I was not planning on writing any more pundit blogs this week, but I do have a brief comment about Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) outburst at the Benghazi hearing with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Paul suggesting he would have fired Clinton is like the Little League coach suggesting he would have fired Babe Ruth. I expect Hillary Clinton to run for and win the presidency, and I very much hope Paul runs against her. If he does, Hillary Rodham Clinton will pulverize Rand Paul into outer space.

The critical commentary about the Bigelow-Boal movie “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the search for and killing of Osama bin Laden, is wrong. The chief criticism is that the movie condones torture. I think its portrayal of torture is likely to repel most viewers, to force them to look away from it. How is that condonation? As director Bigelow remarked, a movie’s showing something is not necessarily endorsing it. Exposure in drama is often, in the best cases, the best argument against it. Think of “Gentleman’s Agreement” or “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Portraying cultural anti-Semitism or racism did more to condemn it than condone it. The brilliance of “Dead Man Walking” was that it even-handedly dramatized both sides of the death penalty issue. It isn’t clear in this movie, or in any accepted historical evidence, that torture led to Osama bin Laden’s assassination. The issue of the morality, legality, efficacy of torture is an important and fair issue for public debate. I’m on record deploring the practice, and I would guess so are Bigelow and Boal. So I think this criticism of their movie showing the revolting picture of torture is incorrect and unfair.

The Hill's A.B. Stoddard sits down with columnists John Feehery and Peter Fenn to look ahead at President Obama's second term.

Republican leaders should — and I’m confident that they will — take a principled position to save our nation from further bankruptcy, which is what a rational populace would call our situation. The president knows only the blame game; he doesn’t know about accepting responsibility. Someone has to step up and take on the role of grown-up; don’t count on it being Obama. In his four total years in the Senate, he (along with Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Charles Schumer, Patty Murray and, oh yeah, Joe Biden) opposed raising the debt ceiling, and now as president viciously demagogues those who do the same thing he did in 2007. He is shameless.

President Obama's inaugural address was a fine speech that ignored the most important political issue that will define the next four years of his presidency, which is how to govern in a town of divided government in which the other party is mostly hostile to his presidency and overly influenced by factions that detest the very notion of his presidency. The inaugural address was a hybrid combination of the remnants of a campaign speech, with a bow to the liberal base, and the rhetorical portions of a State of the Union address, minus the policy specifics. Totally ignored was the subject of how this Democratic president will govern with the current Republicans in Congress, a subject that will hopefully be addressed in the State of the Union.

Only six votes truly matter in the fight over gun control. Five are vulnerable Senate Democrats from deeply red states.
 
The five senators (with Obama 2012 vote percentages) are Mark Begich of Alaska (40.8 percent), Max Baucus of Montana (41.7 percent), Tim Johnson of South Dakota (39.9 percent), Mark Pryor of Arkansas (36.9 percent) and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana (40.6 percent).

It is astonishing that all of the major networks’ and cable stations’ top story is about the Notre Dame football player whose imaginary girlfriend supposedly died. How can this command the top spot in news when our country is about to be downgraded from its triple-A credit status and we continue ignoring the debt-ceiling debate?

This is symptomatic of what is wrong with our nation. We focus on things that are meaningless and completely ignore the things that will determine our viability in the future.

Yeah sure, we have to go through the motions of Monday’s inauguration. It’s a ritual for the world’s greatest democracy, a tradition to show everyone that we hold together no matter what. Fiscal cliff? Debt ceiling? The Speaker of the House and the president of the United States refusing to speak to each other about an imminent crisis? No problem, we can still do swearing ins, luncheons and parades, with fake smiles all around.

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Last Sunday’s New York Times reported that many health insurers have begun declaring war against their customers by aggressively jacking up premiums. In another scandal, pseudo-libertarian Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who seems to think he is Ron Paul-Lite, called President Obama’s healthcare law “fascism.” Mackey then retracted the “f” word when talk of consumer boycotts against Whole Foods greeted his charge. In the best news, Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) joined 43 other House members with a renewed push for the public option that is supported by a significant majority of voters.