James Pethokoukis and Joe Weisenthal have been arguing over who presided over the more impressive recovery: Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan? This is, I think, a mostly useless exercise. Obama and Reagan presided over different kinds of recessions that began at different times and ended in different ways. Imagine you had two doctors, one who had treated a patient for a drug overdose, and another who was treating a patient who recently suffered a heart attack. Would flatly comparing the speed of the two patients’ recoveries tell you anything about the doctors? Of course not. So too with Obama and Reagan. But if you do want to compare the two presidents, here are some things to keep in mind: Read full article > >

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Comparing Obama and Reagan’s economic records

If you heard a loud “gulp” Tuesday night after President Obama’s State of the Union address , it probably came from Republican political strategists as they realized their party’s odds of capturing the White House this fall are getting longer. Obama may be no Ronald Reagan, but he’s no Jimmy Carter, either. Read full article > >

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Greed is good? The GOP seems to be okay with that.

And then there were five … which made for a feisty evening of misstatements. We focused on 11, and may come back for more later in the week. Let’s take them in the order in which they were made. “As [House] speaker, I came back, working with President Bill Clinton. We passed a very Reagan-like program: less regulation, lower taxes. Unemployment dropped to 4.2 percent. We created 11 million jobs.” Read full article > >

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Fact Checking the Fox News-WSJ debate in South Carolina

Gingrich opens with Reagan compliment.

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GOP Debate Opens on Financial Policy

The contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has been described as a reality show and a circus. But what’s happening inside the GOP is quite rational and easily explained. The obvious Republican nominee was Texas Gov. Rick Perry — obvious because his government-bashing, ideology-mongering, secessionist-flirting persona was a perfect fit for a Republican primary electorate that has shifted far to the right of Ronald Reagan. Read full article > >

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A GOP reality-show race, thanks to the Tea Party

Lakia McDuffie was sleeping in her fourth-floor apartment at Wingate Towers & Gardens in Southwest Washington when a light flooding into her bedroom woke her up. Then her windows rattled. She wondered what was going on. It was a plane landing at Reagan National Airport . Since that night in the spring, incoming airliners have regularly flown by her building at late hours, McDuffie said. Read full article > >

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D.C. communities all shook up as Reagan National-bound planes change their landing patterns

Newt Gingrich, the know-it-all former Speaker of the House who now rides atop the polls for the Republican nomination for president, has been shooting his mouth off lately. He called himself a celebrity who makes $60,000 a speech. Another favorite is, “I helped Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp develop supply side economics.  I helped lead the effort to defeat communism in the Congress.” I didn’t realize communism in Congress was an issue, but I digress. Read full article > >

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Jonathan Capehart:
Newt Gingrich’s disgusting remarks about ‘really poor children’

According to the polls and the pundits, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are the two front-runners for the Republican nomination for president. That means both of them will spend the next few weeks trying to show that they are more competent, conservative, and generally Reagan-like than the other. But I’m a uniter, not a divider. I don’t want to focus on the differences between Romney and Gingrich. I want to focus on the commonalities. Because these two men have a lot in common with not only each other but also with President Obama. Read full article > >

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What Gingrich, Romney and Obama have in common

Is John W. Hinckley Jr., the gunman who in 1981 nearly killed President Reagan and wounded three other men, ready for more freedom from the psychiatric hospital where he has been held for three decades? A series of hearings starting Wednesday in the District’s federal court will determine just that. Since being found not guilty in the shooting by reason of insanity in 1982, Hinckley has spent most of his time confined at St. Elizabeths Hospital. In recent years, however, he has been granted more privileges and liberty, especially when it comes to visits to his mother’s luxury community in Williamsburg. Read full article > >

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More freedom for John Hinckley Jr. to be debated

Is John W. Hinckley Jr., the gunman who in 1981 nearly killed President Reagan and wounded three other men, ready for more freedom from the psychiatric hospital where he has been held for three decades? A series of hearings starting Wednesday in the District’s federal court will determine just that. Since being found not guilty in the shooting by reason of insanity in 1982, Hinckley has spent most of his time confined at St. Elizabeths Hospital. In recent years, however, he has been granted more privileges and liberty, especially when it comes to visits to his mother’s luxury community in Williamsburg. Read full article > >

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More freedom for John Hinckley Jr. to be debated

A move by Congress may allow members of the board that oversees Reagan National and Dulles International airports to be removed by their appointing bodies and increase the size of the panel, which is supervising the construction of the Metrorail extension to Loudoun County . Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) has pushed for legislation that would expand the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority from 13 to 17. Under his plan, Virginia would get two new appointments and Maryland and the District would each get one additional member. Read full article > >

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Transportation bill would expand board of Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority

Travel records this year for the authority that oversees Reagan National and Dulles International airports show reports in disarray, sloppy bookkeeping for some expenses and an instance in which the authority overpaid reimbursements to one board member. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority , which is also overseeing the $6 billion Dulles rail project, has come under increased scrutiny about whether it is transparent enough and how it is monitoring the construction of the Metrorail extension. Read full article > >

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Travel records in disarray for authority overseeing Reagan and Dulles airports

There was something tragic about the plea made to Chris Christie this week by a woman who wants the coy New Jersey governor to run for president. “I really implore you,” said the woman, after listening to Christie speak at the Reagan Library , “as a citizen of this country to, please, sir, to reconsider. . . Go home and really think about it, please. Do it — do it for my daughter. Do it for our grandchildren. Do it for our sons. Please, sir, don’t — we need you. Your country needs you to run for president.” Read full article > >

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Chris Christie can’t save us

On the same July day that Donald Rumsfeld was patted down by airport security at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, I underwent an upper-body pat-down at Reagan National. I was posing spread-eagle in the full body scanner, in compliance with various mandates of the federal Transportation Security Administration, when something set off a female TSA agent, who began mumbling anxiously into her walkie-talkie. Read full article > >

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How my shirt flummoxed the TSA

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Former Sen. Malcolm Wallop, who became a leading conservative voice during the Reagan era in fighting for space defense and a tough anti-communist policy in Central America, died Wednesday. He was 78. Kerrie Kimmel of the Kane Funeral Home said Wallop died at his home near the small community of Big Horn in northern Wyoming. Family friend and Cody Enterprise Publisher Bruce McCormack said Wallop has been ill for the last couple of years. Read full article > >

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Former US Sen. Malcolm Wallop dies at 78 in Wyoming; was leading voice on foreign affairs