Hey guys!
I’m writing this as you snore softly in a single twin bed, Little Guy’s rump in the air and his head on El, Big Guy’s hands prayerfully grasping Bear.
You don’t know much about what’s …

I love politics, I love policy, I love government. There, I’ve said it.
Three out of four years, that makes me a freak. This year, I’m kind of cool, and I’m enjoying it. People actually want …

I am comfortably middle class. Though that assumes that there’s still comfort in a middle class where the day-care bill is higher than a pre-housing boom mortgage and climbing at twice the rate of inflation.
Not …

I watched last night’s debate having made up my mind long ago about my vote for president and doubting anyone would say about the issues that would change that.
It’s always that way with many voters …

I’m grumpy in the morning to begin with, plus you can’t be involved in political reporting for as long as I was without developing at least a veneer of cynicism.
Which is why I’ve snarled at …

In theory, merit pay for teachers has a lot going for it.
Reward the best. Truly inspiring classroom leaders such as Big Guy’s kindergarten teacher, who alternately inspires him with caterpillars and saves his life. Or …

I almost sent the guys to my room last night when the presidential debate came on.
Its 6 p.m. start here on the West Coast meant I’d have to disrupt their nightly Noggin fest by watching …

Another day, another freefall on Wall Street after Fed Chairman Fred Bernanke dared to speak a version of the truth when he said the “outlook for economic growth has worsened..
I can say free-fall, can’t I? …

I just joined the ranks of the uninsured, so health care has been on my mind a lot lately.
I didn’t mean to become a statistic. I’d planned to enroll in continuing coverage known as COBRA. …

Barack Obama
We should be past arguing whether quality preschool is a legitimate policy concern for presidential candidates. I know we’re not, though, in part because the subject gets caught up in the shrill, yet nonsensical …

It’s begging for bucks week at Big Guy’s school, where two straight days have featured canary-yellow fliers in his backpack touting the latest fund drive or need. Except when everything comes home in can’t-miss canary, …

Hurry, hurry, step right up to the greatest political sideshow on Earth: The American electoral system.

If you enjoyed previous exhibitions featuring a bunny-bashing president and his drunk brother, you’re going to love what’s in store this year.

See folks agog that 17-year-old Bristol Palin is with child out of wedlock. And that the father is a hockey-playing Alaska redneck who doesn’t want kids, according to news reports based on a MySpace profile that’s since been made private.

Watch women, normally liberally, assail Sarah Palin for choosing to campaign for vice president with a 4-month-old Down syndrome baby “who needs her.” Is that the sound of left knuckles dragging the ground?

Hear Rudy Giuliani blast those who ask whether Sarah Palin can be a mother and vice president. “When do they ever ask a man that question? When?” he tells the Republican National Convention. Right message, more than a few hypocrites in the cheering throng.

Of all the things said today about Sarah Palin, what amused me most was the surprise, not that a mother is running for vice president, but that a woman with a 4-month-old is on the Republican ticket.

“”What kind of mother is she?”"

Well, one who’s roaring back after giving birth, in sharp contrast to every woman who’s returned to the office to see herself marginalized after maternity leave.

Then came critics honing in on her appearance and her long-ago status as runner-up in the Miss Alaska Pageant. “”John McCain knows how important it is to have a trophy wife Veep on his arm,”" an America OnLine blogger wrote. “”Pinup girl for the right wing,”" snorted another blogger.Did anyone call Dan Quayle a trophy 20 years ago?

McCain came