Commentary, editorials and opinion, opinions

WASHINGTON - Despite improving economic data and the soap opera that the GOP primary has become, the White House has a new worry -- rising oil prices.

The Swiss -- and more power to them -- are taking their noted national characteristics of tidiness and cleanliness to space.

In a development long overdue among space-faring nations, the Swiss are building what is being called a "janitor satellite" to retrieve and dispose of the growing cloud of space junk enveloping Earth.

Greek President Karolos Papoulias angrily demanded this week, "Who is Mr. Schauble to insult Greece?"

NEW YORK - Reports of dead voters are greatly understated.

While Democrats dismiss voter fraud as a collective Republican hallucination, a study released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States confirms the GOP's concerns. The ghosts in America's voting machines may be the least of our worries.

If you wonder why Americans are increasingly disillusioned about the dysfunction of their government, take a look at President Barack Obama's proposed budget -- an $8.3 trillion nightmare that has no chance of adoption and fails to address most of the nation's pressing problems.

The Obama administration last week resolved a growing controversy by ordering insurance companies -- and not employers -- to provide contraceptive coverage to women employed by religiously affiliated nonprofit organizations.

Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, members of the resistance movement inside Syria last week were able to have a secure conversation with a small group of foreign-policy mavens in Washington. What they told us boils down to this: A revolution is under way. On one side is the dictator Bashar al-Assad backed by Iran's rulers, Hezbollah and Vladimir Putin's Russia.

I thought Republicans were smarter than this. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on a Sunday morning talk shows that Republicans would continue to fight President Barack Obama's new rule on contraceptive coverage in Congress and in the courts.

In the book "All the President's Men," about the unraveling of the Watergate scandal, a Washington Post reporter describes meeting "Deep Throat," his principal source, clandestinely in a dark underground parking garage, a bit of spy craft that a judge in another leak case thought unnecessarily melodramatic.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which doesn't get hysterical about these matters, "Russia has become the most dangerous country in which to board an airliner."