PostPartisan - Quick takes by The Post's opinion writers - January 2, 2011

What does the Gabrielle Giffords shooting mean?

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) is alive after being shot Saturday, and her doctors are optimistic about recovery. Given that alleged assailant Jared Laughner apparently shot her through the head, this is incredible -- even though this good news is...

By Stephen Stromberg | January 8, 2011; 5:04 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (150)
Categories: Stromberg | Tags: Stephen Stromberg
Save & Share:

National tragedy: The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords

As President Obama said from the White House, the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and others at a public event in Tucson is not only a tragedy for their families, but it also "is a tragedy for Arizona,...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 8, 2011; 4:42 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (45)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Is the government poisoning us with fluoride, after all?

"Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?" -- Gen. Jack Ripper, "Dr. Strangelove" Wait...does Friday's news that some Americans' water may be over-fluoridated mean that fellow...

By Stephen Stromberg | January 7, 2011; 3:30 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (23)
Categories: Stromberg | Tags: Stephen Stromberg
Save & Share:

Peggy Noonan is right -- on the qualities of leadership

Through more than a year of musings about this and that, you may have picked up that I'm a closet Emily Post or Amy Vanderbilt. Okay, fine, Lettia Baldridge. Anyway, how we treat each other as people -- gay...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 7, 2011; 2:55 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Friday p-Op quiz:'Best of times' Edition

Thank goodness things are back to normal. Last week was the slowest week of my life with everyone away. And now that you're fully engaged and engorged on viral videos of golden voiced homeless men and sailors gone wild,...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 7, 2011; 11:21 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

My secret, definitive (and unpublished) profile of Gene Sperling!

In the summer and fall of 1999, while a senior editor at The New Republic, I worked on a profile of Gene Sperling, then the chairman of the National Economic Council, a position to which President Obama is appointing...

By Matt Miller | January 7, 2011; 11:13 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Miller | Tags: Matt Miller
Save & Share:

The golden voice of Ted Williams

We were all talking last week about the power of a second chance in life after Sports Illustrated reported that President Obama praised the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team for giving one to reformed dog-brawler Michael Vick....

By Jonathan Capehart | January 6, 2011; 4:29 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (23)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Will health-care reform really save the government money?

I'm a big critic of the new House budget rules, which have the perverse effect of making it easier to increase the budget deficit. And I think repealing the health-care law would be a mistake. But it's unfair to...

By Ruth Marcus | January 6, 2011; 2:57 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (20)
Categories: Marcus | Tags: Ruth Marcus
Save & Share:

Bill Daley: center of attention

If you want to get to know the background of former Commerce Secretary William Daley -- President Obama's incoming chief of staff -- read Howard Fineman's profile of him just up on the Huffington Post. But if you want...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 6, 2011; 2:17 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Underwhelmed by Speaker Boehner

Nancy Pelosi spoke of combating climate change, ensuring college affordability, expanding access to health care, ending the war in Iraq. Newt Gingrich envisioned a balanced budget amendment, welfare reform, tax cuts, deregulation, term limits. John Boehner promised... well, not...

By Ruth Marcus | January 6, 2011; 1:07 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (24)
Categories: Marcus | Tags: Ruth Marcus
Save & Share:

Bill Daley: Is it about competence or ideology?

The naming of Chicago's William Daley as President Obama's new chief of staff immediately drew an ideological response, with centrist, more conservative Democrats shouting "Halleluiah!" and progressives reacting a bit grumpily. Within minutes of the announcement, I had heard...

By E.J. Dionne | January 6, 2011; 12:52 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (29)
Categories: Dionne | Tags: E.J. Dionne
Save & Share:

Obama gives in to Sarah Palin's dishonesty

All over Washington this week were the thrilling sounds of democracy at work -- the speeches of incoming and outgoing officials, the emotional swearing in ceremonies, the weeping of Boehner the Damp, the solid crack of the gavel being...

By Richard Cohen | January 6, 2011; 10:20 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (84)
Categories: Cohen | Tags: Richard Cohen
Save & Share:

Is Darrell Issa the new Joe McCarthy?

To the victors in the congressional elections goes the power of subpoena, as Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has been so eager to remind the Democrats. But as the new Congress is seated, Issa and his GOP colleagues should note...

By David Ignatius | January 5, 2011; 6:37 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (32)
Categories: Ignatius | Tags: David Ignatius
Save & Share:

Pelosi's handover to Boehner: Gracious -- and defiant

Nancy Pelosi handed over the speaker's gavel Wednesday. And what a gavel. In a mostly gracious speech introducing and congratulating Speaker John Boehner, the gentlewoman from California pointed out that the hefty wooden instrument wasn't the smallest in the...

By Stephen Stromberg | January 5, 2011; 5:01 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (48)
Categories: Stromberg | Tags: Stephen Stromberg
Save & Share:

Michele Bachmann for president. Seriously?!

Um, so, y'all know how talk of Sarah Palin running for president can send me into sputtering conniptions? Well, someone has just popped up to share the pedestal with her: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). I'm not kidding. The Star...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 5, 2011; 4:33 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (18)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

'Huck Finn' sanitized for your protection

I completely understand why NewSouth Books released an edition of "Huckleberry Finn" scrubbed of the N-word and replaced with "slave." And it's a decision I completely disagree with. As my colleague Alexandra Petri notes in a characteristically clever post,...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 5, 2011; 3:50 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (20)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Speaker Boehner takes the gavel

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) didn't give a full-on snort as he did on "60 Minutes." But his expressions of emotion were plainly apparent, and I'm glad he didn't try to hide them. To quote Vice President Biden in another...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 5, 2011; 3:03 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Israel's Spying Vulture -- and Killer Shark

This just in: Saudi Arabia has arrested a bird on charges of spying for Israel. According to the newspaper Al Weeam, the alleged Mossad agent is a vulture that was captured in a rural area of the country. It...

By Jackson Diehl | January 5, 2011; 12:10 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (45)
Categories: Diehl | Tags: Jackson Diehl
Save & Share:

Mindless opposition to Obamacare

How mindless does it get? Republican Rep. Phil Roe of Tennessee takes the new year's first prize. On MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell Monday night, Roe griped that Obamacare was fatally flawed, and he boasted that he...

By Matt Miller | January 5, 2011; 8:16 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (76)
Categories: Miller | Tags: Matt Miller
Save & Share:

Eric Cantor knows best? The GOP moves on health care.

The trouble with politicians who win elections is that they start sounding like incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Tuesday. In a fleeting moment of modesty, he assured reporters that the election "wasn't necessarily an election about us."...

By Stephen Stromberg | January 4, 2011; 7:22 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (69)
Categories: Stromberg | Tags: Stephen Stromberg
Save & Share:

Obama and Reagan: poll twins

Democrats, liberals and some elements of the so-called professional Left are tickled that Gallup's latest daily tracking poll shows that President Obama's approval rating has cracked 50 percent for the first time since May/June 2010. But take a look...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 4, 2011; 5:16 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Justice Scalia's unsettling interpretation

My appreciation for the Constitution dates back to the constitutional convention. The one we had in my Wood Acres Elementary fifth-grade class, where each kid had to introduce an amendment, debate it, and then open it up for a vote....

By Marisa Katz | January 4, 2011; 4:30 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (25)
Categories: Katz | Tags: Marisa Katz
Save & Share:

Capt. Owen Honors runs aground

Capt. Owen Honors has been dry docked. The Navy permanently relieved him of his command of the USS Enterprise. That's the ship on which he made his wildly unfunny videos, which he filmed in 2006 and 2007 when he...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 4, 2011; 3:16 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (49)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Mitch McConnell's strategic vision

In response to Joshua Green's Atlantic profile on Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Matt Yglesias claims that McConnell's hit upon a game-changing insight: Most people don't pay attention to politics very much, and don't have detailed informed opinions about politics....

By Conor Williams | January 4, 2011; 2:21 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Williams | Tags: Conor Williams
Save & Share:

Channeling Jesse Helms at The Post

In my last column, I advised conservative insurgents taking their seats in Congress that if they follow the model of Jesse Helms and stand for principle even when it is unpopular, the world will eventually come their way. If...

By Marc Thiessen | January 4, 2011; 2:01 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Thiessen | Tags: Marc Thiessen
Save & Share:

Sarah Palin fails to lead on gay equality

Sarah Palin is getting some mileage out of retweeting a pro-don't ask, don't tell repeal message from Tammy Bruce. "I'm focused on economic issues, and you may have noticed I was being quiet about DADT because that's not our...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 4, 2011; 12:35 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (25)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

No Honors -- on the Enterprise

[Update, 11:30 a.m.: The fate of Capt. Owen Honors is expected to be revealed at a press conference at 2 p.m. Eastern time.] Well, that didn't take long. According to NBC News, Capt. Owen Honors -- star of those...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 3, 2011; 6:58 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (17)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

The coming 'insanity' over the debt limit

Over at U.S. News and World Report, my MSNBC contributor colleague Karen Finney posits an intriguing theory. Republican leaders in the lame-duck session were more than eager to cut a deal with President Obama on extending the Bush tax...

By Jonathan Capehart | January 3, 2011; 5:31 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (25)
Categories: Capehart | Tags: Jonathan Capehart
Save & Share:

Will the GOP House attack science, after all?

The last time the Republicans controlled Congress, oversight hearings on energy and environmental policy were too often ideological, anti-global warming wastes of effort. Is there any hope this time will be different? It appears that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.),...

By Stephen Stromberg | January 3, 2011; 4:12 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (29)
Categories: Stromberg | Tags: Stephen Stromberg
Save & Share:

Network News

PostPartisan: January 2, 2011 - January 8, 2011