If the gods punished political candidates for chutzpah, there was one moment during the vice-presidential debate when a dozen lightning bolts from the hand of Zeus should have instantly fried Paul Ryan into cinders.

In the middle of an exchange on tax policy, Ryan looked at Biden and said, “You know, I understand you guys aren’t used to doing bipartisan deals…”

We’re all accustomed to unlimited portions of self-serving cant from our politicians, Democratic or Republican, but to hear a currently serving Republican member of Congress accuse the Obama administration of being insufficiently bipartisan...

Camille Paglia, art historian, culture critic, founding Salon columnist and expert provocateur, has a new book out, “Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars” that looks closely at 29 wide-ranging works — paintings to sculpture to performance art to digital art — that she sees as defining works of art. And for the voluble and volatile Paglia, the lean precision of the book is a marvel...

The most vivid scene in Bob Woodward’s new book has almost nothing to do with his central narrative, but reveals a lot about the narrator. The scene takes place in February of 2009, as Congress is laboring to ward off an economic collapse. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker, is hunkered down in her office with Harry Reid, her Senate counterpart, to negotiate a stimulus bill that can pass both chambers. This is no easy task. The bill must be modest enough to survive a Republican filibuster, but ambitious enough to satisfy Pelosi’s liberal caucus. But, then, these are veteran legislators—born deal-makers at that. They get to work with all the seriousness you’d expect....

With all due respect to my colleagues in the media, I am pretty sure that most of them have, over the past week, collectively gone out of their minds. Let’s review the last seven days in American politics: At Wednesday’s debate, President Obama made no obvious gaffes, but he did look tired, stuttered occasionally, and generally failed to be as combative as his supporters would have liked. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, who has run one of the most reactionary campaigns in recent American history, presented himself as a centrist. He also got in a few good zingers and looked well rested.

None of this seemed all that dramatic while it was happening. But following the debate, many of my fellow journalists, liberal and conservative alike, reacted as if Obama had behaved on camera like Charlie Sheen—as if his performance, rather than being merely flawed, was somehow fundamentally appalling, even offensive. Over the past week, this storyline has completely taken over an election that was previously about two very different philosophies of government...

When I close my eyes and think back to the year I spent in Afghanistan, the more sinister recollections have been somewhat sanitized, like an R-rated film edited for broadcast. The scenes are still there, but less poignant—they don’t get air the way they did when they were fresh in my mind. I don’t allow them to.

As the 2014 deadline to end America’s longest war approaches, the attacks on U.S. and NATO advisers at the hands of their Afghan protégés have become a new component in the conversation about what’s really going on there. But I’m surprised there hasn’t been more talk about so-called green-on-blue incidents or insider attacks already...

A courageously outspoken 14-year-old is fighting for her life in Pakistan tonight. Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head and the neck by unidentified gunmen on her way home from school today in Mingora, the largest city in the Swat Valley. The Pakistani Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack. Ihsanullah Ihsan, a spokesman for the militants’ umbrella group, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told reporters in Peshawar that she was targeted for her anti-Taliban views. Two of her schoolmates were also injured in the attack...

Swipe, swipe, pinch-zoom. Fifth-grader Josephine Nguyen is researching the definition of an adverb on her iPad and her fingers are flying across the screen. Her 20 classmates are hunched over their own tablets doing the same.

Conspicuously absent from this modern scene of high-tech learning: a mouse.

Nguyen, who is 10, said she has used one before — once — but the clunky desktop computer/monitor/keyboard/mouse setup was too much for her.

“It was slow,” she recalled, “and there were too many pieces.”...

Two-thirds of the $50 million spent on Mitt Romney’s behalf in Ohio has come from outside “super PACs” and other so-called independent groups, and yet Mr. Romney has lagged behind in all of the major Ohio polls. Hundreds of millions in third-party spending from unlimited checks, much of it from undisclosed donors, has also failed to give Mr. Romney a clear lead in any of the other swing states.

If Mr. Romney loses the presidential race — which is far from a sure thing — does that mean the big check writers will declare the process a waste of money and stay out of politics the next time around? Don’t count on it...

The much-hyped mock debate between Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly billed as the Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium saw the two longtime frenemies face off before a packed auditorium at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Saturday night. The main audience for the event was supposed to be online but those who forked up $4.95 to stream the debate online, were often met with frustration as servers seemingly crashed from the demand. Many fans took to Twitter and Facebook to air their rage, many saying they had planned their Saturday night around the rumble. Even Roger Ebert was none too happy...