Republicans Should Blow Up Party, Not Marriages: Amity Shlaes The question isn’t why Republicans like John Ensign or Mark Sanford are having marital crises. It is why they are choosing to have them now.

Dallying Democrats Should Outsource Trade Office: Amity Shlaes President Barack Obama is desperate for budget savings, so desperate that no cut seems too small. He’s even mentioned saving $632,000 by shutting a post no one knew existed, the Paris office of the U.S. Education Department.

Fed’s Dollar Lie Called Out by Victorious Merkel: Amity Shlaes The capitalist U.S. is nationalizing its biggest automaker, even as it pretends not to do so. Europe, for its part, is moving right.

Rand’s Atlas Is Shrugging With a Growing Load: Amity Shlaes Imagine a novel of more than a thousand pages, published half a century ago. The author doesn’t have a talk-radio show and has been dead for 27 years.

Pension Scandal Is Failure to Fix What’s Broken: Amity Shlaes Haste is the quality that is characterizing the investigation of Charles E.F. Millard, who headed the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. until the change in presidential administrations in January.

Obama Democrats Accent Bullying Over Governing: Amity Shlaes So Michele Bachmann’s version of history is “from another planet.” Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, is “chronically stupid.” And Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking Republican in the House, is “busy lying constantly.”

Obama, Bush Run Up Nation’s Public Trust Deficit: Amity Shlaes How much does consumer confidence matter?

Sin City on the Potomac Wounds Nevada Bordellos: Amity Shlaes “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” the phrase goes. But some things that happen in Vegas are a result of action taken in that other Sin City, Washington.

Gary Becker Dishes Antidote to Federal Activism: Amity Shlaes Action is what politicians are all about, especially in a crisis. So you can be sure that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s Public-Private Investment Program to restructure troubled banks will hardly be the last rescue plan -- as they inevitably, heroically, are labeled -- to emerge.

Obama’s ‘Matrix’ Is New Health Reality: Amity Shlaes (Correct) Every administration has its movie. George W. Bush seemed too often on the wrong side of guerrilla warfare in “The Battle of Algiers.” Bill Clinton mixed business and pleasure with the predictably messy results of “The Apartment.” Now Barack Obama has dropped us all into “The Matrix.”