Republican candidates had to appeal to their base, which is by and large elderly white people arguing with empty chairs.

The United States in particular and the West in general should be feeling a little embarrassed about all that lecturing we did to the Third World.

Democracy or breakdown in Syria would change the whole Middle East overnight.

I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.

...instead it seems that business - like weight loss - is a subject wherein hope and fear inspire limitless gullibility.

The trouble with poverty, as an issue, is that it has basically exhausted the patience of the general public.

Raising the minimum wage and lowering the barriers to union organization would carry a trade-off - higher unemployment. A better idea is to have the government subsidize low-wage employment. The earned-income tax credit for low-income workers - which has been the object of proposed cuts by both President Clinton and congressional Republicans - has been a positive step in this direction.