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It's a sorry list. This week's apologies from Mitt Romney and Joe Biden are just the latest in a colorful history of politicians regretting personal lapses large and small. A few recent notables:
He gave no speech, issued no call to action. He spoke of changing alongside the nation's people, not of leading them into uncharted territory. He made sure to say what so many so passionately believe — that states should decide such issues on their own.
He's a smug, Harvard-trained elitist who doesn't get how regular Americans are struggling these days. More extreme than he lets on, he's keeping his true agenda hidden until after Election Day. He's clueless about fixing the economy, over his head on foreign policy. Who is he?
Sure, there's always handwringing about money in politics. This time really is different, though — the first presidential race since the courts changed the rules, clearing the way for secret cash and freeing billionaires and businesses to write multimillion-dollar checks for their favorite candidates. It's the Year of Big Money.
Only yesterday in presidential politics, The Donald was a contender, 9-9-9 was a buzzed-about tax plan, and Sarah Palin was cruising Iowa in a red, white and blue motor coach.
Now is the time for Mitt Romney to mend his Republican fences and bring around those dubious voters who kept spurning him for Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and others to the right. After a nasty primary battle, his challenge is to somehow excite the party's staunchest conservatives without alienating the independent voters he'll need to defeat President Barack Obama in the fall.
After three days of Supreme Court arguments, the questions justices asked the lawyers are the only tea leaves to read, however unreliable. That has led to the belief the fate of the health care law could lie with two justices.
States are complaining that the U.S. government made them a health care offer they can't refuse — but they'd sure like to.
It boiled down to a debate over broccoli. And bread. And burial plots. If government can tell people to buy health insurance, Supreme Court justices wanted to know, what else could it make them buy?
Can the government make Americans carry health insurance? The Supreme Court takes up the constitutional question at the heart of President Barack Obama's health care law Tuesday.
The big thing on the first day was what didn't happen: No justice endorsed the idea that it's too soon for the Supreme Court to take on the health care law.
On the first of three days of arguments on the health care law, Supreme Court justices and lawyers will focus on a basic question: Should we even be here?
Are we there yet? Not quite. Mitt Romney's two steps forward, one flub back campaign continues its tantalizing progress toward a total victory that always seems just ahead.
Death, taxes and now health insurance? Having a medical plan or else paying a fine is about to become another certainty of American life, unless the Supreme Court says no.
The three days of arguments beginning before the Supreme Court on Monday may mark a turning point in a century of debate over what role the government should play in helping all Americans afford medical care. A look at the issue through the years:
Actor Robert De Niro opened a fundraiser starring Michelle Obama by listing her Republican rivals and jokingly suggesting that America isn't "ready for a white first lady." Newt Gingrich was not amused, and the Obama campaign says the quip was inappropriate.
Death, taxes and now health insurance? Having a medical plan or else paying a fine is about to become another certainty of American life, unless the Supreme Court says no.
It's the busiest day of the Republican race for president, but this Super Tuesday probably won't settle much.
Super? Maybe not this time. But it is a Tuesday, one with the biggest payout of the Republican presidential primaries.
Nearly every president ends up saying he's sorry for something America has done — from a bomb gone tragically astray to the locking up of Japanese-Americans during World War II. This time it's disrespectful disposal of Qurans. And again there are critics who see an apology as a sign of weakness or a failure of patriotism.
First birth control, now prenatal testing? Once again a fact of life for many American women has become a jarring issue in the presidential race.
Most Americans don't share Rick Santorum's absolutist take on abortion. He's out of step on women in combat. He questions the values of the two-thirds of mothers who work. He's even troubled by something as commonplace as birth control — for married couples.
Movie super spies James Bond and Jason Bourne use them. So do real-life presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who says he pays his taxes, and untold numbers of Americans who don't. Swiss banks and their secretive counterparts around the globe may sound like the exclusive province of the wealthy, the mysterious or the shady, but anybody can legally open an offshore account.
Just how rich is Mitt Romney? Add up the wealth of the last eight presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Then double that number. Now you're in Romney territory.
Why do kids believe a chubby guy in a flying sleigh can deliver joy across America? Because their parents do. A whopping 84 percent of grown-ups were once children who trusted in Santa's magic, and lots cling to it still.
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