One week from today President Obama will give his fifth State of the Union address, the first of his second term and the most important one of his presidency. Sure, he has four years ahead of him as president, but this year is his last year to secure a legacy, and make progress on critical issues including an economic recovery before the political campaigns begins - for the midterm elections of 2014 and the open presidential election of 2016.

Following his second inaugural address, which surprised members of both parties, the focus on Obama's upcoming SOTU address is more intense than usual. Given a fiscal crisis and several crises overseas, the president's landmark speech on equality, historic as it was, left so much unsaid.

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In countless ways, the problem of racism in America has improved. For example, much of society now accepts that black children ought to think, learn and share ideas in the same classrooms as white children. There is a logical progression — a better education leads to future possibilities and personal empowerment.

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The Groundhog Day New York Times headline screamed, “Top Donors to Republicans Seek More Say in Senate Races.”

Now there’s a man bites dog.  Big money wants more power.  Who’da thunk it?

Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, the super-PAC creating the new project explained, “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”

If the Super Bowl is any indication of current American sensibilities, and it should be, America divides East and West today across the Mississippi, held together, at least till the lights go out, by the celestial light in between that is New Orleans. But the ads — the purest poetry of democratic capitalism — send a judicious warning: Mercedes pitches its new model with the anthem of a self-styled “street fighting man” who called for “Sympathy for the Devil” back in 1968. While Dodge truckers opine with Paul Harvey, very popular as well in 1968, in a whimsical heart-felt ode to the 19th century farmer, Mercedes-driving liberals, and pretend conservative agrarians, are products today of Wall Street-marketed nostalgia. America is clearly at a turnstile and facing fully new paradigms ahead, but the times haven’t turned yet. Whoever turns first will take the century. President Obama today has the opportunity if he ditches Chuck Hagel and brings in Jim Webb for secretary of Defense.

While researching my biography of Katharine Graham (Power,Privilege and the Post: The Katharine Graham Story), I interviewed I.M. Pei in his New York office.  I wanted to talk to him about the commission in the mid-1960s  to design the Post’s downtown headquarters at 1150 15th St. NW.

Anybody who has seen the building — opened in late 1972 and which one Newsweek editor described to me as “a  box”—  would quickly recognize that Pei lost that commission.  A gentleman of the first order who had been a friend of Kay’s late husband, Phil, Pei was discreet, certainly exhibiting no bitterness.

I did manage, through interviews with people on the editorial and business sides of the Post, to get the back-story of how it happened that Pei was paid $2 million for his time and trouble before architects from Detroit were retained to design the building. Read more...

Are women entitled to fight? Is anyone entitled to serve in the military? This attitude of “fairness” seems to get it completely backward.

I have to confess I watched not only former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s short, moving testimony Wednesday but also watched her making her way into the hearing room and leaving after she spoke.  

Accompanied by her husband, Capt. Mike Kelly, she walked carefully and deliberately, step by step, working her way past senators and staff who watched as she smiled at them, gave some hugs, gave others a kiss on the cheek. Silence does not begin to describe that room.

It's official — they are worried, and they should be.

The New York Times reported Friday that a top Obama administration official assigned to Iran policy expressed concern after former Sen. Chuck Hagel's (R-Neb.) dismal confirmation hearing Thursday in the Senate Armed Services committee.

Will Tina Fey run for Congress? James Taylor? Geraldo? Another embassy is bombed in Turkey because those who want to kill us understand that we are not yet ready to defend ourselves. The important question today is, will we ever be? I think the answer is yes. But the collectivist desire — Facebook is the new collectivism, far outnumbering Marx, Jesus, pharaoh and Mohammed in new followers — to send comics, pop singers syrupy enough to draw bees, professional wrestlers and circus performers to Congress is an indication that we are not yet ready to fight.