President Obama’s appointment of Rashad Hussain, his deputy associate counsel, as special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations, charged with safeguarding and protecting “the interests of the Muslim world,” should be of serious concern to Congress and the American public.

“What experience and history teach is this — that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, “The Philosophy of History,” 1837)

President Obama was right to converse with congressional Republicans last Friday in Baltimore. Cynics may label it as political theater, but I suspect the public appreciated the give-and-take.

Among the interesting arguments in last week’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision granting corporations First Amendment protections when making campaign contributions was the majority’s decision to effectively treat corporations as persons.

The secular left — and some self-described Christians — criticize Brit Hume, the Fox News commentator, for suggesting that the solution to Tiger Woods’ problems is a relationship with Jesus Christ. Hume made his remarks on “Fox News Sunday.” Disclosure: I also appear on Fox News.

Suppose Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the Christmas Day underwear bomber, had succeeded and blown up Northwest Airlines flight 253, killing nearly 300 people on board and perhaps others on the ground? Would the response of the Obama administration have been different?

Had it not been for a malfunctioning detonator, nearly 300 people traveling on a Christmas Day flight might have perished. Only the faulty device, along with some fast-acting passengers, prevented a disaster.

Most people who haven’t finished (or even begun) their shopping are starting to worry about what gifts to give a friend, relative or spouse. Quick, what did you give or receive last year? How about two years ago? Most of us can’t remember, unless it was a big-ticket item.

Early in my column-writing career I took note of comments by the singer Madonna. A skin magazine had published nude photos of her, taken when she was a teenager. An interviewer asked if she was ashamed about having posed for them. She threw the question back, saying something like, “What have I got to be ashamed of?”

In 1952, Shepherd Mead wrote a little book called “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” In 1961, it became an award-winning Broadway musical. It’s an instruction book about how a young man with lots of drive and cunning can rise from the mailroom to the top of the company. One of the songs from the musical, sung by the main character, J. Pierrepont Finch, is “I Believe in You.” Finch sings it to a mirror.

Assuming a rock-solid 40 Republicans stand against the healthcare reform bill now being debated in the Senate, it will take just one Democrat or independent to derail this monstrosity, which along with its House companion, may be the most disastrous piece of legislation ever to be this close to enactment by Congress.

I’m sure I would like Sarah Palin if I got the chance to meet her. We share many things in common. She is still married to her first spouse, as am I. She has a Down syndrome son. I have a brother with Down syndrome. We share the same faith and we both like the outdoors. She is conservative on economic and social issues, and so am I.

Not all revolutions begin in the streets with tanks and guns. Some advance slowly, almost imperceptibly, until a nation is transformed and the public realizes too late that their freedoms are gone.

Government and military officials have issued statements since last week’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas that have nothing to do with the reality of what occurred, what is occurring and what our enemies would still like to have occur all over the United States.

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

Does anyone in Washington tell the truth? Why should Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid be believed when he promises states can “opt-out” of a public option on healthcare? This isn’t like opting out of sex education class. Individuals won’t be able to avoid the consequences of national healthcare once the government puts the insurance companies out of business, because there will be no other choice than the government program.

During the Cold War, the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were among the broadcast entities that effectively penetrated the Iron Curtain to deliver truth to the “captive nations” that were being fed a steady dose of propaganda by their communist rulers.

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” — William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Why won’t we listen to what used to be called sage advice before the Internet made too many of us think we are re-inventing the world and nothing we think or try has ever been thought or tried before?

When I was a kid, there was a bully in our neighborhood. He never picked on kids his own size and certainly not on anyone larger. Rather, he punched, pushed and kicked kids smaller and weaker than himself, especially those who refused to respond to his threats.

Who wrote the following: “We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about ‘unthinkable things’ because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.”

Despite their control of all three branches of government, this has not been a good summer for liberal Democrats.

Their health care “reform” bill, which has yet to be fully written, much less fully funded, has been exposed at town hall meetings as a power grab over life and death with the strong possibility that “do no harm” will be replaced by a utilitarian approach to treatment.

Most of my adult life has been intertwined with the Kennedy family. As a freshman at American University in 1960, I stayed up late watching the election returns, as John F. Kennedy barely eked out a victory over Richard Nixon. As with most Americans my age, the decades that followed always involved one or more members of the Kennedy family, whether it was legislation, indiscretions, speeches or just curiosity.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote an op-ed column for The Washington Post last week in defense of the Obama administration’s efforts to “reform” healthcare.

“How high’s the water, mama?

Two feet high and risin’...”

That old Johnny Cash song is a useful metaphor for an approaching disaster should the Obama administration’s “flood” of new programs — and spending on old ones — continue.

President Obama’s nomination of Dr. Francis S. Collins to head the National Institutes of Health is an excellent choice, but it troubles some secularists who believe science should proceed unrestrained by any higher principles than what can be achieved in a laboratory.

Most of us are familiar with the old expressions: Look before you leap; a stitch in time saves nine; if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. These phrases remind us to think before accepting anything as fact. And never have they been more applicable then now, as the Obama administration attempts to re-fashion the healing arts.

“How fevered is the man who cannot look

Upon his mortal days with temperate blood,

Who vexes all the leaves of his life’s book,

Some people have certain presumptions — for example, that government is better suited to handling problems than individuals or private entities. And then there are the accompanying assumptions that government, for those who have faith in its supposedly superior capabilities, will always produce the desired outcome.

Not so long ago in a vastly different media environment there were such things as journalistic ethics. Reporters were prohibited from taking trips paid for by individuals or groups they might cover. They couldn’t accept money for speeches. And they surely could not accept money or gratuities in exchange for reporting on a story in which a corporation or individual might have an interest. Too much socializing with sources was also frowned upon.

A statue of Ronald Reagan was unveiled last week in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda at a time when many Republicans, and even some conservatives, think Reagan’s ideas are passe. Before moving on, Republicans, and those conservatives who don’t want to “live in the past,” should be asked what better ideas they have to offer.