Can we at least aim before we throw more money at the economic crisis?

It seems a small thing to ask. But, as I made clear in my previous "Bailout Brainstorm," I have no economics credentials whatsoever. So maybe there's some fancy, Ph.D.-level reason why the future of the...

INTERVIEWER: Do you agree with the Clouseau doctrine?

MCCAIN STRATEGIST: In what respect, Charlie?

INTERVIEWER: The Clouseau -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

MCCAIN STRATEGIST: His world view?

INTERVIEWER: Well, yes, in a way. The Clouseau doctrine, enunciated December 1976, in the Peter...

The second-best news I heard during these last few historic days didn't make tears stream like the moment Obama soared above 270, didn't cause me to go slack on the couch with some pride-relief hybrid like when the president-elect's victory speech reached out to "those who are huddled around radios...

No group in America would have more trouble adjusting to an Obama presidency than the Bush Liberals.

With the president's approval rating so deep in the tank, you might question whether there really is such a thing as a Bush Liberal. Let me explain.

This isn't about ideology or policy....

Happy Halloween. Nice costume, buddy.

Now take the damn thing off. You don't get to pick your own costume.

Nobody does. Except John McCain. He gets to pick for all of us.

Ask Rashid Khalidi.

Khalidi is a big-time professor. Which is to say that, until quite recently, he was...

Like a washed-up boxer who forgets to punch his opponent in the testicles or a figure skater who misses a chance to bludgeon her rival's kneecap, there's something so disillusioning about Sarah Palin's failure to accuse Barack Obama of hating the U.S. Constitution.

I still think it will happen....

A Republican almost made me burst into tears. In a good way.

The Republican in question is former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, who chaired the 9/11 Commission. Here's part of what Kean said:

"When we talk about the balance between civil liberties and our preparations to keep ourselves...

You are sitting in Mass when your phone rings.

Vibrates, actually. Thank goodness. Because this cell-phones-in-church business is a pet peeve of yours. "That better be God calling," you always think to yourself when this happens to someone else.

Your own phone ordinarily spends Sunday mornings in the car. But...

Reading The Dark Side, as I just have, forces a stomach-turning, jaw-clenching reckoning with Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, CIA kidnappings, secret prisons, waterboarding, and a shameful list of other soul-shattering abuses legalized by John Yoo, David Addington, and the rest of the Bush-Cheney lawyers who forcibly sodomized our Constitution after...

Senator McCain has suspended his presidential campaign. Perhaps for good. Instead of campaigning, he seems now to be traveling the country trying to make sure that no movie version of President Obama's life will ever win an Oscar.

A generation from now you can imagine the taunts from the movie...

Exciting news: Sarah Palin will break the glass ceiling.

And the glass floor. The glass walls, too. Same with the glass roof. Every brittle bit of the gigantic glass house she calls home.

Because Palin's throwing stones now. Big stones. Nasty, spurious stones. The exact kind of stones that

BOB COSTAS: And we are back. More coverage of the decathlon coming up in just minutes here. But first we're going to quickly send you out to a place they used to call Nowhere, the tiny Alaskan island of Gravina where the gold medal in the men's floor exercise...

First, my economics credentials:

* I read The Worldly Philosophers twice. For fun. So I thought I might like to major in Econ.

* I got a C in the only Econ course I ever ended up taking.

Now, let me conduct today's emergency test of that saying uttered by...

Simple dishonesty doesn't explain the fancy filter in Senator McCain's brain -- the filter that strains all the nuance and prudence from the words of Gen. David Petraeus, the filter that allowed McCain to claim at Friday's debate that Petraeus thinks Senator Obama's Iraq-withdrawal plan is "dangerous for America."

I...

The GOP's recent demolition derby with reality is exhilarating. And it's been harmless enough, sending little things like truth, honor, credibility, and decency to the junkyard on the far side of the Bridge to Nowhere.

But one car in this raucous smashup should scare the hell out of...

I don't know why nobody is talking about this.

The lunatic controversy over whether Barack Obama called Sarah Palin a pig misses the real point. Look at what Senator Obama actually told his Virginia audience Tuesday, contrasting John McCain's status-quo stands with his maverick, change-agent posturing:

"That's not change....

I'm still convinced that attacking the Republican candidate for vice president is dumb politics. John McCain's fund-raising surge and Wednesday night's frenzy in St. Paul would seem to confirm that. So I'm not even going to type her name here.

Instead, let's shift to something that has nothing to...

Reckless.

That's the word I keep hearing from the TV pundits about John McCain's decision to pick someone he'd met just once to be his VP. James Carville, looking slack-faced and sincere for once, said he's just plain "vexed" trying make sense of it. Paul Begala said he wouldn't even...

Columnist Dana Milbank's snide, defensive defense of the blanks he fired at Barack Obama on Wednesday shows either:

A) How far journalism has strayed.

or

B) How different D.C. journalism is from the prudent, reality-based journalism my hinterland colleagues and I practiced during the nine years I spent...

Think of the last time you burned your hand -- really burned it, to the point where you knew instantly it would blister. Or worse.

Now imagine John McCain pushing you to your kitchen sink, cranking the spigot, and urging you to run cold water over your painful burn. Feel...