Outside the Beltway

If we cannot adequately diagnose our problems it will be even harder to fix them.

The Obama re-election campaign is preparing an extraordinarily negative campaign against Mitt Romney.

Honoring the fallen by ensuring that the didn’t die in vain is a recipe for getting more good men killed.

Michele Bachmann’s view of history is based in a world view that would be foreign to most Americans.

Any politician telling you that solving our problems will be easy is lying to you.

Watching the news and reading the op-eds makes it clear: America is doomed.

Former Oregon governor and long-time US Senator Mark Hatfield has died.

A political science-y response to the question of whether the system is broken.

The defense spending lobby is already engaging in fear-mongering over very modest defense cuts.

The primary calendar is going to look very different next year.

We are being warned once again that the Postal Service is on the verge of financial collapse. There really is only one solution.

The immediate reaction among the political class to the debt downgrade was the play the same old stupid games.

Like the rest of us, financial analysts across the globe are trying to figure out what the U.S. debt downgrade means.

Texas Governor Rick Perry got lousy grades as an undergrad at Texas A&M. Does it matter?

While it’s hard to argue with S&P’s political analysis, its economic judgment is a head-scratcher.

The main issue driving the downgrade appears to be lack of faith in the political parties to act responsibly and compromise over entitlements and revenues.

So, it happened………

The agenda of the Tea Party movement doesn’t necessarily coincide with what voters say they want from Washington.

Does it matter which candidate the GOP nominates?

The job approval numbers for Congress are at historic lows, but will that matter in 2012?

Looking at the state-by-state map way too early.

There is little to cheer in the jobs report released by the Labor Department today.

Apparently, getting the debt deal done was not a panacea.

The “super committee” created by the debt ceiling deal is already the subject of criticism, most of it unwarranted.

Perry has a combo of Tea Party populism and establishment going for him.

Congress is failing to complete even simple tasks thanks to a bitter partisan divide.