Congress

The bailout crashed, and so did democracy.

Democracy is not perfect, and one of its many imperfections is that voters tend to be ignorant. I don't mean to be insulting. There are, after all, perfectly rational reasons for this ignorance. In a republic of 300 million, the chances of an individual vote affecting a national outcome are slim, and it makes little sense for the individual voter to invest scarce resources in learning about complicated issues, like health care or foreign policy or, just to pick another subject at random, the economy.

Scandals, voting trends and helpless leadership portend electoral defeat for the GOP in the upcoming election.

A Republican Senate candidate is embroiled in the Jack Abramoff scandal. A Republican congressman is caught up in a tawdry sexual affair. And across the country, from Illinois to Louisiana to last night's special election in a deep-red district in Mississippi, which Democrat Travis Childers won handily, Republicans are losing races they expected to win. The 2008 election may be all about "change" -- but it has an awfully familiar feel to it. For the GOP, is this 2006 all over again?

Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker returned to Congress for hearings on the state of Iraq.

Time was when members of Congress didn’t have to rely on just the media, fact-finding tours, or high-profile hearings to find out what was going on in a theater of war. Instead, our representatives could turn to trusted ex-comrades or relatives for an on-the-ground view. But that was in another, better United States. Fewer and fewer senators or representatives have any military experience and the connections that come with it. MORE

Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker returned to Congress for hearings on the state of Iraq.

A critical moment during the Petraeus/Crocker hearings yesterday came when the general refused to play along. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), referring to the Democratic presidential candidates, urged, cajoled, and all but begged Petraeus to state that a rapid, one-brigade-a-month troop withdrawal would be a disaster. But Petraeus was cautious: "It clearly will depend on the conditions at the time."