Articles filed under Commentary

• Remember also band director’s positive side Feb 1, 2013 12:00 AM
  Guest columnists Clayton Kullander and Luke San: Jeff Daeschler has been punished for a grievous error in judgment, but do not let that define his time at Libertyville High School because, to his students, the man's flaws cannot crack who he is at his core. You have not been forgotten, Mr. Daeschler, and you can always know that you did more for the development of your students than you ever could have imagined.
  

   

• On torture, a debate we need Jan 31, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: A foggy position of confusion and ambiguityabout the use of torture has been largely missing from the debate over the film "Zero Dark Thirty." Everyone seems so sure of everything.
  

   

• Protecting the currency of trust in all we publish Jan 31, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Jim Slusher: With everyone who writes for us, we must by the nature of our work accept a fundamental bond of trust, a trust that says what you write is what you honestly saw, heard or believe and it is your own.
  

   
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  Cameras and the rights of the accused Jan 30, 2013 12:00 AM
  Guest columnist Scott Slonim: At the end of the day, after trials have been broadcast on live television, where do the accused go to get their reputation back?
  

   

• Questions that need asking Jan 29, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Eugene Robinson: The correct U.S. response is not to go looking for wars to fight; we've been there, done that. But neither should we blithely ignore developments that may turn into threats.
  

   

• Recipe for a conservative revival Jan 29, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist George Will: In the rhetorical cotton candy of his inaugural address — sugary, and mostly air — Obama spoke of "investing in" rising generations, and said: "America's possibilities are limitless." He ignores the encroaching limits imposed on the nation by his policies that are funded by debt that will burden those generations.
  

   

• The thinking gets better, the second term around Jan 28, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: President Obama's vow to pursue a liberal agenda in the second term is, contrary to conventional discourse, a good way to work across the aisle. The debates over health care and raising the debt ceiling got so nasty, in part, because Obama wouldn't draw lines and defend them. Republicans couldn't tell how far he'd compromise, fueling hopes on the fringes.
  

   

• Obama unbound Jan 28, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Charles Krauthammer: President Obama's mission is to redeem and resurrect the 50-year pre-Reagan liberal ascendancy. Accordingly, his second inaugural address, ideologically unapologetic and aggressive, is his historical marker, his self-proclamation as the Reagan of the left. If he succeeds in these next four years, he will have earned the title.
  

   

• The sirens of the Pentagon Jan 28, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Kathleen Parker: Ground combat is one area in which women, through quirks of biology and human nature, are not equal to men — a difference that should be celebrated rather than rationalized as incorrect.
  

   

• Some suggestions for improving Congress Jan 27, 2013 12:00 AM
  Guest columnist Lee Hamilton: People don't go to Washington because they want to accomplish nothing. Rather, they get caught in a destructive cycle whose dynamics are often shaped by political forces out of their control
  

   

• Sign code as a weapon Jan 25, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist George Will: A drearily familiar dialectic is on display in Norfolk, Va.: Government is behaving badly in order to silence protests of other bad behavior. It is violating the Constitution's First Amendment, stifling speech about its violation of the Fifth Amendment, as it was properly construed until 2005.
  

   

• Proudly confessing Jan 24, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Kathleen Parker: Stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, his Olympic medal, ousted by the foundation he created and facing multiple lawsuits, Armstrong has fallen just about as far as one can. It seems enough.
  

   

• More thoughts on Aaron Swartz Jan 24, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: The infantilizing culture of academia has led some university wards to expect leniency when they misbehave. In any case, Swartz wasn't playing with databases. He was trying to strip them of their economic value.
  

   

• Hispanic Republicans walk a fine line Jan 24, 2013 12:00 AM
  
  

   

• Bonfire of the straw men Jan 23, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Michael Gerson: Obama arrived with limited experience on the national stage — only to find himself in the fight from the last act of Hamlet. He seemed surprised that Washington could not be changed by the force of his personality. He has become a sobered and hardened figure.
  

   

• Our vital move from race to legacy Jan 23, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Eugene Robinson: Reaction to the inaugural address took remarkably little notice of the fact that President Obama is an African-American. That seems to be old news. Not for me, though.
  

   

• Health care act’s death star? Jan 22, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist George Will: Because the penalties are constitutionally limited by the reasoning whereby Roberts declared them taxes, he may have saved the ACA's constitutionality by sacrificing its feasibility. So as the president begins his second term, the signature achievement of his first term looks remarkably rickety.
  

   

• The necessity to act in Syria Jan 22, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: Wars can change over time. The one in Syria certainly has. It has gone from a war of choice to a war of necessity that President Obama did not choose to fight. A mountain of dead testifies to his mistake.
  

   

• El futuro habla espanol (The future speaks Spanish) Jan 21, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Kathleen Parker: The new year began with an avalanche of Republican retrospectives: What went wrong? What must the GOP do? In attempting to navigate my own thoughts, I keep bumping into advice my father gave me a long time ago: "Learn Spanish. You will need it to survive in the world you will inherit."
  

   

• Our dysfunction quagmire Jan 21, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Eugene Robinson: It has become conventional wisdom that Republicans are suffering an internal split that President Obama is successfully exploiting to neuter the Republican House. It is not true, however, that the Republican split is philosophical and fundamental. And that a hopelessly divided GOP is therefore headed for decline, perhaps irrelevance.