Michael Barone

Posted May 23, 2013

Would you like to have a "skinny" health insurance policy? Probably not. But if you're employed by a large company, you may get one, thanks to Obamacare.

Posted May 20, 2013

Chilling effect. That's the term lawyers and judges use to describe the result of government actions that deter people from exercising their right of free speech.

Posted May 16, 2013

What do the Benghazi cover-up and the IRS scandal have in common? They were both about winning elections, under false pretenses.

Posted May 13, 2013

What were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton thinking? Why did they keep pitching the line that the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans started as a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim video?

Posted May 09, 2013

Markets work. But sometimes they take time.

Posted May 06, 2013

Many loud voices in the debate over immigration have been insisting that effective border enforcement must precede any steps that legalize the status of current illegal immigrants.

Posted May 02, 2013

Blinking at the evidence that Syria has crossed what he called a "red line," Obama may be hoping to avoid getting bogged down in a military quagmire there. But weakness is provocative, and appeasement can lead to a wider war.

Posted April 29, 2013

"What difference, at this point, does it make?" That was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's angry response to a question about the State Department's account of the attack on the Benghazi consulate where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were murdered on Sept. 11, 2012.

Posted April 25, 2013

Tomorrow, the George W. Bush Presidential Center will be dedicated at Southern Methodist University in Texas. It's a good time to look back on the performance of the 43rd president, who has been almost entirely missing from the public stage these past four years.

Posted April 22, 2013

Chaos. Things seemed to be spinning out of control on many fronts this week.

Posted April 18, 2013

"More tears are shed over answered prayers," the 16th century nun St. Teresa of Avila is supposed to have said, "than over unanswered ones."

Posted April 15, 2013

"Without legislative language," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy declared in a statement March 20, "there is nothing for the Judiciary Committee to consider this week at our markup." The subject of the statement was immigration legislation, and his irritation was understandable.

Posted April 11, 2013

"Divisive." That's a word that appeared, often prominently, in many news stories reporting the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Posted April 08, 2013

We Americans are lucky, though we seldom reflect on it, that we have good neighbors.

Posted April 01, 2013

Forty years ago, American railroads were in trouble. The Penn Central, the largest railroad, had recently gone bankrupt.

Posted March 28, 2013

Are Republicans no longer the party more inclined to military interventions and an assertive foreign policy?

Posted March 25, 2013

What parts of America have been growing during these years of sluggish economic growth? Answers come from comparing the Census Bureau's just-released estimates of metropolitan area populations in July 2012 with the results of the Census conducted in 2010.

Posted March 21, 2013

Rarely does a political party issue a document so scathingly critical of itself and its most recent presidential nominee as the report of the five-member Growth and Opportunity Project of the Republican National Committee.

Posted March 18, 2013

In an opinion article in the Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman announced that he has changed his mind and now supports same-sex marriage.

Posted March 14, 2013

The College of Cardinals met in conclave on Tuesday to begin the process of electing a new pope. The cardinals have been getting plenty of advice from American journalists.