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IRS officials owe the nation more than a canned apology. It must provide honest answers about who is responsible for letting politics creep into it process.

The agency made a chilling admission Friday, acknowledging that the tax collectors singled out conservative political groups for unfair scrutiny between 2010 and 2012. An agency with privileged access to the intimate details of our financial...

To make immigration reform more palatable to those who call it amnesty, there’s a bipartisan proposal being floated in the House of Representatives. Undocumented immigrants would have to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in federal court and serve some time on probation. The editorial board is wary of flooding the court system with this burden. We’re watching the issue to see if it gains support, but...

President Barack Obama’s speech before a young Israeli audience in Jerusalem Thursday was in part a throwback to his “yes we can” days as a candidate. It worked then. Maybe it will again.

His call for a two-state solution with Palestinians had the feel of a political rally. And the response was enthusiastic.

His words won't change the hard political realities that have repeatedly thwarted...

President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans have been dating lately, but they haven’t decided whether to hook-up and consummate a budget deal. They should.

Reacting to criticism that he’s too aloof, Obama went to Capital Hill today to see Senate Republicans. He stopped by Wednesday to visit with House Republicans. And last week he took a few GOP Senators out to dinner at a posh hotel...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been babbling since midday, filibustering the nomination of John Brennan to be the new director of the CIA with a little help from his Senate colleagues.

Beginning with a promise to “speak until I no longer can,” Paul says that he will not “sit quietly and let President Obama shred the Constitution” with drones. So far, Paul has gone through an entire binder of notes....

President Barack Obama is between a rock and a hard place politically as he pushes to win Senate confirmation of John Brennan, his nominee for CIA director.

Before giving him their votes some reticent Democrats want to see classified memos laying out the legal justification the administration claims for the targeted killings by drone it’s been doing around the world.

Republicans have...

How do you control the actions of a nation whose leader doesn’t much care what the United States or anyone else thinks or does?

That’s the hellish conundrum the United States and the world face with North Korea, which conducted a nuclear weapons test Tuesday in defiance of United Nation’s resolutions, international sanctions and negotiated commitments.

The test was met with universal...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters today, as they flew to Minneapolis for an event on tougher gun control, that The White House released a photograph of President Barack Obama shooting skeet at Camp David in an attempt to quiet “persistent questions.”

Clearly, that didn’t go very well.

The photograph, released on Saturday, depicts Obama shooting clay targets on Aug....

The sniping over Chuck Hagel for defense secretary started even before he was picked for the job earlier today. Now that his nomination is official, the Senate, which will weigh whether to confirm him for the job, should stop the incessant nit-picking.

Any president should get the top staffers he wants and trusts. That includes William O. Brennan, the former CIA agent and Obama’s chief counterterroism...

John Boehner won a second term as Speaker of the House today. Condolences are in order. Who would want the job?

Boehner has been a leader without enough reliable followers for the two years since a cabal of tea party Republicans were elected, proclaimed compromise a dirty word and began doing all they could to gum up the works.

They made it impossible for Boehner to broker a “grand bargain”...