There is something uniquely depressing about the fact that the National Portrait Gallery’s version of the Barack Obama “Hope” poster previously belonged to a pair of lobbyists. Depressing because Mr. Obama’s Washington was not supposed to be the lobbyists’ Washington, the place we learned to despise during the last administration.

Under the administration of George W. Bush, you will recall, federal spending grew pretty significantly. At the same time, the number of people directly employed by the federal government shrank. One of the factors that explained the difference was contracting.

I was in a bad mood when I wrote that.

Is Wall Street the rightful master of our economic fate? Or should we choose a broader form of sovereignty?

People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about.

Promises to get beyond partisanship are the most perfunctory sort of campaign rhetoric, almost as empty as the partisanship itself.

Surrogate motherhood has been the subject of much philosophical and political dispute over the years.