Has John F. Kerry turned into the unexpected star of President Barack Obama’s second term?He was Obama’s second choice as secretary of state (after Susan Rice). He’s the same windy, stiff Bostonian who ran unsuccessfully for president a decade ago. And he has taken on a list of assignments that looked distinctly unpromising: nuclear negotiations with Iran, peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the civil war in Syria.But in 10 months, Kerry has embarked on a whirlwind of diplomacy. He helped

Viewpoints Dec. 11, 2013

A couple of weeks ago, accosted on the street by paparazzi, MSNBC talk show host Alec Baldwin spontaneously uncorked a homophobic slur. The result: The network kicked him off the air, for good.About the same time, another MSNBC host, Martin Bashir, delivered a scripted on-air commentary in which he said that somebody should urinate and defecate in Sarah Palin’s mouth. The result: He had to apologize.Last year, Rush Limbaugh called a young woman who testified to a congressional committee in suppo

Viewpoints Dec. 11, 2013

Joe Biden’s trip to northeast Asia has left some in Japan feeling abandoned. By not demanding that China roll back its new “air defense identification zone,” the U.S. vice president tacitly accepted the controversial zone as a fait accompli.Yet a tougher stance would have led nowhere. China is not about to retract the zone under U.S. pressure. To lay down that red line would only keep emotions in the region at fever pitch. Leaders should instead look to lower tensions and begin rational discussi

Viewpoints Dec. 10, 2013

Women in Japan are used to being underutilized, condescended to and exploited. Must they play a role in Newt Gingrich’s cheap Washington partisanship, too?The U.S. news media are gleefully running a video from Joe Biden’s visit to Tokyo that supposedly depicts the U.S. vice president as an out-of-touch sexist. On Dec. 3, Biden and Caroline Kennedy, the first female U.S. ambassador to Japan, visited DeNA Co., a Japanese Internet company founded by a woman that does a better job than most of takin

Viewpoints Dec. 10, 2013

Nelson Mandela sold out black South Africans. Now there’s a sentence you won’t have heard in the days since his death and that you won’t be hearing at his memorial tomorrow. Yet it’s incontrovertibly true that after centuries of being robbed of possibly the greatest mineral wealth the world has ever known, not to mention decades of being repressed by apartheid, black South Africans got almost no compensation for what should rightfully have been theirs when the old regime was swept away for the n

Viewpoints Dec. 10, 2013

Korea has expanded its air defense identification zone to assert its sovereignty and maximize national interests in the face of China’s unilateral announcement of an expanded zone last month. As expected, Korea’s new ADIZ encompasses Ieodo, a submerged rock some 150 kilometers off Marado, the nation’s southernmost island. China angered Korea by including the reef in its new perimeter, ignoring Korea’s jurisdiction over it. The Seoul government also included in the new ADIZ part of Korea’s territ

Editorial Dec. 9, 2013

Formula One is commonly claimed to be one of the world’s three biggest sporting spectacles, the other two being the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. For most motor sports followers, Formula One is regarded as the pinnacle. Yet this hugely popular event does not command a large following in Korea, making it difficult for the organizer of the F1 race in Korea ― the government of South Jeolla Province ― to continue to host it. Last week, the International Automobile Federation dropped Korea fr

Editorial Dec. 9, 2013

Five years after the onset of its worst recession, the European Union’s economic recovery remains painfully slow. Has anything been learned from this dismal performance about how governments can combat severe recessions? The answer is yes ― but sadly, the clearest lessons are the ones governments seem least likely to apply.It would be hard to deny that Europe’s record has been awful. Over the past four years, gross domestic product in the euro area has grown by less than 3 percent; output fell s

Viewpoints Dec. 9, 2013

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan instructed federal agencies that they could issue regulations only after demonstrating that their benefits justified their costs. With modest changes, Reagan’s successors, both Republican and Democratic, have continued to impose this requirement on agencies considering rules designed to protect clean air, food safety, workplace safety and much more.But a crucial question remains: Can the government’s numbers be trusted, or are they just a lot of hot air?In Washin

Viewpoints Dec. 9, 2013

Every once in a very great while, we get these people who rise above the confines of self. Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday at the age of 95, was one of those. He navigated his life by the polestar not of self, but of freedom and in so doing, became the founding father of a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal.It is not that he was a perfect man. “In real life,” he once wrote, “we deal, not with gods, but with ordinary humans like

Viewpoints Dec. 9, 2013

Conservatives who worry about the ill effects of marginal tax rates on high earners rarely discuss the even higher marginal tax rates that some low- and moderate-income families face. A low-income single parent can experience a marginal rate as high as 95 percent ― for each dollar earned, the person takes home only 5 cents. And for married parents, the marginal rate for the family’s secondary earner can be almost as high.This happens mostly because various means-tested benefit programs are phase

Viewpoints Dec. 8, 2013