Ideology

"If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood. And that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does. " — Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, April 8, 2011 "[The statistic Mr. Kyl used] was not intended to be a factual statement ... " — Statement from Mr. Kyl's office to CNN, later that day Actually, about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's services are abortion-related. The overwhelming majority of the organization's work involves cancer screenings, contraception and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

WASHINGTON - For President Bush, who has made fighting terrorism a driving focus of his presidency, the London bombings were a brutal illustration of his frequent admonition that "the war on terror goes on." But the attacks in Britain, the closest U.S. ally, also pointed up a harsh reality for Bush: that four years after 9/11 and his declaration of war on terrorism, Western democracies remain vulnerable to incidents on their own soil. Analysts said the latest incident could help Bush regain domestic support for the war in Iraq, which he argues is critical to preventing attacks in the United States.

NOTHING is more contemptible," Joseph Alsop told me when I took up this line of work, "than a columnist without a Weltanschauung."A coherent worldview is tough to come by these days because the main threat to freedom has shifted from militant communism to what John Leo has named "ethnomania," more tribalism than nationalism. It is exploding around Bosnia, the test NATO is failing, and is advancing in what used to be the communist bloc.Does Bill Clinton have a worldview? He may be taking one from the former Time magazine columnist Strobe Talbott, translator of Khrushchev's memoirs, a longtime Friend of Bill gaining pre-eminence in foreign affairs.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A few days after Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his run for governor, Fox News pundit Brit Hume sounded hopeful. "California is a special case," he said, "a place where conservatives and Republicans have been doing nothing but suck canal water now for a decade or so. And their standards of how pure you have to be, I think, are going to be very forgiving in this race, which will help Schwarzenegger." Such predictions ignore a subterranean reality: Mr. Schwarzenegger's candidacy threatens to expose a deep fault line below the surface of long-standing GOP ideology -- the disconnect between championing "the free market" and extolling the centrality of "family values."

Paris -- When Amsterdam's professional soccer team, Ajax o Amsterdam, takes the field to play other Netherlands clubs, a hissing, whistling sound rises from the stands occupied by the opposing club's supporters.What is this meant to be? The sound of gas escaping from the gas chambers of Nazi death camps. Why? In the 1930s, Ajax was the favorite club of the Jewish middle class of Amsterdam. Ever since, it has been called the Jewish team.Today, according to a report in the Paris daily, Le Monde, about 20 percent of the crowd that turns out for Ajax is Jewish.

BOSTON -- Every year, I commemorate August 26, the anniversary of the passage of women's suffrage, by paying homage to my foremothers. I gather together a prestigious one-woman jury to dispense the Equal Rites Awards. This is a highly competitive set of honors awarded only to those who have done their best to do the very worst for women.This year the good news is that scientists discovered that we are not direct genetic descendants of Neanderthals. The bad news is that so many Neanderthal act-alikes continue to cavort in our midst.

Just the image of the Rev. Billy Graham, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew shown in profile praying together at the podium of the 1968 Republican National Convention would be enough to recommend "With God On Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America."Depending on where you take up residence along the political spectrum, you could feel either a sense of sadness for what might have been with such a mighty marriage of politics and prayer or, instead, the overwhelming desire to write a sarcastic caption under the picture saying, "Which of these ever-so-pious-looking Christians is not about to be exposed as a crook?"

PARIS -- In physical and political presence, an American is reminded most of Franklin Roosevelt when considering France's former President Francois Mitterrand, who died Monday.The face, the profile, the conscious style that imposed itself even from Roosevelt's wheelchair, the consummate subtlety in political practice, the total pragmatism and lack of ideology -- the lack of principle, their enemies said! -- and finally, and above all, their ambition and perseverance, were parallel qualities.

WASHINGTON - President Bush sidestepped Congress and installed John R. Bolton as his envoy to the United Nations through a recess appointment yesterday, three days after the Senate adjourned for the summer without breaking a bitter deadlock on the nomination. In making the appointment, Bush brushed aside the stinging objections of Democrats - who accused Bolton of abusing underlings and twisting intelligence to suit his conservative ideology - and strong reservations among some Republicans - who have said sending the embattled official to the United Nations without Congress' blessing could undermine U.S. foreign policy interests.

Smart Growth rewards efforts to stop sprawl The one good thing about George Liebmann's scattershot critique of Smart Growth is that he at least believes that it is in the best interest of all Marylanders to work toward smarter, more sustainable patterns of growth and development ("Time to enlist new forces to fight sprawl," Opinion Commentary, Oct. 2). Unfortunately, many of his facts are wrong. Mr. Liebmann's most glaring error is his statement that the state is subsidizing sprawl by devoting 80 percent of its school construction program to new buildings.