Commentary

By ANN McFEATTERS
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
They say the apple never falls far from the tree. In President Bush's case, the apple rolled far away and now is struggling to get back up the hill to the tree.

It's odd, really, that compared with the son's presidency, the presidency of George H.W.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Groping for some solace out of this week's voter slap down, some Republicans are saying that this defeat may be in the long-term best interests of their party.

By JAY AMBROSE
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
In my school days, it was often the best teachers my classmates most disliked, the ones who required you to learn no matter how much work it took, quickly caught on to your tricks and put up with no nonsense.

The less demanding teachers _ those most inclined to let your mind go mushy on their watch _ were frequently the ones more celebrated.

My suspicion is that some similar desire for comfort over excellence is a reason many in the Pentagon didn't much care for Donald Rumsfeld, a secretary of defense with a noted intolerance for generals who came calling with nothing important to say and for bureaucratically espoused military strategies that made increasingly less sense in our rapidly changing world.

Even if that is so _ and even if Rumsfeld became a scapegoat for mistakes that were not his doing and the sort of setbacks that were his responsibility but are also encountered in virtually every war ever fought _ President Bush was right to announce his replacement, and to do it when he did it, the day after it became known Democrats were to regain control of Congress.

By BETSY HART
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
"God Vs. Science _ a spirited debate between atheist biologist Richard Dawkins and Christian geneticist Francis Collins" blared the cover of Time magazine this week.

What a fitting discussion as we are now (sigh) firmly in the lead-up to Christmas.

By DEROY MURDOCK
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Battered Republicans and triumphant Democrats meet Monday to launch a lame-duck congressional session that should adjourn by Christmas. While they still can, Republicans should employ their House and Senate majorities to enact these pro-market, limited government initiatives that they failed to deliver before the mid-term elections:

1) Most important, President Bush's tax cuts, now scheduled to expire in 2010, should be made permanent.

By DAN K. THOMASSON
Monday, November 13, 2006
So now what happens?

Well, for his part at least, President Bush seems to have gotten the message the American people sent him about his leadership.

By DALE McFEATTERS
Monday, November 13, 2006
Congratulations. You've been elected to Congress and you're going to Washington. You're being swamped with unsolicited advice. Here's more.

All your new friends? They're not your friends.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Monday, November 13, 2006
John Kerry didn't mean to say that if you're too lazy or dim to stay in school you wind up in the military in Iraq but that's the way his ill-considered jest came out.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Monday, November 13, 2006
Appropriately for the voters' stunning rebuff of the president and his party, the day was damp and gloomy. A small group of protesters outside the White House held signs saying "Bush Be Gone" and called for him to be tried for war crimes.

Inside the East Room, President Bush, in a moment when his presidency might well be over in all but name, was confident and good-humored, even if, as one observer remarked, he seemed a little over-caffeinated.

And he came armed with news, though not until deep in his opening statement.

By JOSE de la ISLA
Monday, November 13, 2006
The winners and the voters who were swayed by their words, personal charm and negative ads have a big job ahead translating the mid-term election from fiction into reality.

What we the people had in store already was evident back in June.