The pressure is on. Four years ago, I picked Barack Obama to win 353 electoral votes and, twice, I correctly tabbed George W. Bush as a winner, including a 2000 forecast he’d beat Al Gore by four electoral votes. Here is a preview of the road to Nov. 6:January: Texas Rep. Ron Paul edges Mitt Romney in Iowa caucuses, and fast-closing Texas Gov. Rick Perry nips Newt Gingrich for third. Romney rebounds to beat Paul in New Hampshire, but Perry edges former Massachusetts governor in South Carolina, d

Viewpoints Dec. 26, 2011

Barack Obama probably will have to pull out a familiar card next year: the luck of the draw. In winning the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, the president defeated political heavyweights, starting with Hillary Clinton. His other triumphs were facilitated by lots of luck. In his 2004 race for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, the candidacies of both his chief primary opponent and initial Republican rival collapsed when divorce papers were disclosed during the campaign; one was accused of vi

Viewpoints Dec. 26, 2011

Rarely in U.S. history has the end of a war been marked with less fanfare than the withdrawal of the last troops from Iraq in time for Christmas. Indeed, you could almost be forgiven for failing to notice it at all, so arbitrary does the timing seem. U.S. interests in Iraq will be no different in the first week of 2012 than they are now. Iraq’s government remains shaky, and the dangers of instability and civil war remain. About 16,000 Americans are still there, too, including an unspecified numb

Viewpoints Dec. 26, 2011

If Christian pilgrims traveling to Bethlehem for Christmas this week happened to witness violence, for the first time militant Jews, not Palestinians, were most likely to be the perpetrators.Now that a far right-wing government has governed Israel for almost three years, settlers feel emboldened so that Jewish extremists are wreaking havoc and mayhem. West Bank Palestinians, meanwhile, are standing by quietly, largely minding their own business ― even as these settler-marauders repeatedly attack

Viewpoints Dec. 25, 2011

Last week, Elizabeth Taylor’s jewels were auctioned for an astonishing $116 million, easily a record for a single collection. Taylor’s talent for amassing jewelry was equaled only by her ability to accumulate husbands. There were eight marriages in all, two of them to Richard Burton, who bought her a 33-carat diamond ring that was auctioned for $8.8 million.By coincidence, the same day’s newspaper had another story about marriage, this one less spectacular but more far-reaching. The news was a f

Viewpoints Dec. 25, 2011

Europe is as full of bad ideas as it is of bad debts. Conventional wisdom says that sovereign defaults mean the end of the euro: If Greece defaults it has to leave the single currency; German taxpayers have to bail out southern governments to save the union. This is nonsense. U.S. states and local governments have defaulted on dollar debts, just as companies default. A currency is simply a unit of value, as meters are units of length. If the Greeks had skimped on the olive oil in a liter bottle,

Viewpoints Dec. 25, 2011

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s sudden death has further increased the uncertainty on the Korean Peninsula. Yet it has also provided an important opening for the two Koreas to end the hostility and pursue peace and mutual prosperity. To grab this rare opportunity, the Seoul government needs to recalibrate its North Korea strategy.Inter-Korean relations have remained deadlocked for years, especially following the North’s provocations against the South last year ― the destruction of the Navy’s C

Editorial Dec. 22, 2011

The government’s response to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death has exposed some glaring problems. One such problem concerns the failure of the nation’s main spy agency to detect Kim’s death before Pyongyang’s state media announced it on Monday.The National Intelligence Service had no clue to Kim’s death for two days, revealing its serious lack of capability to gather intelligence on North Korea. The agency’s intelligence lapse kept President Lee Myung-bak in the dark about the grave situat

Editorial Dec. 22, 2011

Hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death on Saturday, news reports out of Seoul said Pyongyang had agreed to suspend its enriched uranium nuclear weapons program.This was a sign that denuclearization talks, stalled since April 2009 when North Korea pulled out, could resume. It was a key demand of the United States before it would agree to the resumption of talks.The agreement, struck between North Korean and U.S. negotiators in talks in Beijing last Thursday and Friday, included 240,0

Viewpoints Dec. 22, 2011

If Asians got together to name a person of the year, someone who brought surprise, intrigue and economic impact to the region, the choice would be obvious: Mother Nature. From earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand to floods in the Philippines and Thailand to Chinese droughts to volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, this was a year overrun by nature’s fury. Food shortages and the effects of climate change challenged governments and inflation rates as rarely before. Other forces of nature, meanwhile, ra

Viewpoints Dec. 22, 2011