The markets could be cratering today because they sense a change in the “New World Order” with the election of Scott Brown. The term, used by President George H.W. Bush, is unfortunate. It was the title of a book in 1940 by H.G. Wells, the utopian socialist. Like so many utopian visions of the last century — in with the dust, gone with the wind — it shows the vulnerability of world markets to ideology, whimsy and mass delusion.

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Before I moved (part-time) to Key Biscayne, Fla., in 2000, I harbored a distorted image of Miami. The Miami of the early and mid-20th century was a place of racial segregation, luxury hotels, delicatessens; of Jewish retirees and rich vacationers.

More recently, another distorted image of Miami prevails. That is the Miami portrayed in a recent review of Miami, Babylon by Gerald Posner in The New York Times. The reviewer, Bryan Burrough, refers to Miami as a silly place, corrupt, druggie and hedonistic, “the slummier side of South Florida.”

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Is it any coincidence that as the global warming talks in Copenhagen started heating up, the weather in the Danish capital started cooling down? 

Is it any coincidence that as the president departed Washington to close the climate change “deal” that the American capital was immediately threatened with blizzard-like conditions?

Sometimes, it makes you wonder.

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Every age has its primary symbols, and if you are to go long to understand what will emerge over time and what will recede, they are worth looking at. With the rise of John F. Kennedy came the rustic troubadour Bob Dylan from Minnesota’s north country fair, declaring that the times were a changing. The lyrics of that tune which became the anthem of a generation paralleled a speech written by Ted Sorenson about the “new men of the Sixties” and delivered by Kennedy in his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles in July 1960.

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As more and more families are forced to navigate these painful economic times, perhaps we should all pause a moment for perspective.

It is hard to be grateful when your stomach is growling. But difficult times are when it is most important to take stock of what we’re grateful for.

There's something about making a conscious decision to take time in your day to savor the things for which you are thankful that helps you navigate stress. I implore you to take a half-hour tonight and make a list of the things for which you are grateful. Don’t just go through the motions. Really savor each act of kindness. You will find in this moment of gratitude an affirmation of life.

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Maybe it should be common sense, but it's not, not in private industry, nor in government. Effective communication is most frequently a matter of simple language and brevity, keeping it simple.

In honor of World Usability Day, the folks at the GSA are reminding us of this, with an example:

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I still remember my freshman-year philosophy teacher intoning, in mind-numbing fashion, “Being qua Being.” He was talking about the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, and his seminal philosophical work Being and Time.

I never could figure out what my philosophy teacher was talking about, and since it was my second semester and springtime in Milwaukee, I did not particularly care, an attitude which landed me my second-worst grade in my college career.

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Being born beautiful is a condition of biological fate, like being born black like Michelle Obama or Puerto Rican like Sonia Sotomayer. To hate someone for her skin is to hate her for her biological fate. It is the same as hating them for being born Irish with red hair — some consider them witches—– or having an epicanthic fold on the eyes, as many Chinese do. Some consider them foreign devils.

This might be the purest form of nihilism. When nihilism awakened in Russia in the 1830s, it was with Russian aristocrats who had taken on the plight of the poor. The poor were slaves. Tolstoy had 12 living in the living room under the stairs. It is perfectly understandable how hatred of the rich by other rich in these circumstances came about. It became nihilism when the cause of misfortune was resolved and the hatred continued as a generic condition and became institutionalized.

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From today's Washington Times:

The social engineering of liberal policymakers often has the unintended consequence of making life more difficult for the people it is trying to help. They justify liberal policies by correctly highlighting real institutional barriers like racism and historical poverty that have historically held back the disadvantaged. However, instead of teaching the disadvantaged to fish so they can feed themselves for a lifetime, they merely give them a fish to eat.

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There are half as many openings at big law firms this year than last, creating “the most wrenching search season in over 50 years,” The New York Times recently reported. Neophyte lawyers are thus forced to seek employment in government and public interest organizations, the report concluded. One law student was quoted as wondering “whether law school was the right choice at all.”

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Ahhhh, Dick Cheney again. Have we not heard enough revisiting and relitigating? With the way he's talking about his former boss, we can rehabilitating to the list!

Thought our former vice president would retreat in dignified silence to his undisclosed location? Now we learn he is ticked at President George W. Bush for going "soft" in the face of public criticism in his second term. Read more...

OK, you might know I'm not really interested in politics, preferring to focus on how we run the country — that is, governance.

It does make conversation easier if I have some label, and for a while it was "libertarian moderate." My background was pretty intensely libertarian in my youth, but I didn't care much for the last maybe 20 years.

However, I've been doing customer service every day for over 14 years, exposed to thousands of people, many of whom are suffering. That changes a guy, and me in particular.

My focus in now on what works, what relieves that suffering, in an imperfect system. Read more...

This piece is also published in The Washington Times.

At a time of important international and domestic crises, when our national leaders in Washington are polarized on most the Big Issues of the day, I thought this might be a good time to try to explain an experience shared by millions of Americans that actually might have some relevance to today's divisive times.

That is the seven-week sleep-away camp experience and, specifically, my memories of a particular camp in northeastern Pennsylvania named Camp Equinunk. Read more...

This is the way the world ends: bedbugs and pirates. But we know what the commander in chief will do because he wears a little bracelet on his arm that says: W.W.M.D.? (What Would Mitt Do?)

Mitt Romney can't be feeling all that bad right now. Last week he advised crowds of Republicans to support President Obama on issues when they are confluent with their own desires. Threatening General Motors with bankruptcy and the war on Afghanistan, for example. Read more...

It pains me to admit this, but I am among the Twits who Twitter. There are millions of us and millions more Twitterheads who pay attention-deficit to these self-absorbed mind squirts.

To the few who complain that nothing intelligent can possibly be discussed in such tiny fragments, get over it. That battle has been lost ever since those of us in TV news discovered the sound bite. As the man says, "You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." That, by the way, would work on Twitter. So would, "If you can't beat 'em, tweet 'em." Read more...

Armstrong Williams believes that although RNC Chairman Michael Steele has made some mistakes, he has the qualities to be a good leader and voice for the Republican Party.

Dear readers:

Once in a while I get messages from friends and readers that contain such wisdom and insight I even consider that they might have more wisdom and insight than my own blogs!

This one below, by California entrepreneur and wunderkind Auren Hoffman, is worth reading — and points up important concerns about the tendency for the pendulum over-swinging from one side to the next in American politics. Of course, the thesis appeals to me as one who writes a weekly column for The Washington Times titled "Purple Nation."

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Note: This column is co-authored with Mark DeMoss, whose Atlanta-based public-relations firm primarily serves faith-based, evangelical organizations.

Ours is a most unlikely friendship. In fact, conventional wisdom would not have us speaking to each other, let alone being friends. One of us is Republican, a political conservative and evangelical Southern Baptist who was a staunch supporter of ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the primaries. The other is a Democrat, a political liberal who worked for President Bill Clinton and was an ardent supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) during the recent presidential primaries, and is of the Jewish faith. The first opposes the right to abortion and believes in the right to life. The second supports the right to choose and believes the abortion decision should be a private decision between a woman and her physician. Read more...

By the time 2009 arrived, on Jan. 20, historians were already borrowing from the Chinese by calling 2008 "The Year of the Chickens Coming Home to Roost.”

So Barack Obama had the advantage of a following a really bad act, particularly after Vice President Cheney barricaded himself in the White House that morning and had to be forcibly removed. He screamed he didn't have to leave, that the Constitution didn't apply to him.

What an Inauguration it was! Who can forget the words of the new president as he borrowed from the oratory of his campaign to look out at the sea of faces and say, "HELLOOOO, WASHINGTON"? Read more...

It could be the work of the Trickster that when the renowned political scientist Samuel Huntington passed away recently, the vastly more popular Pete Townshend, a Brit bard noted for smashing stuff up onstage, was awarded at the Kennedy Center for his life’s work.

The work of each can be summarized by three words: Who are we? which is the title of Huntington’s last book. And Who are you? asked by Townshend.

It is not really a fair question, and that is the point. It is a question only asked when the thing you used to be or thought you were is broken or no longer works. In Huntington’s case, it asks you to go back and find it again and restore it. Like the Protestant Ethic. Be like that again. Read more...

Paul Weyrich was conservative long, long before it was cool. He campaigned as a volunteer for Barry Goldwater in his native Wisconsin and won local fame as a radio broadcaster and activist there before coming to Washington to work as press secretary to then-Sen. Gordon Allot of Colorado.

While working for the Colorado senator, Paul met Joe Coors, and more than either could have guessed began with that meeting. Coors was a conservative with money who wanted to make a difference and Paul was filled with ideas as to how he could help. Read more...

It's probably not altogether fair, but there are certain words, when we see them together, that automatically inspire scorn and/or ridicule in just about all of us. Here's an incomplete list:

Chicago Alderman

General Motors

Internet advertising

TV pundits

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If the idea sounds funny, you should have been in Miami the last eight days. There’s still lots of glitz and pseudo-glamour in Miami, and Heat. But, for the 25th straight year, The Miami Book Fair convened, this time at Miami Dade College in downtown Miami, monopolizing many square blocks of book stalls, pavilions, tens of thousands of cruising people, in a street fair attended by throngs of book enthusiasts. Day and night, for a week, the convention center presented 400 world-class authors reading from their books, and schmoozing the very interested public.

Begun a quarter-century ago by Mitch Kaplan, one of the country’s best independent bookstore owners (his four Books and Books stores hold readings every day of the year for visiting authors), the Fair has grown to be one of the best-attended and -received in the world. Being where it is, there is a remarkable international flavor. Read more...

Big news, everyone — the Pundits Blog now has a proud presence on Facebook.

With a continuously updating Notes feature and RSS feeds — not to mention a daily contest for Best Blog and a message board unto itself — get ready for the discussion to kick up a notch or two. Add yourself as a fan today!

— Mike Laws, Editor, The Hill's Pundits Blog

By Craig Newmark
Founder and customer service representative
craigslist
San Francisco

My day job is online customer service, part of a team that supports tens of millions of people across America. I've worked directly with thousands of people over the years from small towns to big cities, and everyone in between.

From my personal experience, I can tell you that pretty much all Americans have a common set of values, mostly derived from the same shared value. It's the notion that you should treat other people like you want to be treated. If you feel that, you feel that people should treat others fairly. We should all compete on a level playing field, and play by the same rule; that's how to get ahead. Read more...

Armstrong Williams says that Americans are allowing the pundits and the news media to influence and sway their opinions of the presidential candidates.

Now might be a good time to review The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny by historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. The authors’ thesis is that all historical periods are "post-war periods" and every 80 years or so a human cycle of four generations concludes itself in catastrophe and rebirth.

“Just after the millennium,” the authors write, “America will enter a new era that will culminate with a crisis comparable to the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II. The survival of the nation will almost certainly be at stake.”

The book explains why the great gods fall like the petty gods; each becomes "post-seasonal" and submits to the ravages of time. It is the catastrophic failure of systems that have run their course that causes the turnings. Read more...

Many political campaigns run against the wrong candidate. The opportunity to pick on a vulnerable target is so tempting that they are lured into attacking someone who isn't running. In 1992, the Republicans unleashed their convention barrage at Hillary and left Bill unscathed. In 1996, Dole still ran against Clinton the liberal and ignored the changes in his political positioning. Campaigns go after the flaming red cape, so glittering a target, and leave the matador alone.

That's what the Democratic convention has been doing in Denver. They are so anxious to run against Bush, their animosity is so pent up, that they persist in running against a man who is not seeking a third term. In speech after speech, the Democrats knock the Bush record and then add, lamely, that McCain is the same as Bush. Or they call the McCain candidacy Bush's third term. It was no accident — or Freudian slip — when Joe Biden spoke of John Bush instead of George in his litany of attacks. Read more...

The China Olympics is all about eights. The eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year and the eighth something else.

Inscrutable. The FBI might call in Fox Mulder for a consult when he is finished with Father Joe. Eight, you see, is the number of sides on a Ba Gua. Eight is, as any teenage viewer of “Lost” will tell you, the number of stacks on the 5,000-year-old oracle known as the I Ching (which is a Ba Gua.) and it is also the shape of the hatch and the shape of all things of the Dharma Initiative on the mysterious island. Eight is the sum total of the male quaternity and the female quaternity; the yin and the yang. Eight is the totality of human consciousness as it interfaces with cosmic consciousness. Read more...

There is a masterfully crafted scene in Carol Felsenthal’s Clinton in Exile that brings to mind the stillness and awe of Robert E. Lee signing surrender at Appomattox or Nelson’s funeral after Trafalgar.

You feel as if you are waiting there for Lee to make his despondent comment on behalf of the heroic vanquished when Grant’s Indian guide responded, “We’re all Americans here.”

You feel you are nervously waiting through a dead quiet in a side parlor for Wellington to arrive or perhaps the king’s entourage to enter and offer homage to the fallen warrior and God-king of Trafalgar. You sense that the events that brought you to these pivotal passages in the river are larger than you are, larger than your family is and more important, and people will look to this great moment as a turning point for a thousand years to come.

But it is not Nelson at Trafalgar or Lee at Appomattox. It is Bill Clinton entering a room of adoring supporters waiting for him to do a crossword puzzle. Read more...

The controversial New Yorker cover — featuring Barack Obama in Muslim garb, Michelle Obama toting a machine gun, the flag in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden on the wall — underscores one of Obama's greatest liabilities: that he is still largely unknown to many voters. If Obama were better-known, such Internet rumors, of him being Muslim and other untruths, wouldn't be as worrisome for him as they are in a race now nearly deadlocked in the polls.

The winner in November will have earned the most independent support. How better to introduce himself to independent voters than for Obama to stand with John McCain at town hall meetings? Talking beside the war hero, debating policy from healthcare to unemployment insurance to charter schools to energy production to immigration to Iraq and Iran, would show that Obama is as presidential on these topics — and often more so — than McCain. Right now he is talking this way, in free-flowing give-and -takes with Democratic voters, and he is good at it. But Obama just couldn't work out a deal with McCain on joint appearances. Why not face questions from skeptical voters in a back-and-forth with McCain? Why wait for three debates that, hosted by journalists, promise to be unpredictable? Read more...

“According to a recent Gallup Poll, the number of men who wore ties every day to work last year dropped to a record low of 6%, down from 10% in 2002.”

March 15, 2009

WASHINGTON — Today, Congress voted to repeal a law that mandated that each man wear a necktie at least five times a week, after a huge grassroots effort to repeal the legislation sparked early action.

The original tie-wearing mandate was tacked onto an unrelated war supplemental bill and signed by the president, who was not wearing a tie at the time. Read more...

The clouds were dark and foreboding as I drove past the National Mall the other day. It was quite obvious — at least to me — that a storm was approaching. But to a couple of thousand of other people, who went about their business, it was as if it never rained in their world.

The heavens opened up, those poor suckers got soaked, and a thought crossed my mind.

Maybe I have been in Washington for too long. But to me, that rainstorm is like the impending disaster known as Social Security. While it may have been completely obvious to most people had they bothered to think about it, most people just didn’t want to think about that little old rainstorm. They had other stuff going on in their lives. Read more...

When did it suddenly become cool to work 24/7? When did we start saying "24/7"?

When did it become a badge of honor to have five receptions, nine meetings and two dinners to attend?

This is the work culture of today — we can't sustain it. Read more...

I recently wrote a column about Mother's Day, which is my favorite day of the year, since it celebrates my children. Not being a father, I decided to ask a few dads whom I admire to share their thoughts.

I asked each dad, “What do you enjoy most about Father's Day? What is the most annoying thing about Father's Day?”

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer:
“The best thing about Father’s Day is my children cannot complain when I bring too many toys for my grandchildren.”

Canadian Ambassador to the United States Michael Wilson:
“What I enjoy most about Father's Day is being with grandchildren. What is annoying is trying to think of something to say which might be annoying! I really enjoy Father's Day.” Read more...

In my younger days I thought I might make a pretty decent astronaut, so I packed up and went to college in Florida. In short — I went down there and "took up space.” Seriously, folks, where's a good snare drum when you need one?

I must be listening to too much ’60s music on my XM radio. Last week my tribute to LBJ generated lots of interesting comments, both here and directly to my e-mail. And today’s column, “Space exploration on the cheap: America misses its moment,” seems to have struck a chord as well. Check it out and feel free, as always, to share your thoughts right here for all to see. Read more...

Most Memorial Day moviegoers flocking to their local theaters to catch the latest Indiana Jones flick did so without realizing that the movie adventurer portrayed by Harrison Ford hero was in all likelihood modeled on a once-famous American explorer who today is all but forgotten.

Few Americans today even remember Roy Chapman Andrews, whom many believe to have been the real-life model for the movie adventurer, but his was once a household name in this country. He was so famous, in fact, that when his dog died, The New York Times ran an obituary on the dog. Andrews was a legend to boys like me from southern Wisconsin back in the ’50s because as a boy, he too roamed, fished and hunted the shores of the Rock River. Read more...

Amidst the well-wishes and prayers for the health of liberal lion Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), America has just lost an outstanding public servant who served his country with honor and dignity. His name is Hamilton Jordan. Jordan worked tirelessly for civil rights in his youth, toured Vietnam as a civilian volunteer and went on to serve as President Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff in the White House.

I first met Jordan while working in the White House as he was keen to champion a bipartisan groundswell of support to battle cancer in America. Hamilton was the perfect advocate for this cause, having beaten cancer three times in his life previously. His secret? He always told me that a positive attitude and a well-informed mind could lick just about anything. Read more...

A.B. Stoddard offers answers to viewer questions and opinions on the Democratic presidential race as well as possible VP picks.

Mother’s Day is my favorite day of the year, hands down.

My birthday? Forget about it. Christmas and Thanksgiving are too much work for moms. Mother’s Day is all about me and my favorite thing in the world: being mom to Travis, Kelsey and Christina.

Nothing is better than that. Not Oscar de la Renta, not Jimmy Choo, not talking with Tom Friedman, not teaching Harrison Ford tennis on the White House Court, not shooting par, buying low and selling very high, or even a 1986 first-growth Bordeaux.

I watch my children develop like a sports fan watches and is engrossed in a sporting event. I criticize, I cheer, I get butterflies and love every moment. I watch Kelsey and Christina play varsity basketball — one dishes the ball to her sister, she scores, and I cheer. Read more...

As the Democrats look to pack on additional spending on a war supplemental, it appears that the Democratic leadership’s eyes are too big for the Blue Dogs’ collective stomach, causing a bad case of indigestion.

As Mike Soraghan points out in The Hill today, “A small group of fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats is threatening to block the emergency war spending bill over a program for veterans’ benefits not offset with tax hikes or spending cuts.”

Now, that sounds like a nice start on the road to rebellion, but let’s not kid ourselves. The Democratic leadership is going to exert enough pressure on these Blue Dogs to make them buckle. They want to get this pork-laden package of spending goods to the president by Memorial Day to ensure that he vetoes it. Does this strategy help the troops? No. But in the view of the Democratic leaders, they get the chance to score some political points. Read more...

Timing is everything in politics, as I have said too many times in this space, but the confluence of the chances for re-votes in Michigan and Florida folding and the historic speech on race by Barack Obama is remarkable.

As Hillary Clinton struggles to portray the Democratic race as competitive and close, the conventional wisdom has set in — the superdelegates have to go with Obama, it's over for her. Our colleague Dick Morris, fellow blogger and columnist at The Hill, said this week that the party would only pass over the winner of pledged delegates and hand the nomination to Clinton if Obama were in jail. Daily Kos has proclaimed Clinton hard at work on civil war since the only way she can win is by dividing her party. Handing Clinton the nomination would amount to the Democratic Party kissing the youth vote and the black vote goodbye. Read more...

The Republican Party in Illinois is in terrible shape, what with its last elected governor in the slammer and its inability to hold onto the historically heavily Republican congressional seat vacated this year by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

This isn’t to say there aren’t good Republicans in Illinois, but as a political force the party is at best a shadow of what it once was, and many are wondering if things aren’t going to get worse before they get better.

When parties decline in influence and power, things often get worse because they are forced to recruit political neophytes to run in hopeless and even less than hopeless races. In Illinois, the main quality Republicans seem to be looking for in their candidates these days is a hefty personal bank account and a willingness to finance a campaign. Read more...

Here's my question: Will the CEOs and top financial managers whose sleazy wheeling and dealing has caused our economy to buckle get extra millions in bonuses?

How could this happen? How could all those highly educated, pinstriped captains of financial industry continue stand to stand there with straight faces and assure us they will lead us out of the wreckage they created? How is it no one is talking about their individual criminal accountability?

How are we supposed to believe anything these people tell us? How many times do we have to have our life savings stripped away by these conspirators in greed? Read more...

Amidst Bear Stearns tanking, gas at $4.50 a gallon and the sick housing market, there's something exciting on the horizon in Washington: BASEBALL!!! And not just our beloved Washington Nationals, but the Nats in a jazzy new stadium.

America's pastime may have returned to the nation’s capital two years ago, but don't fool yourself. The real return of baseball — and all the excitement it brings — comes later this month when Nationals Park opens along a revitalizing Anacostia River in Southeast.

And what a Washington saga it's been: filled with a cast of characters right out of a Shakespearean tale. Read more...

The House Rules Committee has a long and fabled history in the Congress. It is the committee that distinguishes the House from the Senate. In its past, it has been an expeditor to legislation, a huge road block to progress, an extension of the Speaker’s office and all places in between. Currently, it is a mess.

When I worked for Speaker Hastert, we had a very capable chairman of the Rules Committee, David Dreier. Dreier was loyal to the Speaker, but he was no pushover. When he sensed discontent on his committee, he went to the Speaker’s office to work out the problems.

The new chairwoman of the Rules Committee, Louise Slaughter, apparently hasn’t read the manual left behind by Chairman Dreier. When she has trouble on her committee, she bulls forward. Instead of trying to work it out with her Speaker, she basically brings legislation forward, knowing that its failure will embarrass her publicly. Read more...

Sometimes I think the key to survival in Washington is to be able to keep a straight face.

Case in point: Last week I'm having an evening glass of lemonade (this is my first post, so I'm not sure you get full disclosure until we get to know each other better) and over to the alleged bar-like structure comes Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) to order ... er ... a few of his own glasses of lemonade.

Looking to make some small talk while his drinks were being prepared, I said, "Senator, I understand you guys just voted to increase the economic stimulus package."

And this is where my "straight-face" thesis kicks in. Read more...

If you can judge a person by his or her enemies, then you gotta love both John McCain and Hillary Clinton. They share the same enemy, the right-wingers who confuse conservatism with extremism.


To them, a McCain-Clinton election would be a choice between two Satans who have had the damnable audacity to disagree with their zealotry.


Right now we're seeing some of those from that so-called Republican "base" warily line up with McCain as the devil they know, or at least the one who will try and keep their party in power. Read more...

As impressive as Hillary’s win in California is, her Super Tuesday performance raises the question: Is she a bi-coastal phenomenon?  Is flyover country Obama-land?

Hillary won New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arizona and California.  But in the heartland in between, she only carried her once-native Arkansas and its next-door neighbors Tennessee and Oklahoma. But Obama carried Illinois, Alabama, Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Idaho, Georgia and Delaware.

Can Hillary win the states in the middle? Read more...

The Clinton-Obama race has been a fascinating thing to observe from the outside.

That is why Hollywood loves it so.

But as Bill Clinton may have put it, this fairy tale has to come to an end at some point. Read more...