Outside the Beltway

If Republicans keep looking for the next Ronald Reagan, they’re going to be disappointed for many reasons.

Quite improbably, Herman Cain remains at the top of the GOP field.

The Justice Department claims to have disrupted a major Iranian-backed terrorist attack in the United States.

Is Mitt Romney’s religion returning as an issue for Republican voters?

Even those sympathetic to the causes are frustrated with the squalor and other negative externalities of the protests.

Is Herman Cain for real, or is this rise int he polls just another boomlet destined to fade away?

The public supports the Presidents tax plans, but will that matter on Election Day?

The DOJ needs to go on a low-carb diet.

We’re getting close to the point where only two people on this stage will matter.

The economy continues to drag the President down.

Public disapproval of Congress continues to fall.

Measuring our progress a decade after the 9/11 attacks

Why was the ATF allowing thousands of weapons to be smuggled to Mexican drug gangs?

America’s journalists are far more liberal than America.

President Obama is back on Martha’ Vineyard for a ten-day vacation. The usual suspects are upset.

British courts are handing out swift and harsh sentences for people involved in last week’s riots, including four-year prison sentences for two 20-somethings for Facebook postings in support of the mayhem.

The Ames Straw Poll is like the first scrimmage of NFL training camp.

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.

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

Marvel has created an alternate universe in which Spiderman is a half-black, half-Latino teenager. Some people are angry.

The reviews are in on the debt negotiations, and the public isn’t happy.

Vice President Biden has called Congressional Republicans and their Tea Party backers “terrorists.”

Their mouths were moving, but nothing of substance was coming out.

Some history of the last 7+months.

It wasn’t a good day for the debt ceiling negotiations.

A bomb blast in Oslo’s government center has killed at least two people and a presumably related shooting spree at a nearby children’s camp are being investigated as terrorist related.

Workers picketing a Chicago Hyatt hotel yesterday got an unpleasant surprise: Heat lamps.

Moody’s is on the right track. The current debt ceiling law has done more harm than good.

The biggest news story of the past six weeks was something completely trivial.

Remember Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the arrogant French aristocrat whose career was ended by a courageous chambermaid, shedding light on a corrupt social system? A funny thing happened on the way to the slammer.

As the President prepares to announce his plans for the future in Afghanistan, a majority of Americans want the troops home now.

Recent polls seem to indicate a shift in public opinion in a more libertarian direction.

President Obama is expected to announce the withdrawal of the 30,000 Surge troops.

WaPo’s Jackson Diehl asks, “Will the GOP nominate a dove?”

The American public is increasingly skeptical of foreign adventurism. Why aren’t our political candidates reflecting that?