raw political...

Snip.... Assets in 401(k) accounts were ravaged. Much of the economy appeared to have fallen into the hands of fools and knaves. Businesses that once were economic beacons—GM, Chrysler, Lehman, much of Wall Street—were breaking off and falling into the sea.Snip.... The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll has 87% of the public somewhat or very dissatisfied with the economy. The unemployment rate is likely to go above 10% for all 2010. Whatever GDP growth may occur, there is no evidence of new-job creation. Gold's price has risen above $1,000, suggesting inflation is swimming below the economy's flat surface. China...

ETObama Abroad A transcript of the weekend's program on FOX News Channel. Paul Gigot: Up next on "The Journal Editorial Report," Barack Obama abroad. The president makes his first big international trip amid rising tensions with North Korea. Plus, a Spanish court takes steps to indict Bush officials for torture. How will the current administration respond? And Obama's auto ultimatum. Is the threat of bankruptcy real? "The Journal Editorial Report" begins right now.* * *Gigot: *snip*Ambassador Bolton, good to have you here with us on the panel.Let's start with the trip--the meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. What is...

Excerpts: Working inside American politics is coming to resemble Stalinist Russia. In good standing one day, party loyalists or public officials can find themselves the next day taking a random bullet. How low the bar has fallen for summary execution became apparent during the presidential campaign. n March, Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power was quoted by a newspaper in nearby Scotland calling Hillary Clinton a "monster." The Obama campaign immediately threw her out the window. Cowed and numbed, no one in politics raised an objecting peep at the absurd disproportion. Next, Mrs. Clinton's chief strategist Mark Penn was put...

Is there a bigger scandal in America than the low state of inner-city schools? Oprah Winfrey, utterly frustrated with the problem, last month discussed the $40 million she has spent building the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls--in South Africa. Ms. Winfrey said South African students want to learn, but in U.S. schools, "the sense that you need to learn just isn't there." Where'd it go? snip One measure of the tenure decision for New York City teachers would be their students' test scores. News accounts said the city teachers' union is "certain to fight" linking test scores to tenure....

You knew it had to happen. Haditha, an "incident" involving American troops in Iraq, is now part of the erosion of support for the war in Iraq. The Iraq Syndrome has finally arrived. This past Monday, Memorial Day, a driver down Manhattan's fast West Side Highway would have slowed at 46th Street to allow the crossing of a constant stream of visitors heading to the USS Intrepid, the aircraft-carrier museum on the Hudson River. It was a beautiful day but a hot day to stand on long lines in the open sun. A small squadron of planes flew up the...

<p>This past Friday, Dan Henninger's Wonder Land column1 gave readers a chance to contribute money to help restore seven small TV stations in Iraq. The project is the joint idea of the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad, and Spirit of America, a philanthropy begun by Los Angeles businessman Jim Hake to assist American GIs in Afghanistan and Iraq.</p>

<p>Thus spake George W. Bush this week: "The people of our country are united behind our men and women in uniform, and this government will do all that is necessary to assure the success of their historic mission." Still, many Americans who support the war don't much like sitting on their hands doing little more than watch it on TV. Some have written here, asking what they can do to help. This column will describe a real project that lets the folks at home lend a hand to the soldiers in Iraq.</p>

<p>Looking out my office window in lower Manhattan, across the 16 acres that have become an excavation site, I can see a steel mesh fence on the far side, and from one end to the other people are standing at the fence, looking into the September 11 space. This is Christmas week, and you could say these are just holiday tourists who've come to gawk at "Ground Zero." But these people are always at the fence, and have been at all hours for more than two years, looking in.</p>

<p>Let me count the things Saddam Hussein is not. Saddam is not Michael Jackson. Saddam is not Scott Peterson. Saddam is not Kobe or Robert Blake. He isn't Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter. He isn't Dennis Kozlowski's birthday party, and he didn't win "Survivor."</p>

<p>The biggest problem with the U.S. economy right now is that it is so utterly boring.</p> <p>Animal spirits? Yeah, if the animal is a tree sloth. Nothing out there moves. The stock market is said to be in its "trading range." So are the New York Mets. You begin to feel like the fat, sweaty guy that Orson Welles played in some desolate border town, suit soaked through, mopping off the intense heat in a day going nowhere. We gotta get out of this place.</p>

<p>Which side are you on? Which side are you on? -- Old union song.</p> <p>Togetherness is oversold. Especially by politicians and statesmen, who sometimes hide their courage under the teacup of compromise and multilateralism. But there are times when all of us have to decide which side we are going to be on, not for an evening's argument but for the long haul. The Iraq war is one of those moments.</p>