Articles filed under Commentary

• Four ladies from Burma Feb 11, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Kathleen Parker: It takes courage to put one foot in front of the other, much less to become an activist in Burma, as Zin Mar Aung and her colleagues have done.
  

   

• Tough times for California bashers Feb 11, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: It must especially pain conservatives that sunnier economic news partly results from voters directly rejecting Republican politicians and their agenda.
  

   
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  A debate we never can resolve Feb 10, 2013 12:00 AM
  Guest columnist Lee Hamilton: It is high time, I believe, to set aside the black-and-white argument about "big vs. small" government and to adopt a more thoughtful, less ideological approach to the role of government. For those things we want government to do, we should be talking about how a limited government can do them better.
  

   

• No. 1 key issue: ‘To get elected’(and other pearls)Feb 10, 2013 12:00 AM
  While plowing through local candidates' responses to Daily Herald questionnaires, DuPage/Fox Valey News Director Jim Davis found mostly serious, issue-oriented answers -- and a few quirky nuggets.
  

   

• A case for a balanced budget amendment Feb 8, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist George Will: The political class is incorrigible because it is composed of — let us say the worst — human beings. They respond to incentives of self-interest. Their acquisitiveness is not for money but for the currency of power, which they act to retain and enlarge. This class can be constrained, if at all, not by exhorting them to become disinterested but by binding them with a constitutional amendment.
  

   

• Wrong on drone hits Feb 8, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Eugene Robinson: When the government wants to violate a citizen’s right to privacy with wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance, a judge from a special panel has to give approval. Surely there should be at least as much judicial review when the government wants to violate a citizen’s right not to be blown to smithereens.
  

   

• ‘Baby bust’ baloney Feb 7, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: America's alleged "baby bust" is pushing the country over "a demographic cliff." So argues Jonathan V. Last in The Wall Street Journal. Stacking one highly debatable claim on the next, Last builds a palace of hooey, in the basement of which sits a conservative agenda that's not very conservative.
  

   

• Courage of their convictions Feb 6, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Richard Cohen: Imagine six former directors of the CIA talking with a distinguished filmmaker and confessing to the murder of two terrorism suspects, ordering the assassination of others, alleging a lack of real leadership by the president and stating to the camera and the entire world that the war in Afghanistan is an unconscionable botch — a bloody, daily slog without end or justification. This, of course, could never happen in the United States. It did, though, in Israel.
  

   

• Combat women and Congress’ wimps Feb 6, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Kathleen Parker: Polling that shows Americans favor women in combat by 2-to-1 is evidence only of the power of misinformation. And, yes, indoctrination.
  

   

• The shell game of contraceptive funding Feb 6, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Michael Gerson: It has been part of the American miracle to balance individual rights with institutional religious freedom — a difficult task for which the Obama administration shows little appetite. So now it falls to the courts.
  

   

• A solvable problem Feb 5, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Eugene Robinson: President Obama and a group of influential senators of both parties will try to work together to bring 11 million people out of the shadows. Our government is tackling a big problem and may actually solve it. Imagine that.
  

   

• Immigration: Getting it right Feb 5, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Charles Krauthammer: Enforcement followed by legalization is not just the political thing to do. It is the right thing to do — an act both of national generosity and national interest.
  

   

• From I don’t to I do Feb 4, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Kathleen Parker: David Blankenhorn’s personal transformation has resulted in a welcome shift in the public debate about gay marriage. How clever of him to recognize that his allies in strengthening marriage are the very people who for so long have been excluded.
  

   

• Vacuums of sovereignty Feb 4, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Michael Gerson: The most important goal in Africa is not to provide temporary substitutes for sovereignty but to strengthen that attribute itself. This is the opposite of colonialism — the building of local military and civil capacity and improving public health and economic growth.
  

   

• The price of moral grandstanding Feb 3, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist George Will: For Rahm Emanuel to say gun makers "profit from gun violence" is as sensible as saying automobile manufacturers "profit from highway carnage." Emanuel, who is more intelligent than he sounds, must know that not one fewer gun will be made, sold or misused because Chicago is wagging its finger at banks.
  

   
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  Kirk: My long walk back to the SenateFeb 2, 2013 12:00 AM
  I’m different from what I was. My left leg and left arm might never work like they once did, but my mind is sharp. I’m capable of doing the work entrusted to me by the people of Illinois, but I am forever changed.
  

   

• Obama’s test on immigration Feb 1, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Michael Gerson: If the president actually wants an immigration deal, he would need to do something he finds difficult: recognize that an argument can have another side.
  

   

• Not all smiles on immigration reform? Feb 1, 2013 12:00 AM
  Columnist Froma Harrop: The time has rarely been riper for comprehensive immigration reform. Obama should back off trying to rush the parade to citizenship. The election is over. In the meantime, let's fill in the blanks on those so-called labor shortages. American workers belong at the table, too.
  

   

• 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.