David Keene

The Tea Partiers have spooked the political establishment.

President Barack Obama has made more than his share of foreign policy mistakes since taking office, but his recent decision to sell defensive weaponry to Taiwan was not one of them.

To say that Scott Brown’s Massachusetts victory last week changed the political world is to state the obvious, but what’s more interesting is that neither Democrats nor Republicans seem to have absorbed the real meaning.

Who’d’ve thunk that Massachusetts voters this morning would be making their way to the polls for what may be the most important election of their lifetime?

It didn’t happen in any of his movies, but in real life we are about to witness the spectacle of California’s “Governator” crawling to Washington on his belly, tin cup in hand, begging for help.

Bipartisanship seems a quaint concept in today’s Washington, where Democrats and Republicans routinely question each other’s motives and integrity. Still, as 2009 winds down, we should be thankful that a few here occasionally manage to put partisanship aside in an honest quest for solutions to real problems.

Former Vice President Al Gore may be getting rich as the all-high guru of global warming or climate change or whatever he and his buddies are calling it these days, but he’s beginning to look and act like the fool his detractors have always claimed him to be.

We tend to see the past we have been taught to see rather than what actually took place a century or even a decade ago.

Jim Lilley died over the weekend and will be missed by all who knew him. More importantly, his wise counsel on Asia and China will no longer be available to presidents and decisionmakers who could use it now more than ever.

The Democratic win in New York’s 23rd congressional district last Tuesday was seen by more than a few observers as a sign that even on the rebound, Republicans might tear themselves apart as the crucial 2010 races approach.