Latest Commentary

House Oversight can do good with FOIA investigation--but will it?

House Oversight and Government Reform, so often a partisan-dominated machine primarily intent on churning out accusatory press releases, has the opportunity to do real good with a new investigation...

No confidence in national capital region disaster preparedness

Residents of the national capital region: It's not necessarily your imagination that authorities seem woefully unprepared for disasters, natural or otherwise--or even just a big snow. Take, for...

Kerry doesn't know what a nuclear bomb can do

Tracking stupid things congressmen say is usually a job we leave to Politico. Still, one gem that dropped from the lips of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) during his confirmation hearing to become...

When the rain comes

It's raining today in the metro-Washington, D.C., area--and D.C. drivers reacted the way they often do when anything falls from the sky: by forcing traffic to a crawling pace. I know so because...

Making tomorrow's crisis today's

Mounting federal debt is a looming future problem; economic uncertainty and dysfunction in federal operations caused by a grandstanding Congress is a current problem. Of all the ironies in...

Action needed soon on gun control

Speaking in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Conn., President Obama said that the spate of mass shootings must end. He promised to "use whatever power this office holds" to launch an...

Eliminate the debt ceiling

The White House won't use its executive powers to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Dec. 6. While presidential restraint on the breadth of...

Spanish no real objection to Puerto Rican statehood

When considering Puerto Rican statehood, dislike against admitting a primarily Spanish-speaking territory into the union is often the first objection. And there are apparent examples to suggest that...

More can be done to promote innovation in government

The most recent Office of Personnel Management annual survey of federal employees doesn't show great changes when it comes to an important question, that of whether creativity and innovation are...

Climate change should cause reappraisal of FEMA grants

Climate change is likely to blow in storms of greater intensity more frequently onto the East Coast. As our nation – kicking and screaming along the way – eventually come to grips with...