President Obama makes it clear that he thinks it’s more important to win a long-term argument with his ideological opponents than to pretend they'll work with him.
The Paris terrorists attacked a principle central to all liberal democracies: the freedom to speak one’s mind freely, without fear of being locked up gunned down.
Robert White never forgot the murders of four churchwomen in El Salvador, and never ceased pressing for better political and economic conditions in Latin America.
Are those who died heroes and martyrs for free speech and tolerance? Not every victim is a martyr, and one does not become a hero simply by offending people.
I am sad for France of course, for the journalists and the others who died. But mainly I am sad for mankind. For the person who got shot, but also for him who fired.
In defending the use of drones, Obama has classical just-war tradition on his side. But just-war tradition has come to be read in a new and legalistic way.
The charity of Americans does not meet the needs of America’s poor, yet the tax code reinforces reliance on giving to make up for an inadequate safety net.
A governor of modest achievements, Mario Cuomo nonetheless left a mark on the nation's broader political debates and offered a forceful rebuttal to Reaganism.
Identifying and putting together different constituencies is nothing new in politics. But in recent decades it’s become a new religion, especially among Democrats.
The people who have passed through the doors of La Posada are survivors of human atrocities of nearly every kind. They come because home is no longer safe.
Americans receive confirmation of what they'd suspected: That CIA and Bush administration officials have been less than truthful in their accounts on torture.
Can we now say with confidence that our government will not use torture again? In light of reaction to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report, I fear we can't.
Unfortunately, the humanitarian conditions that urge action on immigration reform appear less important to legislators than the politics surrounding the issue.
Obama’s decision to back away from a policy of separating families of undocumented immigrants brings utterly contradictory responses from Republicans and Democrats.
Obama is paying attention to the tens of millions of voters who supported him two years ago and are hoping he'll show them political engagement is worth the effort.
Politicians and pundits regularly misapply Smith’s most famous metaphor, turning the “invisible hand” into an embodiment of the virtues of an unfettered market.
Scotland voted “No” to independence by 55 to 45 percent. But my referendum-day journey provides a clue to what was happening in Scotland in the summer of 2014.
