Everyone knows that the resulting "entitlements" dominate government spending and squeeze education, research, defense and almost everything else. In fiscal 2008 -- the last "normal" year before the economic crisis -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (programs...]]> Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 It's simply not true that America is ambivalent about everything when it comes to the Obama health plan.

The day after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) gave its qualified blessing to the version of health reform produced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Quinnipiac University poll of a national cross section of voters reported its latest results.

This poll may not be as famous as some others, but I know the care and professionalism of the people who run it, and one question was particularly interesting to me.

It read: "President Obama has pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our federal budget deficit over the next decade. Do you think that...]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 WASHINGTON -- For Sarah Palin, with her personality and history, to tell Rush Limbaugh that Republicans should welcome primary fights within their own ranks is hardly surprising.

As much as it may pain her many critics, she also has a lot of history on her side.

Many Republicans, looking at the recent fiasco in New York's 23rd Congressional District, argue that the endorsement by Palin and her talk-radio buddies of a rigid right-winger running on the Conservative Party cost Republicans a House seat they had held for more than a century. They worry that the populist anti-establishment "rogues" like Palin will kill GOP prospects for a comeback in 2010 by backing ideologues in...]]> Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 WASHINGTON -- The more President Barack Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees. But, as the old saying goes, to govern is to choose -- and he has stretched the internal debate to the breaking point.

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision -- whether or not it is right.

The cost of indecision is growing every day. The United States and its people, the allies who have contributed their own troops to the struggle against al-Qaeda and...]]> Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 WASHINGTON -- While the House Democrats spent the week congratulating themselves for squeezing out the midnight passage of their version of health care reform, neutral observers were reminding them: You've left the job half done.

Having watched Hillary and Bill Clinton try and fail even to bring their version of health reform to a vote, I can certainly join in saluting Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her leadership team and the Obama White House for maneuvering the 1,990-page behemoth to harbor.

But as many sympathetic voices have been telling them: Unless you find more realistic ways of paying for the promises included in the bill, you are simply setting the public up for more...]]> Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 WASHINGTON -- A year after Barack Obama's election stirred broad hopes for change among American voters, persistent high unemployment and the spectacle of continued gridlock in Washington threaten Democratic dominance of the political landscape.

Tuesday's defeats in gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey not only ended a decade or more of Democratic gains in those states but signaled possible trouble ahead in the midterm elections at the national level.

At the same time, the loss of another Republican House seat in a special election -- the fourth such defeat in the last two years -- showed how bitter ideological conflict within the party could cripple the GOP's...]]> Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- The first key votes of the Obama era take place this week, not on the floor of the House or Senate, where health care legislation still languishes, but in Virginia, New Jersey and northern New York state, where President Obama's endorsements of threatened Democratic candidates will test his political clout a year after his own election.

Late polls say the odds are against R. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic state senator battling former Attorney General Bob McDonnell to hold the Virginia governorship that has been in Democratic hands for the past eight years. In 2008, Obama became the first Democrat to carry Virginia since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, riding a tide of votes...]]> Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- There is an air of desperate improvisation to Sen. Harry Reid's scheme to pass a "public option" as part of health care reform, but at the same time provide an easy exemption for any state that objects to it. The warning flags ought to be flying for anyone who can count to three -- let alone 60.

The Democratic majority leader embraced this odd idea in hopes of satisfying two conflicting imperatives. On one hand, he is under relentless pressure to satisfy the labor-left of his party in Washington, where a government-sponsored insurance plan has become the symbolic prize in the game, and back home in Nevada, where he needs union support to survive a scary election next...]]> Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- When I wrote a few days ago about the growing nervousness of moderate Senate Democrats over the approaching vote to raise the federal debt limit, I had no idea how quickly evidence of that shift in the political winds would appear.

I quoted Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who earlier this month initiated a letter to Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid saying that he and nine co-signers would have a hard time voting to boost the debt limit, as the White House needs them to do to protect the nation's fiscal credibility, unless a tangible step were taken at the same time to pledge serious action to reduce future deficits.

Specifically, the 10 asked Reid to support a...]]> Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Within the next few weeks, probably as soon as the votes on health care reform have been taken, the Senate faces the painful duty of once again raising the statutory limit on the national debt, as the House already has done.

It is never fun for the party in power, but this year will be harder on the Democrats than ever. The final accounting on the just-ended fiscal year, delivered last week, showed a record deficit of $1.4 trillion, a gap that is the largest since the end of World War II when measured against the size of the overall economy.

The Republicans are poised to pounce. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell accused the Democrats of "acting like a...]]> Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- A year from now, when we are in the final weeks of the midterm elections, voters across the country will likely be focused on a state that has rarely drawn attention from any but its own residents. Delaware, noted only for its gentlemanly politics, will probably be the site of one of the most hard-fought and headline-grabbing Senate races in America.

Republican Rep. Mike Castle, who has never lost in 12 trips to the statewide general election ballot, will likely face Democratic Attorney General Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, the longtime Delaware senator.

As Democrats from Connecticut to Colorado struggle to hold onto their filibuster-proof...]]> Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- It has taken much longer than President Obama hoped, but we are finally at the point where he can -- and must -- put his personal stamp on his main domestic initiative, the overhaul of the health care system.

Now that the Senate Finance Committee has joined four others -- three in the House and one other in the Senate -- in drafting versions of the complex, expensive legislation, lawmakers will turn to the White House for guidance in resolving the many policy questions that must be settled before final votes can be taken.

Through careful navigation of the fiscal and political barriers that have doomed past efforts by Democratic presidents to grasp this nettle,...]]> Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Every time you think politics has hit a new low, it finds a way to go lower. I thought we had reached the nadir last month when Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted "You lie!" at President Obama while he was speaking to a joint session of Congress.

But then The New York Times caught me up on what has been happening in New Jersey. Campaigns there are rarely elevated affairs, but the current battle between Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican challenger Christopher Christie has sunk to new depths.

As the Times pointed out, a television ad for Corzine, "about as subtle as a playground taunt," shows Christie "stepping out of an SUV in extreme slow...]]> Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- One of the intriguing mysteries of this year is why the initial broad support from American business for overhauling the health care system has not translated into more than a handful of votes from Republicans in the House and Senate.

As a rule, when the business community decides it wants something in Washington, Republicans listen and respond. Much of their funding comes from the corporate sector and their philosophy attunes them to the bottom-line concerns of those who live in the world of market competition.

When this year's health care debate began, there was every reason to think that much of the corporate world had moved off the opposition that helped...]]> Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama has reached the moment of truth for answering the persistent question about his core beliefs and political priorities. The coming votes in the House and Senate on his signature health care reform effort will tell us more about the president than anything so far in his White House tenure.

The challenge is not one he invited. All during last year's campaign, Obama skillfully skirted the question of whether he was a moderate, consensus-seeking pragmatist, as his words suggested, or a faithful adherent to the liberal agenda, as his voting record demonstrated.

In stylistic terms, he cultivated the pragmatic image. On issues, he was alternately one or...]]> Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500
WASHINGTON -- He may have bigger challenges now and in years to come, but nothing will endear Barack Obama to some of us more than his decision to take a quick trans-Atlantic round trip to lobby the International Olympic Committee on behalf of Chicago's bid to be the host city of the 2016 summer games.

I'm astonished that some carping critics have faulted Obama for making the 18-hour excursion to Copenhagen to schmooze the IOC members who on Friday will decide among Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Madrid and Chicago. Tip O'Neill taught a previous generation that all politics is local, and this is the best favor the president could possibly do for his adopted hometown.

I have...]]> Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- For President Obama, last week was rather like a major exam on his skills as a diplomat and architect of foreign policy. He can count on being tested again and again by unexpected events. But in his debut at the United Nations and as host to the G-20 economic powers in Pittsburgh, Obama was given more scrutiny by foreign leaders and domestic constituencies than at any other time in his first year in office.

There were no historic breakthroughs but, as far as we know, there were also no gaffes -- at least in part because of his ability to find the right words to make his points without offending others.

Official Washington is starting to realize that in...]]> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- A brand-new publication came across my desk this week containing an essay that offers as good an insight into President Obama's approach to government as anything I have read -- and is particularly useful in understanding the current struggle over health care reform.

The publication is called National Affairs, and its advisory board is made up of noted conservative academics from James W. Ceaser to James Q. Wilson. The article that caught my eye, titled "Obama and the Policy Approach," was written by William Schambra, the director of the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal.

Schambra, like many others, was struck by the "sheer...]]> Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- In the early 1970s when Max Baucus, now the senior senator from Montana and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was contemplating entering politics, he sought advice from many veteran public servants.

His steps brought him to the Washington law offices of James H. Rowe Jr., who came out of Montana and Harvard Law School to join FDR's White House staff and later became a counselor to Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and many others of that generation.

As I eventually heard, Rowe -- who took the time to teach this reporter valuable political lessons -- was impressed with the young, good-looking visitor who was backed by a wealthy, well-established...]]> Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- In an economic debate measured by staggering multibillion-dollar sums and unemployment figures logging in the hundreds of thousands, the stakes in the rubber tire import dispute with China seem stunningly small.

The government's International Trade Commission reported that a surge of Chinese exports of low-cost tires has cost U.S. workers 5,000 jobs. On the basis of that report, President Obama slapped tariffs, beginning at 35 percent, on Chinese-made tires.

By itself, the issue seems hardly important. But like a pebble in the shoe, the irritation it has caused and the ramifications of the dispute may have greater consequences.

The case against the...]]> Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- A great speech is a combination of words and music, of content and color, of substance and emotion. When the speech is as important as the health care address that President Obama delivered to Congress on Wednesday night, it is worthwhile to go back and analyze the parts.

So after watching it live on TV, I replayed it twice, the first time shutting out the argumentation and focusing on the tone and body language, the elements that communicate most directly with the audience. Then I listened again, weighing the assertions and evidence.

On the first run-through, I was struck again, as so often during the election campaign, by Obama's ability to move an audience...]]> Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- My friend and fellow columnist Eugene Robinson has written a characteristically passionate and well-reasoned piece commending Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to name a special counsel to examine possible law-breaking by interrogators of terrorist subjects during the last administration.

But I think he is wrong.

First, let me stipulate that I agree on the importance of accountability for illegal acts and for serious breaches of trust by government officials -- even at the highest levels. I had no problem with the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, and I called for Bill Clinton to resign when he lied to his Cabinet colleagues and to the...]]> Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- I sure hope that President Obama and his family enjoyed their week's vacation on Martha's Vineyard, because what he faces on his return to Washington is sheer hell.

Obama confronted a daunting situation when he took office back in January, with a sickening economic slide and the real threat of financial crisis. But he was buoyed then by the momentum of his historic election victory and the widespread hope that it stirred -- even among those who had not voted for him.

He launched a series of ambitious initiatives and, while only the economic stimulus package came to quick fruition, there was a palpable sense of energy. By late summer, most of that good will has...]]> Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 When I first encountered him in Beckley, W.Va., in the spring of 1960, Ted Kennedy was an impossibly handsome 28-year-old, campaigning for his big brother in the Democratic primary against Hubert Humphrey.

The family, which never spoiled the youngest brother, had sent him to dauntingly tough territory. Raleigh County was home base for Sen. Robert Byrd, then no friend of the Kennedys, and the headquarters of the United Mine Workers, which was supporting Humphrey. It was old Ku Klux Klan territory, deeply skeptical of the Catholic candidate.

Ted Kennedy tackled the challenge the same way he did so many others later in the life that ended at 77 on Tuesday: head-on. He walked...]]> Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Before Bob Novak created the self-parody as "The Prince of Darkness" that his friends and TV fans enjoyed so much, he had two other journalistic identities. With his partner, the late Rowland Evans Jr., he wrote one of the most influential political columns of the late 20th century.

And before that, he was one of the three best political reporters of the 1960s. The other two were Alan L. Otten and Paul Duke, and the remarkable thing is that all three of them were working at the same time in the newsroom of The Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau.

Duke, who became the beloved moderator of PBS' "Washington Week in Review," died four years ago. Otten, who...]]> Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Watching the muscular tactics being used in congressional town meetings by some opponents of health care reform, I keep thinking somebody should remind the Republican leaders who are reveling in the scenes about Bruce Alger.

Alger was the first Republican congressman elected from Texas in the modern era, winning a Dallas district in 1954. In 1960, just a few days before the presidential election, he was part of a crowd of several hundred people who surrounded Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and his wife, Lady Bird, when they arrived for a luncheon at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas.

Many of the demonstrators carried signs labeling...]]> Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- When Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was explaining his decision to become one of the nine Republicans to support the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, he said it was made easier because she would not alter the ideological balance on the Supreme Court. Having her replace Justice David Souter, a regular member of the liberal bloc, would not tilt the court further in that direction, he said.

With all due respect to a senator I very much admire, I think he may underestimate the impact of having Sotomayor on the high court.

Certainly, there is a world of difference in personality between the taciturn New Englander who recently retired and the feisty New...]]> Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- When several members of the Blue Dogs, a moderate-conservative Democratic faction, met last week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to negotiate the deal that allowed the health care bill to move to the floor, it was a signal of their rise to prominence.

The Blue Dog Coalition was formed after the 1994 election gave Republicans control of Congress. Democrats from rural and small-town districts, especially in the South and West, were worried that the party leadership, drawn mainly from big cities in the Midwest and Northeast, would present too liberal an image. So they drew together to try to protect themselves and, if possible, to increase their influence.

Their...]]> Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Here's an irony for you: The health care bills in Congress are getting better, even as support for them diminishes around the country. It is just as well that President Obama has yielded to common sense and backed off his demand for quick action. It will take time for voters to become more comfortable with the changes he wants to make.

As the House and Senate prepared to head out on their summer vacation, a series of polls agreed that Obama's signature domestic initiative is in trouble, facing increasing skepticism about its costs and benefits.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken last week found its sample split 41 percent approving and 46 percent...]]> Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- There was never much doubt that Sonia Sotomayor would be confirmed for the Supreme Court. Her inspiring personal biography and her evident legal credentials assured that President Obama's choice would become the first Hispanic and the third woman to join the high court. The 13-6 Senate Judiciary Committee vote earlier this week makes that a certainty.

As good as Americans are entitled to feel about the honors to this meritorious product of a Bronx housing project, no one can be comforted by the spectacle of her journey through the Judiciary Committee. The antiseptic hearings and the near party-line vote illustrate the two great failings of the modern confirmation...]]> Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Americans are familiar with -- if not altogether comfortable about -- unelected officials exercising great authority over our lives. The nine justices on the Supreme Court and hundreds of other jurists exert their power from the bench. The economy is managed by the Federal Reserve Board, though no one ever forced Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke to campaign for a vote.

If President Obama has his way, another such unelected authority will be created -- a manager and monitor for the vast and expensive American health care system. As part of his health reform effort, he is seeking to launch the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, or IMAC, a bland title for a body that...]]> Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- There is less than meets the eye to the Democrats' "pay-go bill," the lavishly touted gesture toward fiscal responsibility that the House passed on Wednesday.

The pay-as-you-go measure, known as pay-go and endorsed by President Obama, was hailed by Rep. George Miller of California, the head of the Democratic Policy Committee, as a device that will force Washington to "make tough choices" and "help bring our fiscal house in order."

Other sponsors, such as Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who genuinely worry about the flood of red ink inundating the government, were more modest in their claims. They acknowledged that by...]]> Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Sooner than anyone had anticipated, President Obama's drive for health reform has reached a crucial decision point -- one that may well determine the fate of his biggest domestic initiative.

The White House plan had been to use the big Democratic majorities in Congress to get the necessary bills through the House and Senate before the scheduled Aug. 7 summer recess -- knowing that the measures would have holes in them and would probably not resemble each other.

By Labor Day, congressional staff could fill in the gaps and -- with guidance from Obama's aides -- assemble a hybrid measure that could win support on each side of the Capitol. That final version,...]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- The combination of an over-rehearsed witness and opposition senators fighting without much ammunition robbed the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings of their expected drama. Those who watched the proceedings were left only with the occasional reminder of past Supreme Court battles and the promise of more to come.

President Obama's choice to succeed Justice David Souter and become the first Hispanic woman on the Supreme Court has a compelling personal story, and she displayed a tough-minded intellect that will make her a force on the bench when she dons the black robe in September. But Sotomayor had been so prepped by the White House that she showed almost nothing...]]> Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- President Obama's welcome home from his latest successful overseas trip is clouded by the growing doubts about his most important domestic initiative, the overhaul of the dysfunctional U.S. health care system.

On the surface, things went well for the No. 1 project on his list while he was away. Hospitals pledged to find $150 billion in savings that could be applied to expanding coverage to more of the uninsured.

The chairmen of three House committees that share jurisdiction over health care prepared to unveil a single, common proposal -- a step the Clintons were never able to achieve in their effort at reform. Insurers, doctors and other key interest groups...]]> Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Two vastly different public officials -- Robert McNamara and Sarah Palin -- shared the spotlight this past week, triggering fresh thoughts about one of the classic dilemmas of governmental careers: When and how do you quit?

McNamara, the defense secretary for John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and later the president of the World Bank, died at 93, ushered out by lengthy obituaries recalling the controversies of the 1960s, including the furor over his unexplained "resignation" at the height of the Vietnam War.

A few days earlier, Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, had stunned her state of Alaska and the entire political world by announcing...]]> Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Now that the Minnesota Supreme Court has ended the long count on the 2008 Senate race by awarding the seat to Al Franken, Democrats -- at least on paper -- have the power to pass whatever bills they want, without a single Republican vote.

Nothing would be a bigger mistake.

Franken, the loud-mouthed former comedian, will be the 60th member of the Senate Democratic caucus -- just enough for them to cut off any filibuster threat if they can muster all their own members. With the solid majorities in both houses, the Democratic leaders, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, could dismiss Republican objections to any bill without a second thought.

But that would not...]]> Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- The implicit message, delivered by the Supreme Court majority in two of the most important decisions of the term that ended this week, is that racial discrimination is no longer as big a problem as we once thought.

Neither the voting rights case out of Texas nor the affirmative action hiring case out of New Haven, Conn., said that explicitly. But the link between the two is the assumption or assertion that this society has largely healed itself and does not need the race-conscious remedies that the previous generation of politicians thought necessary.

If that reading of the court's majority is correct, then two things are clear. Judge Sonia Sotomayor will...]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- In a conversation the other day with a White House official, I heard something I'd never expected from an employee of Barack Obama's. "I wish," he said, "George Bush would speak up a little more."

In the five months since he left the presidency, Bush has immersed himself in his memoir. He has stayed home in Texas and rarely spoken publicly. The result has been that he has largely disappeared from the news and -- the point the Obama aide was making -- pretty much has been forgotten.

Bush's silence has made it harder for Obama to keep the public focused on Bush as being responsible for our present difficulties -- the weak economy, the unsettled wars, the...]]> Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Fifteen years ago, when Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle was running interference for the Clintons' effort at health care reform, his goal in life was to enlist Sen. Bob Dole, the hugely influential Republican leader, as a co-sponsor. Daschle never got him, and the enterprise crashed and burned.

When I did a joint interview with the two of them this week, Dole remarked that "we started out working together, and then it fell apart" -- the victim of a massive lobbying campaign, a bunch of tactical errors by the president and first lady, and Dole's presidential ambitions, which moved him into the camp of the Republican naysayers.

Now, 15 years later, Daschle and Dole,...]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- It was probably inevitable that the elections for governor, taking place in November in New Jersey and Virginia, would be seen by many people outside those states as a referendum on Barack Obama's performance as president.

Those will be the first statewide contests since he entered the White House, and they are taking place in states he won last year. But forces of history and economics add to the presidential stakes in the outcomes.

History: In 1993, a year after the last previous Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was elected, Republicans captured the Virginia governorship with George Allen and New Jersey's with Christine Todd Whitman. Their victories set...]]> Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500 The goal of the Obama White House is to come up with a health-care plan that can attract bipartisan support. The president has told visitors that he would rather have 70 votes in the Senate for a bill that gives him 85 percent of what he wants rather than a 100 percent satisfactory bill that passes 52 to 48.

There is good reason for that preference. When you are changing the way one-sixth of the American economy is organized and altering life for patients, doctors, hospitals and insurers, you need that kind of a strong launch if the result is to survive the inevitable vagaries of the shakedown period.

But getting agreement from Democrats and Republicans on such a volatile...]]> Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- While headlines talk about a "fight" over the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court that may never develop, a much bigger battle is about to break out over President Obama's No. 1 domestic priority, health care.

Sotomayor is a cinch to win approval for the bench, but no one can tell you with any certainty what form the promised overhaul of the health care system will take -- or whether it will pass. We're soon going to find out.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced last week that the Democrats' goal is to get both the energy-climate control bill and health care reform through the House before the summer recess begins on Aug....]]> Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- When a Supreme Court nominee such as Judge Sonia Sotomayor comes before the Senate for confirmation, she is promised a full, fair hearing. In fact, every nominee's path is booby-trapped by the history of previous confirmation battles.

After Justice Samuel Alito was nominated in 2005, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, then a very junior member, remarked to me that he was struck by a recurring phenomenon. When discussing the pending confirmation with veteran colleagues, Pryor said, "we may start out talking about Alito, but pretty soon they're talking about Robert Bork," the Ronald Reagan nominee who was rejected by the Senate in 1987 after a bitter...]]> Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON -- When he was elected president, Barack Obama inherited Harry Reid as the Senate majority leader; the choice was not in his hands.

When the Illinois Democrat was elevated to the White House, Reid inherited Roland Burris as the Senate successor to Obama. Reid almost certainly would have preferred someone else.

But now all three -- Obama, Reid and Burris -- are linked in a way that poses a challenge for the Democrats in the run-up to the 2010 midterm election.

The dilemma came into focus last Tuesday night when Obama was speaking at a $2 million Las Vegas fundraiser, designed to fatten Reid's campaign treasury for next year.

Obama, in his remarks at...]]>