Outside the Beltway

The biggest news story of the past six weeks was something completely trivial.

The so-called “14th Amendment option” to fix the debt ceiling crisis is really just a prescription for an even more powerful Presidency.

The normally loquacious Chávez has been almost silent since emergency surgery in Cuba on June 10th.

Gene Weingarten is not a fan of journalists building a brand.

Last night, the President basically announced that America’s longest war had entered it’s end game.

Gingrich is beyond toast.

I’ve been arguing for years that what the Republican Party needs is to embrace its crazies and play more to racist elements in its base. It looks like someone’s listening.

The United States is pressuring the Netanyahu government to move off its hard line.

President Obama comfortably leads all Republicans but one.

Jack Kevorkian, the man who’s illegal assisted suicide rampage earned him the nickname “Dr. Death,” has died.

A passenger started a fight over a reclined airplane seat, causing fighter planes to scramble.

Herman Cain is getting a lot of attention lately, but will he amount to anything?

I get the impression that a lot of people don’t even know what “the 1967 borders” are or why they tend to be considered the logical point of departure for any type of peace negotiations.

Mitch Daniels, the candidate of George Will and a host of mainstream Republicans hoping for something better in 2012, has announced he will not be running for president in 2012.

Part of a speech that Mitch Daniels made in 2009 is setting off a firestorm among some conservative bloggers.

Once again, Congressional abdication has led to an Executive Branch power grab.

Does the Donald Trump flame-out provide any kind of guide to other candidates? Only if they want to host a reality show.

Romney wants to make a federalism based argument for why his MA health care bill is good, while the PPACA is tyrannical. However, just saying that is not an argument.

John McCain thoroughly dismantles the argument that Osama bin Laden’s capture vindicates the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

A lot of people appear confused at to what the debt ceiling is and why it has to be raised.

In a column about American Exceptionalism, a newspaper columnist makes a bizarre historical analogy.

Birtherism dies a quick death–and with it the notion that Obama’s opponents are motivated purely by race.

The free world rallied around the United States after the 9/11 attacks–but not all back the killing of the man who ordered it.

There’s not much movement in the President’s job approval numbers.

The question of how the world’s most wanted man could’ve hidden in plain sight in Pakistan continues to be asked.

A study shows that most national columnists and talking heads are about as accurate as a coin flip.

The impact of the death of Osama bin Laden on the domestic politics is likely to be minimal at best.

I don’t feel the jubilation that came with Saddam Hussein’s capture in December 2003. Sadly, I know better this time.

Congress is coming back to Washington and gas prices continue to rise. Expect a lot of demagoguery, but very little in the way of solutions.

President Obama is suffering in the polls because of high gas prices, but is there really anything he can do about them?

The new CBS/NYT poll is out and the numbers are not exactly happy, no matter whom you support.

Standard & Poor’s didn’t believe the Obama Administration’s argument that Washington would be able to fix the deficit. There’s no reason they should have.

It is waaay too early to be putting much stock in polling for 2012 (either in terms of X v. Obama or GOP v. GOP).

President Obama is vulnerable, but he’s facing a GOP field that is underwhelming even for Republicans.

One of the Tea Party movement’s favorite Senators used the dreaded c-word.

A version of a piece I wrote Wednesday, titled “NATO’s Death Greatly Exaggerated,” has finally been published at Foreign Policy under the title “Back in the Saddle: How Libya Helped NATO Get Its Groove Back.”

To borrow a phrase: budgeting is the science of muddling through (with an emphasis on the “muddling” far more than the “science.”

The Congressional Budget Office has come up with slightly different calculations of the savings created by the Obama-Boehner budget compromise.

The GOP seems to be telling President Obama that revenue increases are off the table. That’s a huge mistake.