We live in a media world simultaneously obsessed with technology and personality.

Obama, like Carter, is reacting to warning signs by seeking to split the difference between dispirited Democrats and increasingly radicalized Republicans.

As with almost every significant aspect of the Bush presidency, its handling of 9/11 was a catastrophe from start to finish.

So was it a political mistake for Obama to put so many eggs in the health-care-reform basket? Well, a negative decision from the Supreme Court will certainly make it appear so.

For the past eight years, the right has been better at working the refs. Now the left is learning how to play the game.

Americans have always evinced some distrust of government, but the current situation has exacerbated this to a degree that may be unprecedented.

To become informed and hold government accountable, the general public needs to obtain news that is comprehensive yet interesting and understandable, that conveys facts and outcomes, not cosmetic images and airy promises. But that is not what the public demands.