Of the many factors that make improving the health system difficult, few challenges are greater than the misty-eyed recollection – often from genuinely distinguished practitioners – of how great things used to be.  Doctors were highly regarded authority figures, pure and beloved, while patients were meek and grateful in the presence of such brilliance and expertise.

It is good that we will have some disclosure of the mega-donors to the spate of super PACs that have dominated the landscape and the airtime across the presidential primaries and caucuses so far — but it is ridiculous that reporting requirements are so lame that the first disclosure in six months will not come until after the Florida primary.

The president and the White House, Senate leaders of both parties, the FBI and other agencies involved in the nomination and confirmation process need to get serious about changing its downward spiral.Blocking a highly qualified nominee to the Fed during a very difficult economic time is shameful.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Obama could have either stopped the Ground Zero mosque controversy before it even began with just some foresight and a few phone calls.

The Gulf Coast oil disaster was exacerbated by the lack of congressional oversight of the inept and corrupt Minerals Management Service, which is symbolic of the larger state of dysfunction in American politics.

If AIG was not too big to fail, why did the government rescue it? And why do we need to turn the financial system upside down?

After six months in the Oval Office, President Barack Obama has a lower job-approval rating than ten of the last twelve presidents at the same point in their presidencies.

The Social Security Administration announced today that, for the first time since the 1970s, no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) to retirement benefits will be paid in January 2010.