Outside the Beltway

Quite improbably, Mike Huckabee seems to be positioned at the top of the GOP field right now. The only question is whether he really wants to run for President again.

They say anyone can grow up to be president. Michele Bachmann is apparently taking them at their word.

There’s still time for Sarah Palin to burnish her political reputation. But she probably won’t.

The Nixon Center has gone from one of the most controversially named think tanks in Washington to yet another blandly named one: Center for the National Interest.

Is Jon Stewart a useful idiot?

Should public schoolteachers make more money than the people paying their salaries?

Global poverty has plummeted in recent years.

Is CPAC an important event, or just a con for cons?

Taking a dive into Mark Levin’s view of Federalism.

Examining Levin’s examination of the Constitution, jurisprudence, and property rights.

Glenn Beck seems to have more in common with End Time preachers than he does with a serious political analyst.

Now that Republicans have the House, wouldn’t they be better off playing nice?

Sarah Palin released a statement today about the Arizona shootings and the debate that has followed. It’s unlikely to help her.

The debate over heated political rhetoric has now led one Pennsylvania Congressman to suggest that some speech should be banned. This must stop now.

Is the filibuster essential for the Senate to function as designed?

208 years ago today, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to The Danbury Baptist Association that has resonated through the years.

The lawyer who argued The Pentagon Papers case points out how Julian Assange is not Daniel Ellsberg, and how prosecuting him could have disastrous results for press freedom in the United States.

Constitutional ambiguity is as old as, well, it’s as old as the Constitution itself

Like it or not, the U.S. Constitution has always been a political document, evolving depending on the players on the stage.

PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year 2010.

The battle over the individual mandate is really just nothing more than the latest round in a batter that has been ongoing for 221 years.

Republicans have blocked a bill that would have helped rescue workers who became sick helping others at Ground Zero.

The Republican Party is united on the issues in a way it hasn’t been in a long time, but personalities threaten to tear the fragile coalition apart.

The choice is between a world in which officials can share information and carry out reasoned debates with one another and a world in which nothing can be written down.

Unless there’s an emergency, is it proper for representatives who have been defeated in a mid-term election to be voting on controversial legislation?

A longish NYT postmortem titled “Democrats Outrun by a 2-Year G.O.P. Comeback Plan” attributes Tuesday’s Republican victories to a January 2009 PowerPoint presentation. But structural factors were more important.

Thanks to a combination of good intelligence and fast action, it looks like the U.S. and UK avoided a serious attack on airliners last week.

The firing of Juan Williams from NPR has led many conservatives to call for an end to government subsidies. As is often the case, they’re right but for the wrong reasons.

Tom Brokaw notices something peculiar about the campaign debates: Nobody’s talking about Iraq or Afghanistan.

A new law allows Presidential candidates to set up transition offices while they’re still running for election, perhaps providing an opportunity for shortening the 2 1/2 month interregnum between Election Day and Inauguration Day.

To the extent that these faux debates are a measure of competence to hold the office in question, Sharron Reid’s holding her own against the veteran incumbent demonstrated that she was up to the task. Or, at least, as up to it as Reid.

Last night’s Delaware Senate debate was entertaining, but it’s unlikely to move the polls very much.

Thirty-two years after the first “Test Tube Baby” was born, the doctor who pioneered the procedure that created her has been recognized with a Nobel Prize.

No Senate candidate with a lead of more than 5.5 points in the polling average, with 30 days to go in the race, has lost his race since 1998: these candidates are 68-0.

Even with some key seats trending Democrat, Republicans are primed to take over both Houses of Congress come November 2.

Despite hopes that they could help reverse a 20 year trend, both Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman are beginning to lose ground in their races for statewide office in California.

According to a new book from Bob Woorward, American policy in Afghanistan is the result of a decision making process that can only be described as chaotic at best.