Gail Collins: Book offers insight into president’s college years

Today, the story of the bare-chested crossword-puzzle solver. Barack Obama barely mentions his New York years in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father.

John Siegmund / Guest Column

Residents of Denton should recognize and be grateful for our good fortune that Denton’s sub-surface strata include a significant volume of Barnett Shale containing entrapped natural gas.

Ross Douthat: Composite character highlights liberalism

The Obama re-election campaign recently unveiled a slogan for the fall campaign — its answer to Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” Bill Clinton’s “bridge to the 21st century,” and other successful re-election pitches.

Donna Fielder: Pleasure, pain part of nail spa

The chair clutched my derriere firmly and then let go as a hammer worked its way up and down my spine.

Leonard Pitts: Teen killed by stereotype

I don’t care about George Zimmerman’s MySpace page. Granted, it was gratifying to read recently in The Miami Herald about his crude animus toward Mexicans (“wanna be thugs”) and his reference to a former girlfriend as an “ex-hoe.”

Walter E. Williams: Liberals use blacks to further own agenda

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, in a recent debate with former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele, called the Republican Party the “grand wizard crowd.” Grand wizard is the title given to the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. It is truly misinformed to call Republicans the party of the Klan.

Eugene Robinson: Austerity policy bad deal

WASHINGTON — Economic austerity is a dangerous, self-defeating intellectual fad. Perhaps I should say that’s what it was, given recent election results in Europe. Perhaps I should also say good riddance.

Thomas Sowell: Real face of unions not visible on surface

Labor unions, like the United Nations, are all too often judged by what they are envisioned as being — not by what they actually are or what they actually do.

Esther J. Cepeda: DREAM still nightmare

CHICAGO — In December 2010, after the DREAM Act fell five votes short of passage in the Senate, it was understood that the issue would be dead for a while, and that Hispanics would go to the polls in 2012 and punish those who voted against the legislation.

David Brooks: Change up campaign messages

What sort of thing is a presidential campaign? Maybe a campaign is like a courtship. A candidate’s job is to woo the electorate, to win the people’s affection with charm, familiarity and compassion.

Clarence Page: No monopoly on cliches

Like many of us who pontificate for a living, my column-writing colleague Jonah Goldberg apparently toils away in daily frustration that so many people fail to take his political advice.

Charles Krauthammer: President dividing America

WASHINGTON — Poor Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. Once again he’s been pilloried for fumbling a historic Supreme Court case. First shredded for his “train wreck” defense of Obamacare’s individual mandate, he is now blamed for the defenestration in oral argument of Obama’s challenge to the Arizona immigration law.

Mary Sanchez: China needs more Chens

This is the kind of thing that happens in the age of YouTube. A blind Chinese dissident escapes from house arrest by climbing over a wall and somehow eludes cordons of minders.

Kathleen Parker: Unknown celebrity quite a guy

WASHINGTON — The squabbling between political campaigns and the harrumphing of pundits were put in proper perspective at, of all places, the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — the annual Prom on the Potomac where 2,000 or so media members and movie stars gather to honor the president and admire one another.

Froma Harrop: Throw book at Edwards

Throw book at EdwardsJohn Edwards allegedly misused campaign money to cover a tawdry affair while posing lovey-dovey with his dying wife for the cameras.

Jonah Goldberg: Press corps’ ‘nerd prom’ plays to insecurities

Washington is full of nerds. I know. I speak nerd, not fluently mind you, at least not anymore. But I certainly know more than a few phrases memorized from a Berlitz nerd-to-English phrase book. I can talk Dungeons & Dragons (both D&D and AD&D).

Ruth Marcus: Race lacks substance

WASHINGTON — Maybe it’s a hangover — metaphorical, not literal — from the partying of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner weekend, but this is feeling like the most vacuous presidential campaign in memory.

Donna Fielder: Two days of mishaps turn out OK after all

Considering that on Monday I backed into a new Lexus and on Tuesday Kiefer took a whiz on my office surge protector, it wasn’t such a bad week, I guess.

Leonard Pitts: Don’t hide inside Bible

Sometimes, people hide inside the Bible. That is, they use the Christian holy book as authority and excuse for biases that have nothing to do with God.

Eugene Robinson: GOP pursues witch hunt for zombie voters in U.S.

WASHINGTON — Republicans are waging the most concerted campaign to prevent or discourage citizens from exercising their legitimate voting rights since the Jim Crow days of poll taxes and literacy tests.

Walter E. Williams: Wealthy liberals try to fool the public

President Barack Obama and Wall Street occupiers, along with their allies in the mainstream media and on college campuses, have maintained an ongoing attack on high-income earners, people they call 1 percenters.

Joe Nocera: Bill would help fight abuse of civil rights

Who knew that what corrupt Russian officials care about, more than just about anything, is getting their assets — and themselves — out of their own country? They own homes in St. Tropez, fly to Miami for vacation and set up bank accounts in Switzerland.

David Brooks: Creative monopoly way to go

As a young man, Peter Thiel competed to get into Stanford. Then he competed to get into Stanford Law School. Then he competed to become a clerk for a federal judge. Thiel won all those competitions. But then he competed to get a Supreme Court clerkship.

Froma Harrop: Immigration on decline

Those who saw mass migration from Mexico as a threat and those who did not all agreed on one thing: It was unstoppable without dramatic action by the federal authorities.

Thomas Sowell: Word games dangerous when they involve race

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the case against George Zimmerman for his shooting of Trayvon Martin, what has happened is enough to turn the stomach of anyone who believes in either truth or justice.

Paul Krugman: Romney: Forget about it

Just how stupid does Mitt Romney think we are? If you’ve been following his campaign from the beginning, that’s a question you have probably asked many times.

Leonard Pitts: Nazi parallel sheer idiocy

John Raese is feeling persecuted. Raese, a West Virginia businessman running for the Senate, declared in a recent speech that he doesn’t want the government telling him what to do “because I’m an American.” Specifically, he lamented that he is required to place a “huge sticker” on his buildings declaring them smoke-free environments.

Donna Fielder: Nothing worse than having a bad hair day

The judge looked sternly over his bench at the woman standing before him.

Esther Cepeda: Obesity battle complex

CHICAGO — Are you the least bit surprised that simply irrigating the nation’s so-called “food deserts” with more fresh fruits and vegetables doesn’t result in healthier communities?

Kathleen Parker: Obama’s trip gives clues about staff’s competency

WASHINGTON — Either President Obama has wings of Kevlar — or he has the most incompetent scheduling staff in White House history.

Walter E. Williams: Income tax burden distributed unevenly

The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation does a yeoman’s job of keeping track of how much we’re paying in taxes and who’s paying what.

Maureen Dowd: Trial all about love stories

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Maybe we gave up on John Edwards too soon. His hair still looks great, even though he now gets cuts for $12.95, not $400. And the man clearly has a gift for multitasking under pressure.

Ruth Marcus: Clean water needed to help poor worldwide

WASHINGTON — When Matt Damon talks toilets, people listen. By people, I mean me. In the tough-job-but-somebody’s-got-to-do-it category, I was invited to a dinner the other night with Damon. (Thanks to David Bradley of Atlantic Media for hosting, and to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg for arranging the event.)

David Brooks: Colleges must show true benefit to students

There’s an atmosphere of grand fragility hanging over America’s colleges. The grandeur comes from the surging application rates, the international renown, the fancy new dining and athletic facilities. The fragility comes from the fact that colleges are charging more money, but it’s not clear how much actual benefit they are providing.

Clarence Page: Revive sensible gun laws

Supporters of the protests that followed the suspicious death of Trayvon Martin are raising a good question: What next?

Steve Chapman: Democracy must cope with usual ignorance

This is an election year, which means all of us will spend the next few months carefully following the campaigns, finding out all we can about the candidates’ proposals and pondering what issues are most vital for the nation’s future.

Eugene Robinson: Right-wing bullying goes into overdrive

WASHINGTON — Not all overheated political rhetoric is alike. Delusional right-wing crazy talk — the kind of ranting we’ve heard recently from washed-up rock star Ted Nugent and tea party-backed Rep. Allen West — is a special kind of poison that cannot be safely ignored.

Other Voices

Esther Cepeda: Candidates should focus on economy

CHICAGO — Little else brings me as much joy as learning a new word — especially if it perfectly captures the spirit of the moment.

Charles Krauthammer: Obama uses
Buffet Rule to distract from issues

WASHINGTON — Here we go again. At the beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama argued that the country’s spiraling debt was largely the result of exploding health care costs. That was true. He then said the cure for these exploding costs would be his health care reform. That was not true.

Walter E. Williams: Economists must deal with reality to be good

It’s difficult to be a good economist and simultaneously be perceived as compassionate.

Froma Harrop: Invest in job training

Animal rescue once sent me a fabulous mutt. She was usually obedient and heartbreaking in eagerness to please. But I couldn’t get her into the basement.

Paul Krugman: Moderate inflation a good thing

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently spoke out in defense of his successor. Attacks on Ben Bernanke by Republicans, he told The Financial Times, are “wholly inappropriate and destructive.” He’s right about that — which makes this one of the very few things the ex-maestro has gotten right in the past few years.

Other Voices

Ruben Navarrette: Candidates won’t give Latinos respect

SAN DIEGO — In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, many Hispanics are talking about voting for the lesser of two evils. The hard part is figuring out the lesser evil.

Ruth Marcus: Gender gap remains issue

WASHINGTON — Outsourcing the job to his wife isn’t going to solve Mitt Romney’s problem with women voters.

George Will: Friendly skies now less so

DALLAS — From his office window, Thomas W. Horton, in his fifth month as CEO of American Airlines, can see in the distance the Manhattan-size footprint of Dallas-Fort Worth airport, where American has 85 percent market share; it also has 68 percent in Miami, gateway to South America’s booming market.

Other Voices

David Brooks: Moderate conservative picks new path to walk

Nathan Fletcher was raised in Arkansas, played college baseball in California and enlisted in the Marines as a reserve in 1997. He saw combat in 2004, based in the Sunni Triangle in Iraq.