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WASHINGTON -- There are legislative miles to go before the government will be emancipated from its health care myopia, but it is not too soon for a summing up. Whether all or nothing of the legislation becomes law, Barack Obama has refuted critics who call him a radical. He has shown himself to be a timid progressive. His timidity was displayed when he flinched from fighting for the boldness the nation needs -- a transition from the irrationality of employer-provided health insurance. His progressivism is an attitude of genteel regret about the persistence of politics. Employer-paid insurance...

WASHINGTON -- The bubbly enthusiasm that many analysts express about the Chinese economy reminds me of the old-time variety show host Lawrence Welk, who banished worries each week with soothing sounds from his "Champagne Music Makers." China watchers should turn off the music and listen to Premier Wen Jiabao, who has been surprisingly frank in warning that overinvestment and lack of domestic demand are producing an economic bubble in his country. "The biggest problem with China's economy is that the growth is unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable," Wen...

WASHINGTON -- There is a great divide in American politics. It's not between Democrats and Republicans. It's between the president and Congress in Washington, on one side, and governors and legislators around the country on the other. The record of the Washington politicians is summarized in the report that came out of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week. That nonpartisan scorekeeper announced that it projects the cumulative national debt to increase in the next decade by $9.8 trillion. That unimaginable (and indigestible) sum is more than a trillion dollars higher than...

WASHINGTON -- There is a pathetic quality to our discussion of deficits and fiscal responsibility because we never face up to how much we need government to do. Our debates are also characterized by a politically convenient amnesia. Just a decade ago, we were running surpluses so big that Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, worried about what would happen once our national debt was liquidated. We had this problem well in hand until we started waging wars and cutting taxes at the same time. What would a rational approach to the budget look like? It would begin by accepting...

The lights must dim around Google's data-storage centers every time someone does a search for "government bureaucrat coming between you and your doctor." Foes of the Democrats' health-reform proposals have been chanting this on the hour for a year -- with a surge after Democrats put money for "comparative effectiveness research" in the stimulus bill. This involves comparing treatments for the same condition to find which works best. The reform-killers insist that "government-run" health care would use these findings to tell doctors what to do, largely...

The national madness known as "McCarthyism" began 60 years ago in Wheeling, W.V., when Joseph R. McCarthy held up a scrap of paper that supposedly listed the names of 57 State Department officials he said were actually Communists and traitors. Eventually, America learned that the Wisconsin Republican's famous list was a fabrication, that he was a liar and a demagogue as well as an alcoholic -- and that his authoritarian appeals to fear were worse than useless in defending our security. But by then, McCarthyism's self-serving and fundamentally unpatriotic promoters had...

The most disturbing part of the ObamaCare debate is not about where Republicans and Democrats disagree, but where they agree. Take this issue of those with pre-existing illnesses. Many Republicans actually support government action to prevent insurance companies from refusing to insure them. Ignoring the benefits of cost-lowering free market competition and the role of charity, many Republicans believe it acceptable to force an insurance company -- in business to insure against unknown risks -- to "insure" someone currently experiencing a known risk. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.,...

Imagine how life will be now that giant corporations may spend as much as they want on political campaigns, as the Supreme Court recently decreed. All they will have to do to get their way is ask members of Congress: Do you want our money helping you -- or your opponent? Given the sums available to Big Business, most politicians will be desperate to please. So you might think. But consider a state where corporations are already allowed to spend as much as they want on elections: Illinois. Here, companies have established beyond doubt that this prerogative, when combined with $2, will get them...

There's a lively debate going on in the blogosphere and the press about whether Democrats would be better off passing or not passing a health care bill. Some liberals claim that Democrats would be better off passing a bill, any bill, even if it's unpopular with the general electorate. The idea is to energize the Democratic base, currently demoralized by the prospects of failure. Current polls show Democrats far less enthusiastic and far less likely to vote -- passing a law might change that. Others, mostly conservatives but also some liberals speaking privately, figure that...

It took me five months to get my first interview with former eBay CEO and California GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman, and when I did, it was after a press event where the news reporters were not allowed to ask questions. Swell. Her supersize campaign has been rolling her out like an Easter egg. She has been in a shell -- for which she has paid handsomely. She has contributed nearly $40 million to her campaign, yet she told me she and her husband, Griff Harsh IV, fly coach, "because it's cheaper." The big question is: Can she govern? She has a background that might help....

12:01 P.M. EST PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please be seated. Good afternoon, everybody. And on behalf of the American people, I want to welcome President Préval, the First Lady, and their delegation to the United States. The President and I have just concluded a very productive meeting in the Oval Office on the urgent and overriding challenges before us -- helping the people of Haiti as they recover and rebuild after one of the most devastating natural disasters ever to strike our hemisphere. Mr. President, as I did when I spoke to you in those first days after the earthquake, I again want...

House Committee on AppropriationsSubcommittee on General Government and Financial Services Chairman Serrano, Ranking Member Emerson, members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the chance to testify about the President's Fiscal Year FY 2011 Budget for the Department of the Treasury. Treasury plays a critical role in the day-to-day lives of Americans.  We disburse social security checks, distribute tax credits to stimulate the economy and manage the finances of the United States Government.  Under the leadership of President Obama, we have used authority provided by...

LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, Eric Massa is here -- his first prime time interview since suddenly resigning from Congress, admitting that he groped a staffer. He's called the leader in his own party a liar and the White House chief of staff, "the son of the devil's spawn." But Massa says he didn't jump, he was pushed out of office over his opposition to the health care bill. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ERIC MASSA (D), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: And I was set up for this from the very, very beginning. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Plus, actress Jessica Biel and Neal Hirsch confront the...

VAN SUSTEREN: Congressman, nice to see you, sir. REP. PAUL RYAN, R - WIS.: Good to be with you. Thanks for coming over. VAN SUSTEREN: I can't help but notice over your right shoulder a Green Bay Packer helmet. RYAN: I wanted to make you feel comfortable and make you feel at home. VAN SUSTEREN: Well, indeed, it does. All right, health care -- are we any closer? Have you heard anything in the last 24 hours to indicate that it's any closer to being resolved? RYAN: They are still anywhere from 5 to 15 votes down. So let's say it's around 10 votes down. Lots of horse trading...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SENATOR LAMAR ALEXANDER: What the president is doing is asking House Democrats to hold hands, jump off a cliff, and hope Harry Reid catches them. And Senator Reid won't have any incentive to catch them because by the time the reconciliation bill gets to the Senate, the president will have signed the healthcare bill into law and he'll be on his way to Indonesia. PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS: The information I passed on last week about March 18, the day the president leaves for Indonesia and ultimately Australia, was something that we gleaned from conversations had...

GLENN BECK, HOST: Joining me now: Congressman Eric Massa. He is congressman from New York. How are you, sir? FORMER REP. ERIC MASSA, D-N.Y.: Good to be here. And I'm not a congressman anymore. Let's be clear about it. BECK: I think once a congressman, always a congressman. But - MASSA: And can I just start off with something? BECK: Sure. MASSA: I wasn't forced out. I forced myself out. I failed. I didn't live up to my own codes. I own this. I take full and complete responsibility for my misbehavior. And goodness only knows what allegations they are going to throw at me....

In Cameroon, some mothers "iron" their daughters' breasts to delay or prevent them from having sex. The procedure often involves grinding a very hot rock into the chest of the girl, but sometimes kerosene or hot plantain peels will do the trick. The practice, which permanently disfigures the girls, starts with adolescence because that's when girls start becoming attractive to boys. And heaven forbid that anyone expect anything like self-restraint from the boys. I'd never heard of the practice until I read about it in the Washington Post. But the story is all too...

And now the House Democrats line up at the instruction of their blind commanders for a final charge into glory as they battle to foist a health care system on a country that neither wants it nor can afford it. The charge may or may not reach its objective. But one thing is certain: The carnage among those who vote for health care will remind Civil War buffs of Pickett's Charge on the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg. As a French general who witnessed the spectacle said, "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." (It is magnificent, but it's not war.)...

"America is in trouble," Tim Pawlenty warned Saturday. "Tyranny" is possible. In fact, it's "creeping." And, in case you thought otherwise, the nation is "worth fighting for." The (once) mild-mannered Minnesota governor was speaking before about 600 Republicans in Dallas. It was Pawlenty's latest audition for the part of presidential candidate. The "Sam's Club Republican" has long been the GOP's sedate populist. But what Pawlenty lacks in charisma he increasingly compensates for with rhetoric. Last month in Washington,...

Sometimes the most obvious derangements of our politics are staring us in the face but we don't see them. Take, for instance, the health care reform bill for which President Obama and the Democrats are forever lusting. Many people have protested it isn't really a reform bill, because reform implies improvement and this isn't an improvement. But it isn't the "reform" part of the Democrats' health care bill (if they ever agree on one) that strikes me as most perverse. It's calling this voluminous monstrosity a bill. Can you have a bill, a single law, that...