Note to GOP re Benghazi: Stop calling it Watergate, Iran-contra, bigger than both, etc. First, it might well be, but we don’t know. History will judge. Second, overhyping will only diminish the importance of the scandal if it doesn’t meet presidency-breaking standards. Third, focusing on the political effects simply plays into the hands of Democrats desperately claiming that this is nothing but partisan politics.

?Modern conservatism comes in two distinct architectural styles. The first seeks to build from scratch, using accurate ideological levels and plumb lines, so every wall is straight and every corner squared. The goal of politics is to apply abstract principles in their purest form. But there is another type of conservatism, often practiced at the state level, which attempts to build out of flawed, existing materials, resulting in some odd angles and incongruous additions. These conservative...

?We know American politics are dysfunctional. But after a week of scandal obsession during which the nation’s capital and the media virtually ignored the problems most voters care about -- jobs, incomes, growth, opportunity, education -- it’s worth asking if there is something especially flawed about our democracy.

It’s that time. If you’re a teacher in a school with a large concentration of Hispanic students, you’re doing end-of-year reviews and preparing for final exams -- and you have kids trickling up to you to let you know they won’t be around for them.

Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is a gooey confection of seasonal sentiment. It also is an economic manifesto that Dickens hoped would hit with “twenty thousand times the force” of a political tract. It concerned a 19th-century debate that is pertinent to today’s argument about immigration.

Mistakes were made.This, we are supposed to accept, is the conclusion to be drawn about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, despite congressional testimony suggesting that significant efforts were made to camouflage those mistakes.As Democrats and Republicans alike know all too well: It’s always the cover-up.

President Passerby needs urgently to become a participant in his presidency.Late Monday came the breathtaking news of a full-frontal assault on the First Amendment by his administration: word that the Justice Department had gone on a fishing expedition through months of phone records of Associated Press reporters.

Suppose that the Environmental Protection Agency were to admit offhandedly that the fluoridation of water had only modest communist mind-control effects. Or the United Nations were to concede it has been running fleets of black helicopters over American cities, but only in the course of conducting extensive good will tours.

Public officials are very selective about when violence and death matter.Massacres and terrorist incidents cannot be ignored, but the day-to-day toll from gun violence is often swept aside. Politicians who tout themselves as advocates of law and order don’t want to be unmasked as caring even more about their ratings from gun lobbyists.

Is it just me or is Tony Stark on a health kick?In the third “Iron Man” -- a series that spent its first two installments glorifying the reckless life of a spoiled, rich genius -- Stark, the man inside the metallic exoskeleton, seems to have finally taken a turn toward wellness.No spoiler alerts are needed for me to point out that, though subtle, Stark set beautiful examples of healthful eating throughout this latest episode.

You know you’re in trouble when you can’t even get your walk-back story straight. Stung by the worldwide derision that met President Obama’s fudging and fumbling of his chemical-weapons red line in Syria, the White House leaked to The New York Times that Obama’s initial statement had been unprepared, unscripted and therefore unserious.The next day Jay Carney said precisely the opposite: “Red line” was intended and deliberate.

In some cases, the fog of war is initially thick, then dissipates. Following the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, the facts were initially clear. The fog was a later addition.

President Obama said once again last week that Syria’s “use of chemical weapons would be a game-changer.”The president had played this game many times before. “I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game-changer,” he said in March, in one of his administration’s many repetitions of the term.But what game does Obama propose to change? “By game-changer,” ABC News’ Jonathan Karl asked him on Tuesday, “do you mean U.S. military action?”

They lost me at the word “women.”As so often happens with contemporary debate, arguments being proffered in support of allowing teenagers as young as 15 (and possibly younger) to buy the “morning-after pill” without adult supervision are false on their premise.Here’s an experiment to demonstrate.Question 1: Do you think that women should have access to Plan B, also known as the morning-after pill, to be used at their own discretion? Yes!

President Obama got roughed up by the pundit class last week. The question is what lessons he draws from the going-over. Here’s one he should take: The nation’s political conversation has grown stale and many Americans have lost the sense of what he is doing to improve their lives.

Our society is on the path to random chaos because our willingness to make exceptions for people has morphed into never-ending feelings of grievance and expectations of entitlement.Let me illustrate:While earning my master’s in special education, I became aware that the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act gave equal protection to children with disabilities.

“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” -- James Madison, Federalist 48

In a reprieve from the horror of the most recent terrorist attack, the nation’s attentions turned to the man who declared the war on terrorism, George W. Bush.

This last weekend of April displays the very best and the very worst of Washington.Most of the country sees the worst part: the triumph of money and power.

The policy mystery of our time is why politicians in the United States and across much of the democratic world are so obsessed with deficits when their primary mission ought to be bringing down high and debilitating rates of unemployment.

What do you do when you get trapped in a stereotype that doesn’t apply -- or just plain hurts?This is not a trivial question. As Hispanics start populating academia, newsrooms, boardrooms and courtrooms across the country, they face the tricky terrain of interacting with people who have different backgrounds and upbringings. And sometimes those folks say the craziest things.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, has told Richard Cordray not to bother. This is part of the recent evidence that government is getting some adult supervision.

Clare Boothe Luce liked to say that “a great man is one sentence.” Presidents, in particular. The most common “one sentence” for George W. Bush (whose legacy is being reassessed as his presidential library opens) is: “He kept us safe.”Not quite right. He did not just keep us safe. He created the entire anti-terror infrastructure that continues to keep us safe.

As the reporter said to the novelist: Why bother to make stuff up?For stories and characters, one needs only a pair of walking shoes in this city, where recent attentions have turned to two salacious stories. One concerns a murder-for-hire plot involving a banker, his wife, his lover’s ex-husband and his ex-lover’s husband’s cellmate. Not to be confused with his soul mate.

Whoever thinks there’s no such thing as a free lunch has not been to the Heritage Foundation.After Sen. Mike Lee’s speech to the conservative think tank Monday, his listeners didn’t rush to the front of the room, where the Utah Republican was greeting well-wishers, but to the back to get in line for sandwiches, cookies and soft drinks provided gratis to the hungry young conservatives who sat through the hour.

In 2009, Ruslan Tsarni and his nephew Tamerlan Tsarnaev had a bitter argument over the implications of their faith. Tsarnaev announced he had chosen “God’s business” over work or school. “I was shocked when I heard his words, his phrases, when every other word he starts sticking in words of God,” says Tsarni. “There is someone who brainwashed him, some new convert to Islam.” The falling out ended their relationship.