NATO’s “victory” in Libya, senior U.S. officials recently wrote, was a “model intervention,” a “teachable moment.” “The first lesson is that NATO is uniquely positioned to respond quickly and effectively to international crises,” the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Ivo H. Daalder, and NATO’s supreme allied commander, Adm. James G. Stavridis, ...

According to Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., it is “intrusive,” “an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars,” “unconstitutional,” and “the very picture of what’s wrong in D.C.” What manner of predatory government prompted Mr. Webster — supported by nearly all House Republicans — to issue such categorical condemnation? That intolerable federal boondoggle ...

Now DC is the subject, but it’s not unique. This is happenin’ round the country and it makes me freak. I wonder how things could get so out of control, and how hearts can turn so very cold. Set to the percussive rhythms of the go-go genre he pioneered, those ...

The formation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a new coalition comprising a parliamentary supermajority prompted hawks to conclude that he was laying the groundwork for a military strike against Iran. Doves speculated that the new cabinet was well positioned to reopen peace talks with Palestinians. In reality both ...

“The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” So wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia, the landmark case declaring unconstitutional the anti-miscegenation laws on the books ...

Next week, the Senate is set to spend considerable time figuring out how to pay for renewing an old campaign gimmick — keeping interest rates for certain federally backed student loans extra low at 3.4 percent. Doing so would be expensive; it would cost the government $6 billion to extend ...

One of the significant reforms in the health care law was to put private Medicare plans on a more equal footing with the traditional government program. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act altered the payment structure in which the private plans, known as Medicare Advantage, were essentially overpaid in ...

There’s good news and bad news from the Senate Agriculture Committee. On Thursday, it voted to eliminate the wasteful “direct payments” subsidy program when the five-year farm bill expires at the end of September. But it offset much of the savings by expanding subsidies for federal crop insurance. Rife with ...

Chen Guangcheng, one of China’s best-known and bravest human rights activists, had been illegally and unjustly kept under house arrest in his village for 19 months when he somehow escaped last Sunday. He made his way to Beijing, and though his whereabouts are unconfirmed, activists reported Friday that he was ...

Automakers don’t offer brand-new versions of each model every year; instead, they add a feature or two and call it a “refresh.” Similarly, President Obama’s “blueprint” for U.S.-based manufacturing, unveiled in his State of the Union address, updated arguments he has offered before. Was this version persuasive? First, the big ...

President Obama pledged that the $489 billion in defense cuts he has proposed over 10 years would be governed by a concerted strategy, and on Thursday he delivered one. At the Pentagon, Obama unveiled a “strategic guidance,” which aides said reflected a considerable investment of his personal time and ideas. ...

Two leaders of Cuba’s Jewish community have visited American Alan Gross at the maximum-security military hospital in Havana where he has been confined since Dec. 3, 2009. They lighted Hanukkah candles with him, emerging later to pronounce him healthy and hopeful. But for Gross’ family in Bethesda, Md., this report ...

In 1918 a German scholar named Oswald Spengler produced a weighty tome titled “Decline of the West,” which had quite a vogue in the first half of the 20th century and probably still sits unread in American homes. Spenglerian prose — “Like the cosmic cycle of the blood, the differentiating ...

The hopes of Syrians for an end to the criminal repression by the regime of Bashar al-Assad now depend on the Arab League and the observer force it dispatched to the country this week. It is a very thin reed. The observers were originally meant to number 500, but have ...

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial on the Mall drew plenty of controversy even before its dedication on Oct. 16. One of the earliest objections was to King’s pose: The civil rights leader stands arms crossed, looking impatient, indignant, glowering. Critics called it a confrontational stance, too angry and ...

When quizzed on the problem of illegal immigration at their previous debate, the Republican presidential hopefuls were by turns vague, evasive, confused, contradictory and — in the notable case of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who opposes a border fence because it might prevent law-abiding Americans from withdrawing their savings ...