It is one of the signs of our times that so many in the media are focusing on the life story of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States.

If President Barack Obama really is a pragmatic problem-solver and not a liberal ideologue, he will stop pushing for a government-run insurance plan as part of health care reform.

All the most interesting issues are moral in character, having to do with how we behave and why. The most interesting story of the past week — with due respect to Nancy Pelosi and other outliers — had to do with abortion, a moral issue of very supreme relevance, no matter of the depth or nature of one’s views on the matter. There was first of all a Gallup Poll. Then there was a presidential visit to Notre Dame University.

If one theme sums up President Obama’s first extended foreign trip, it is this: The era defined by 9/11 is over. It’s time to turn the page and start a new historical cycle marked by different issues and changing relationships.

President Barack Obama is clearly liked overseas — adored, in many quarters.
But is he respected?

Chances are good you haven’t heard this one: that, while in Buckingham Palace last week, milling about with G-20 leaders, the current president of the United States bowed deeply at the waist, one knee bent, on meeting the current King, so-called, of Saudi Arabia, who did not bow back. Chances are even better you haven’t seen the video.

Watching the national news media struggle to cover the economic crisis lately, one could be forgiven the fear that the United States had grown too ignorant and lazy to govern itself. Between mis- and disinformation, cheap political posturing and crowd-pleasing histrionics masquerading as commentary, the public has been inundated by a flood of dangerous nonsense. Cable news networks must think their audiences have the attention span of fruit flies.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” said Confucius. But a journey of whatever length presumes one has a destination in mind. With President Obama’s executive order authorizing expanded federal funding for research using stem cells, produced from the destruction of human embryos, the destination will be left up to scientists, as will any “speed controls.” The sky, or in this case the depths, will be the limit.

Someone once said that Senator Hubert Humphrey, liberal icon of an earlier generation, had more solutions than there were problems.