Gail Collins:
Today, let’s discuss choices, starting with Barbara Bush raising an alarm and Gov. Rick Perry’s personal experience with sexual abstinence.
I did throw in the last one to keep you interested. Sue me.
Nicholas Kristof:
America has important interests at stake in Bahrain — and important values. I hope that our cozy relations with those in power won’t dull our appreciation that history is more likely to side with protesters being shot with rubber bullets than with the regimes doing the shooting.
NY Times:
The march toward equality is long, and a college or university can show it is in compliance with Title IX in one of three ways: the shares of female and male athletes are roughly proportional to those enrolled; the institution meets women’s interests and abilities in sports; it is expanding opportunities for women.
Restoring the women’s teams won’t eliminate the sports gender gap at Berkeley or expand opportunities for women. But it does show that they are trying to meet women’s interests and abilities. The benefits to young women from playing sports are well documented, in their health, psychological outlook, educational performance and future employment. Female athletes also say that sports give them a wonderful opportunity to test themselves.
NY Times:
In all of their posturing, Republican lawmakers have studiously avoided making clear to voters what vital government services would be slashed or disappear if they got their way — like investment in cancer research or a sharp reduction in federal meat inspections, or the number of police on the street, or agents that keep the borders secure, or the number of teachers in your kids’ schools.
Those cuts will never get past the Senate, and, on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said he would veto such job-killing cuts if they arrive at his desk. That puts the House leadership on notice. Will they follow the mob and allow the government to shut down if the cuts are not enacted? Or will they take back control of the House and steer it toward reality?
L.A. Times:
House Republicans are using a bill to fund the government through Sept. 30 as a vehicle to roll back spending on many programs favored by Democrats. But it's easy for lawmakers to cut spending on someone else's priorities. The real test of fiscal discipline is the scrutiny they give their own.
For Republicans, that means the Defense Department — by far the largest federal program funded through annual appropriations. So it's not all that surprising that when Republican leaders of the House Appropriations Committee offered a continuing resolution (HR 1) for the rest of fiscal 2011, they made only minor trims to defense while taking a meat ax to social and environmental programs, including cuts of $1 billion each in aid to needy families and their preschool children.
E.J. Dionne:
But when it's the progressives' turn in power, the deficit hawks become ferocious. They denounce liberals if they do not move immediately to address the shortfall left by conservatives. Thus, conservatives get to govern as they wish. Liberals are labeled as irresponsible unless they abandon their own agenda and devote their every moment in power to cutting the deficit.
It's a game for chumps. The conservatives play it brilliantly. By winning their tax cuts and slashing government revenue, they constrain what liberals can do whenever they get back into power.
George Will continues his weekly habit of fawning over potential Republican presidential candidates. This week it's Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.
Dana Milbank confuses himself with George Will and fawns over New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Joshua Green:
WHEN THE annual conference of the Conservative Political Action Committee convened in Washington last week, it was supposed to be a showcase of likely Republican presidential candidates. More than 10,000 eager activists showed up, and nearly as many presidential hopefuls. But the proceedings felt less like a political forum and more like a circus when the clown car came rolling in: Candidates just kept on emerging and saying silly things.
The one who stole the show was Donald Trump, which underscores the lack of excitement about the GOP field. Trump was a late addition to the speakers’ roster, probably because no one realized he was a candidate, or even a Republican. No matter. Trump took the stage to raucous applause and delivered, with his trademark squinting braggadocio, a speech that alternated lavish praise for Donald Trump with denunciations of various and sundry enemies. Plenty of candidates invoked Chinese menace and terrors of the new health care law. Only Trump declared his antipathy for Somali pirates.