President Obama insists hes a free-market guy. But you have to wonder whether he understands how a free economy really works.

Thomas Sowell is America's foremost public intellectual and for good reason. His work covers almost every subject imaginable- race, economics, Marxism, ethnic groups, immigration patterns, just to name a few. He is persuasive and provocative and always scintillating. I've read all his books and never been even faintly disappointed. Black Rednecks & White Liberals is no exception.

Candidates don't have to deal with reality. They talk about the wonderful things they can accomplish as if advocating them is the same as achieving them. They live in a world of political make-believe in which everything from reconciling conflicting interests to paying for costly programs is easy.

Overreaction is one of the things that congress specializes in. I can't think of anything congress does better than overreact.

Never miss it - that's the second biggest compliment I'd give to RealClearPolitics.com. The first is that it has become indispensable to anyone, in or outside of journalism, who's interested in politics, policy, or world affairs.

The coverage of Central America in recent months points up one of the ugly truths about the American press: the better the news, the less of it you get. As the war began to turn against the Communist guerillas in El Salvador, there was a palpable dip in the attention paid to it.

Presidents with strong nerves are decisive. They don't balk at unpopular decisions. They are willing to make people angry. Bush had strong nerves. Clinton, who passed up a chance to eliminate Osama bin Laden, did not. Obama is a people pleaser, a trait not normally associated with nerves of steel.