The Week: Most Recent Paul Brandus

D.C. is obsessed with scandal. America isn't.

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:55:00 -0400

We just had a week that showed, once again, why the American people are right to hold their elected leaders in contempt, and why trust in government is so low. It really does seem like our lawmakers spend all their time trying to put the political screws to the other party — while the people's business goes undone.

Let's take the ongoing Benghazi saga. The White House, trying for a change to get in front of the controversy, released more than 100 pages of emails sent in the frantic aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack. They showed that Republicans, trying to fan the flames of scandal...

Obama is not weak on terrorism

The Week — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:17:00 -0400

What if all of the following happened on the watch of one president of the United States?

* A U.S. embassy is bombed in the Middle East. Seventeen Americans are among the 63 killed. The president condemns the attack but does not retaliate.

* A U.S. Marine barracks in the Middle East is bombed. Two hundred and forty one Marines die and 100+ more are wounded — the worst day since Iwo Jima. The president calls it the saddest day of his presidency, maybe his life — but calls off a retaliatory attack for fear of harming relations with the Arab world. The president later orders a full retreat...

The dam bursts on Benghazi

The Week — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:15:00 -0400

For a long time, the Republican hunt for the truth surrounding the Benghazi terror attack has reminded me of one of President Reagan's favorite jokes. It concerns a little boy whose parents worried he was too optimistic. So they took him to a psychiatrist. Trying to dampen his spirits, the doctor led the boy into a room piled high with horse manure. The boy unexpectedly squealed with delight and began digging through it. "What on earth are you doing?" the psychiatrist asked.

"With all this manure," the boy replied, "there must be a pony in here somewhere."

And so it is with Benghazi. Republicans...

Obama doesn't have a 'juice' problem. He has a Republican problem.

The Week — Fri, 03 May 2013 09:40:00 -0400

The big question in Washington this week comes from ABC's Jonathan Karl, who asked President Obama at a press conference: "Do you still have the juice?"

Juice, in this context, means the energy and wherewithal to have your way, to get the job done. (Karl's "still have" presumes Obama had the juice to begin with, which is increasingly debatable.)

Karl also asked about the president's failure to end the sequester or get a gun bill through the Senate (it would have died in the House anyway), and implied that these episodes showed how powerless and ineffective Obama is just 100 days into his new term...

Today's White House correspondents are not lapdogs

The Week — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:24:00 -0400

"Why don't you leave him alone?" supporters of President Obama tweet me. "Give the man a break and stop being disrespectful."

"You're all just a bunch of suck-up lefties," opponents of President Obama tweet at me, referring, I presume, to the White House press corps. "Why don't you try asking a real question for a change?"

You can't please everyone. And someone is always going to be mad at the White House press corps. But it's all in eye of the beholder. And, as I'll explain, there have been times when both sides have been right.

Conservatives often like to say that White House reporters (who...

Obama's maddening failure on gun control

The Week — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:55:00 -0400

When an Elvis impersonator suspected of trying to kill the president with a poisoned letter is the least interesting story of the week, you know it was an absolutely extraordinary week. And as the president himself said late Friday night, it was a very difficult week for the country, too.

During the Boston terror strike, we saw the side of the president that he prefers to show the world: The cool, unflappable, no-drama Obama. He made sure the government was doing all that it could, made several trips downstairs to the Situation Room for briefings, and stayed in close touch with Massachusetts Gov...

The lessons of Boston

The Week — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 08:58:00 -0400

Terrorism is the systematic use of violence to create a climate of fear. There is no question that what happened yesterday in Boston meets this definition. Two bombs near the finish line of that city's fabled marathon did what they were intended to do: Kill, maim, and frighten. The death of innocents — and innocence, if we had any of that left — is an important ingredient in this brand of evil, and among yesterday's victims was an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester, Mass., who had just hugged his father at the finish line. His sister had a leg blown off. Their mom was badly...

Why I like guns but hate the NRA

The Week — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:55:00 -0400

As someone who supports the Second Amendment — and enjoys shooting firearms — I was struck by something President Obama said at Monday's Connecticut event on reducing gun violence. He spoke of how the National Rifle Association and its lapdogs in Congress have turned guns into a wedge issue to divide Americans, and make us think we have to choose between the Constitution and public safety.

"Surely, we can reconcile those two things," the president said. "Surely, America doesn't have to be divided between rural and urban, and Democrat and Republican when it comes to something like this...

How the U.S. should deal with North Korea

The Week — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:25:00 -0400

The North Korean officer glared at me as I set foot on his turf. His expression seemed an odd blend of curiosity and restrained hostility, and I was glad for the presence of U.S. Army and South Korean soldiers who stood nearby.

This was 2009, a placid time — a relative term for Korea — but even then the tension was palpable in Panmunjom, the truce village that straddles the 38th parallel between North and South. A series of long shacks, painted robin's egg-blue, runs across the demarcation line; you can go into one of them and if you walk more than halfway across the room, you are...

10 years later, the Iraq war is still a failure

The Week — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 06:28:00 -0400

It was a sunny day in April 2005, and I was riding around Baghdad in the back of a humvee with some troops from the Louisiana National Guard. Armed to the teeth, eyes scanning back and forth for trouble, the soldiers were justifiably paranoid. Fearing roadside bombs, snipers, and ambushes, we felt like big fat targets. "I just want my guys to make it through the day," Army Captain Aaron Duplechin told me.

As we rumbled down the street, kicking up a cloud of dust and earning less-than-friendly stares from some of the locals, I thought of something Vice President Dick Cheney said...

How Obama blew it on the sequester -- and how he's fixing it

The Week — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:50:00 -0500

From a numerical standpoint, the sequester isn't such a big deal: $85 billion in cuts between now and September 30, and — unless our let's-blame-the-other-guy politicians can figure a way out — $1.1 trillion more over the next decade.

Big money? In absolute terms, you betcha. In relative terms? Not at all.

Even if all 10 years of sequester cuts were to go through, it would be about one-seventh of what Americans lost when the housing bubble burst in 2006. It's also a fraction of the trillions lost when the stock market crashed 57 percent from 2007 to 2009, crushing tens of millions...

Once again, Washington fails

The Week — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:32:00 -0500

Well isn't this familiar. Once again, our feckless politicians have pushed the nation to the brink over a problem that they created but can't solve. Pick your cliché: We're about to go over a cliff. The sky is falling. The ax will drop. And guess what? An even bigger crisis — a possible government shutdown — awaits at the end of March. In Washington, the good times just keep on coming.

I'm guessing that by now you know what the sequester is. If not: The federal government is about to begin cutting $1.2 trillion in spending, divided among defense and domestic programs. That...

What I learned at the gun show

The Week — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 06:35:00 -0500

If you've never been to a gun show, you should go. It's worth it simply to get a look at one side of the national debate we're having on firearms, the Second Amendment, and public safety.

I went to a big show in Virginia recently (free admission if you joined the National Rifle Association). Spread out over three days at a sprawling exhibition hall near Dulles Airport, it was packed with buyers and sellers of all kinds of weaponry — from a few super-pricey Browning shotguns ($16,500-$19,000) to a .25-caliber Saturday Night Special for $115.

Who goes to them? Some of the same people, who...

The favorite films of every modern president

The Week — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:20:00 -0500

The White House movie theater is not all that different from a theater at your neighborhood multiplex: A cool, dark room, though with just a few dozen seats gently sloping down toward the screen.

Of course, this is no ordinary theater. The seats are much nicer — soft, deep armchairs upholstered in red, and a deep, plush carpet. And ottomans in the front row? Comfy. Oh, and something else: The guy with his feet propped up on one of those ottomans just may be the president of the United States.

There's nothing more American than going to the movies, and there's nothing more exclusive than...

Obama's State of the Union speeches, past and present

The Week — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 06:15:00 -0500

If you want to know how Washington has changed Barack Obama — it's certainly not the other way around — just go back and read the State of the Union addresses he has given since taking office.

Actually, I'll spare you such a dull chore. I've read them so you don't have to. And they show, year by year, the cynical realities of a divided capital gradually overtaking the president and eroding his hope that Democrats and Republicans could work together for the common good.

Of course, the problem lies in the definition of "common good." In 2009, the president thought this meant a...

Why does Wall Street hate Obama?

The Week — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 07:00:00 -0500

Hey, Wall Street, where's the love for Barack Obama? His presidency has been good for you. Very good. Let me count the ways:

* Since bottoming out in March 2009, the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500, has gained 125 percent. Investors have more than doubled their money in less than four years. It's the biggest gain under any president since World War II.

* Since 2009, corporate profits — even when taxes are factored in — have surged 171 percent, to their highest levels since World War II.

* Companies are now more profitable, relative to the size of the economy, than...