ROBINSON: Benghazi scandal looks like a witch hunt
WASHINGTON -- Those who are trying to make the Benghazi tragedy into a scandal for the Obama administration really ought to decide what story line they want to sell.
ROBINSON: Obama goes wobbly instead using veto power
WASHINGTON -- President Obama had the opportunity this week to make an irresponsible Congress face the consequences of its own dumb actions. For reasons I cannot fathom, he took a pass.
ROBINSON: Stains on a legacy
In retrospect, George W. Bush's legacy doesn't look as bad as it did when he left office. It looks worse.. I join the nation in congratulating Bush on the opening of his presidential library in Dallas. Like many people, I find it much easier to honor, respect and even like
ROBINSON: Is this the best the GOP can come up with?
WASHINGTON -- I think I've figured it out. Republicans must be staging some kind of fiendishly clever plot to lure Democrats into a false sense of security. That's the only possible explanation for some of the weirdness we're seeing and hearing from the GOP.
ROBINSON: Maximum mayhem on his mind
WASHINGTON -- The gunman in the Newtown massacre fired 154 bullets from his Bushmaster military-style rifle in less than five minutes, killing 20 first-graders and six adults. He brought with him 10 large-capacity magazines, each holding up to 30 rounds, which
ROBINSON: Denying victims a vote on gun violence
WASHINGTON -- Shame on Harry Reid for killing any prospect of an assault weapons ban. I understand why he did it, but that doesn't make it right.
ROBINSON: Questions from a 'Dirty War'
WASHINGTON -- They are impolite questions, but they must be asked: What did Jorge Mario Bergoglio know, and when did he know it, about Argentina's brutal "Dirty War" against suspected leftists in which thousands were tortured and killed? More important, what did the newly chosen Pope Francis do?
ROBINSON: Rand Paul talks the talk
WASHINGTON -- Rand Paul was right. There, I said it. The Republican senator from Kentucky, whom I've ridiculed as an archconservative kook -- because that's basically what he is -- was right to call attention to the growing use of drone aircraft.
ROBINSON: A power to act on warming
WASHINGTON -- The test of President Obama's seriousness about addressing climate change is not his pending decision on the much-debated Keystone XL pipeline. It's whether he effectively consigns coal-fired power plants -- one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions -- to the ashcan of history.
ROBINSON: No winners in this game
WASHINGTON -- The standoff over the package of budget cuts known as "the sequester" is the dumbest, most self-defeating fight between President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress since ... let's see, since the last dumb, self-defeating fight less than two months
ROBINSON: Obama following Thatcher's footsteps
WASHINGTON -- In his bid to be remembered as a transformational leader, President Barack Obama is following the playbook of an ideological opposite, Margaret Thatcher. First you win the argument, she used to say, then you win the vote.. Obama is gradually winning the argument about what government can and
ROBINSON: Wrong on drone hits
WASHINGTON -- If George W. Bush had told us that the "war on terror" gave him the right to execute an American citizen overseas with a missile fired from a drone aircraft, without due process or judicial review, I'd have gone ballistic. It makes no difference that it's Barack Obama doing it.
ROBINSON: A solvable problem
WASHINGTON -- It was always clear that the 11 million people in this country without papers were not going to be rounded up and deported.
ROBINSON: Questions that need asking
WASHINGTON -- Republicans wanted nothing more than to summon Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Capitol Hill and grill her about the tragic fiasco in Benghazi. Sadly for them, they got their wish.
ROBINSON: No impossible dream
WASHINGTON -- Don't listen to those who say President Barack Obama's bold plan to reduce gun violence -- including an assault weapons ban -- has no chance in Congress. I seem to recall that health care reform was deemed impossible, too. Until it happened.. I also recall that the health
ROBINSON: Hot enough for you?
WASHINGTON -- All right, nowcan we talk about climate change? After a year when the lower 48 states suffered the warmest temperatures, and the second-craziest weather, since record-keeping began?. Apparently not. The climate change denialists -- especially those who manipulate the data in transparently bogus ways to claim
ROBINSON: Our clown-around Congress
Congress makes a fool of itself on cliff deal. To say that Congress looked like a clown show this week is an insult to self-respecting clowns.. Painful though it may be, let's review what just happened. Our august legislators -- aided and abetted by President Obama -- manufactured a
ROBINSON: Wonderland on a cliff
WASHINGTON -- Are you as sick of the "fiscal cliff" as I am? Actually, that's a trick question. You couldn't possibly be.. Having to read and hear all the constant blather about this self-inflicted "crisis" is an onerous burden, I'll admit. But just imagine having to produce that blather
ROBINSON: As an architect, Niemeyer soared
WASHINGTON -- Just this once, I wish I could write with pictures instead of words. That would make it easier to explain why the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who died Wednesday at 104, was one of my heroes.. Not for his politics, of course -- he was, to the end
ROBINSON: A legacy we dare not leave
WASHINGTON -- You might not have noticed that another round of U.N. climate talks is under way, this time in Doha, Qatar. You also might not have noticed that we're barreling toward a "world ... of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods in many regions." Here in Washington
ROBINSON: A new America speaks
WASHINGTON -- So much for voter suppression. So much for the enthusiasm gap. So much for the idea that smug, self-appointed arbiters of what is genuinely "American" were going to "take back" the country, as if it had somehow been stolen. On Tuesday, millions of voters sent a resounding message to the take-it-back crowd: You won't. You can't. It's our country, too.
EUGENE ROBINSON: What America will we pick?
WASHINGTON -- This election is only tangentially a fight over policy. It is also a fight about meaning and identity -- and that's one reason why voters are so polarized. It's about who we are and who we aspire to be.
ROBINSON: Why the chill on climate change?
WASHINGTON -- Not a word has been said in the presidential debates about what may be the most urgent and consequential issue in the world: climate change.
ROBINSON: Biden to the rescue
DANVILLE, Ky. -- If the question is who did more to help his ticket, Joe Biden won the vice presidential debate by a mile.. Republican Paul Ryan performed pretty well. He made no major mistakes, and a CNN instant poll of viewers actually had him winning narrowly, 48 percent to
ROBINSON: Debate gave Romney an opening
DENVER -- I would be careful about declaring the presidential contest "a whole new race" following Wednesday's debate. But make no mistake, it was a very good night for Romney -- and a bad one for President Obama.
ROBINSON: Deluded by 'skewed' polls
WASHINGTON -- Conservative activist circles are abuzz with a new conspiracy theory: Polls showing President Obama with a growing lead over Mitt Romney are deliberately being skewed by the Liberal Mainstream Media so that Republicans will be disheartened and stay home on Election Day. This is denial and self-delusion.
ROBINSON: No Gipper here
WASHINGTON -- Once upon a time there was a silver-tongued president. His foreign policy must have been seen by enemies of the United States as weak and feckless, because these enemies became emboldened. Mideast terrorists staged a brutal, bloody attack in which innocent Americans were killed. I'm referring, of course, to Ronald Reagan.
ROBINSON: For GOP, storm has already gathered
WASHINGTON -- The uninvited participation of a hurricane at next week's Republican convention would be superfluous. Buffeted by powerful internal winds, the party may be flooded with cash, but it's already kind of a debris-strewn mess.
ROBINSON: Facts get in the way
WASHINGTON -- Republicans and Democrats are being equally nasty in their campaign rhetoric, but they're not being equally truthful. To cite one example, much of what the GOP is saying about Medicare simply isn't supported by the facts.
ROBINSON: Global warming is here to stay
WASHINGTON -- Excuse me, folks, but the weather is trying to tell us something. Listen carefully, and you can almost hear a parched, raspy voice whispering, "What part of 'hottest month ever' do you people not understand?"
ROBINSON: Bush and his open heart
WASHINGTON -- This is a moment for all Americans to be proud of the single best thing George W. Bush did as president: launching an initiative to combat AIDS in Africa that has saved millions of lives.
ROBINSON: A brave and intrepid pioneer
WASHINGTON -- Bill Raspberry wore his eminence well. In a city full of preening, self-centered journalistic royalty, he was a warm and generous prince who never deluded himself into thinking he knew all the answers. He is desperately missed.
ROBINSON: Joe Pa's shame
WASHINGTON -- Outside the Penn State football stadium stands a statue of legendary coach Joe Paterno, his arm raised in victory. Right next to it, university officials should erect another figure in bronze: A young boy crying out in anguish and being coldly ignored.
EUGENE ROBINSON: The money manager
WASHINGTON -- You can conduct byzantine transactions through opaque investment accounts and private corporations in offshore tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Or you can credibly run for president at a time of great economic distress. I don't think you can do both.
ROBINSON: The bigger picture
WASHINGTON -- The political impact of Thursday's stunning Supreme Court decision on health care reform is clear -- good for President Obama and the Democrats, bad for Mitt Romney and the Republicans -- but fleeting, and thus secondary. Much more important is what the ruling means in the long term.
ROBINSON: Fast and Furious -- the witch hunt
WASHINGTON -- In 2006, when George W. Bush was president, federal law enforcement officials came up with a spectacularly dumb idea: Allow powerful firearms purchased in the United States to "walk" across the Mexico border, where authorities would trace the weapons and eventually nab the big-time criminals.
EUGENE ROBINSON: Romney plays his Trump card
WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump has said he would be "open" to accepting a Cabinet post if Mitt Romney becomes president. Don't laugh. OK, go ahead and laugh.
ROBINSON: Why Bain questions matter
WASHINGTON -- Who are the dastardly enemies of free enterprise who decided to make an issue of Mitt Romney's tenure at the private-equity firm Bain Capital? Er, those would be his fellow Republicans.
ROBINSON: Disco Queen and Go-Go King
WASHINGTON -- The soundtrack of my youth is fading. That's hardly an original observation, I realize, but self-indulgence is a columnist's inalienable right and music has unique power to summon unbidden waves of nostalgia. I'll spend the rest of the day listening to the "Queen of Disco" and the
ROBINSON: A whiff of 'hope and change'
WASHINGTON -- President Obama's evolutionary leap on same-sex marriage is a historic advance in the nation's long march toward equality and justice. It is also a bold political gambit that sacrifices some votes in exchange for potentially renewing his image as a leader of vision and hope.
EUGENE ROBINSON: What immigration 'crisis'?
WASHINGTON -- Now that the immigration "crisis" has solved itself, this is the perfect time for Congress and the president to agree on a package of sensible, real-world reforms. Yeah, right, and it's also the perfect time for pigs to grow wings and take flight.
ROBINSON: The right-wing bully machine
WASHINGTON -- Not all overheated political rhetoric is alike. Delusional right-wing crazy talk -- the kind of ranting we've heard recently from washed-up rock star Ted Nugent and tea party-backed Rep. Allen West -- is a special kind of poison that cannot be safely ignored.
ROBINSON: Handicapping the veep stakes
WASHINGTON -- Playing second fiddle to Mitt Romney won't be easy, but somebody has to be his running mate. Let's handicap the field.
ROBINSON: The price if health care is overturned
WASHINGTON -- In arguments before the Supreme Court this week, the Obama administration might have done just enough to keep the Affordable Care Act from being ruled unconstitutional. Those who believe in limited government had better hope so, at least.
ROBINSON: To be black in America ...
For every black man in America, from the millionaire in the corner office to the mechanic in the local garage, the Trayvon Martin tragedy is personal. It could have been me or one of my sons. It could have been any of us.
ROBINSON: Santorum needs Gingrich in the race
f Rick Santorum wants to keep Mitt Romney from wrapping up the Republican nomination before the convention, he should encourage Newt Gingrich to stay in the race.
ROBINSON: A field of hawks
Unless Ron Paul somehow wins the nomination, it looks as if a vote for the Republican presidential candidate this fall will be a vote for war with Iran.
ROBINSON: Santorum goes to the extreme
For all his supposed authenticity, Rick Santorum is not what he seems.
ROBINSON: The danger of Mitt being Mitt
Political consultants tell candidates to be authentic -- to "be yourself." In Mitt Romney's case, that might not be such good advice.
ROBINSON: Gulf War III isn't an option
We've heard this quickening drumbeat before. Last time, it led to the tragic invasion and occupation of Iraq. This time, if we let the drummers provoke us into war with Iran, the consequences will likely be far worse.
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