After the Republican Party’s recent third straight loss in strongly GOP-leaning House districts, party legislators are appropriately “shell shocked,” said John Fund in The Wall Street Journal. The GOP’s “one comfort” seems to be that presidential nominee John McCain is outperforming the party in polls, said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post, but with the rest of the GOP slate facing an “anti-Republican uprising” . . .
Gay marriage: The California high court’s gift to conservatives?
The California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in the state, and the embattled Republican Party “certainly hasn’t done anything to deserve such luck.” With John McCain “plainly uncomfortable” exploiting the issue, said Jonathan Martin in Politico, it actually may not matter as much as in 2004 ...
Polar bears, oil, and global warming
Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne agreed to list polar bears under the Endangered Species Act, but his “blatant undercutting of his own decision” gives “virtually no new protections” to the newly protected bears. Why should we protect an “endangered” species “whose population has more than doubled” . . .
BA Flies High, Yahoo Fights Back
Annual profit doubles at British Airways as the carrier woos trans-Atlantic business fliers. Yahoo and Carl Icahn lock horns over Microsoft. And a smoking ban in Britain is taking an especially steep toll in Little Cairo.
Best Columns: Cracked nest eggs, Lost legacies
Retirement plans calculated with projected returns of about 10 percent “rest on two decades of outsize returns,” says Sandra Block in USA Today. General Electric is joining the “small but high-profile club” of companies that have shed “businesses once synonymous with their brand names,” says Matt Vella in BusinessWeek.com, and it could be a smart move.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Oh., left) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Week of May 23
Controversy of the week
Israel at 60: Has the promise been fulfilled?
Main stories
Party leaders swinging to Obama despite a Clinton win
Talking points
$4-a-gallon gas: The new normal?
Best columns—International
Russia: Lighting a 'powder keg' in the Caucasus
Business
Issue of the week: Is the government cooking economic data?
Film
Music
Food & Drink
Recipe of the week: Spicing up Mexican cuisine with poblano chilies
“The new GI Bill has been deployed in a nasty political war.”
Editorial/Los Angeles Times
“Obama’s kumbaya foreign policy is dangerous.”
Michael Goodwin/NY Daily News
If we legalized human organ sales, “thousands of patients” might not “die unnecessarily each year for want of a kidney.”
Sally Satel/The Wall Street Journal
Evaluating Ellen DeGeneres' marriage plans
