KEVIN O'BRIEN

Cleveland Plain Dealer Columnist

If you like efficiency, you've got to admire -- this is best done from a respectful distance -- the H1N1 virus. It's compact, nimble, adaptable, opportunistic and it works for free. To combat it, we rely on a government that is massive, awkward, inflexible, ponderous and costly.  Full story »

The White House's and Democrats' worst fear is that Americans will figure out that health care "reform" -- the House version, the Senate version, the White House version, they all lead to the same government control -- is a scam.  Full story »

Kevin O'Brien: America has a lot more talking to do about health care reform, and it should take as long as necessary to come up with a sensible approach. Full story »

Providing energy-efficient light bulbs is just one way we can help our customers save money while also helping the environment," FirstEnergy's Web site proclaims. Except that FirstEnergy really isn't "providing" them. Its customers are, at tremendously inflated cost, columnist Kevin O'Brien writes. Full story »

With all the trouble in the world, of course President Barack Obama is going to Copenhagen to get the Olympics for Chicago. He desperately needs some kind of international victory. Full story »

Boy, does today feel like Sept. 10, or what? Here we stand, just at the edge of fall, that most congenial of seasons. Soon, the leaves will blaze with color and the air will turn invigoratingly crisp. Pro football starts this weekend. The kids are back in school and our parent-in-chief just gave them a nice, fatherly lecture about the... Full story »

With all due respect to Cassandra Barham of Cincinnati, whose personal desire for health insurance is perfectly understandable, and to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose confusion is not: Health care is not and cannot be a "right." Barham drew boos at a town hall conducted Tuesday by Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown when she said, "You know, health... Full story »

Islamic terrorists haven't been riding this high in almost eight years. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, they were riding United and American at roughly 900 feet when they hit the World Trade Center; lower when they hit the Pentagon. By that afternoon, the terror masters and their foot soldiers were in the stratosphere, having sucker-punched the Great Satan.... Full story »

Let's say someone came up with a meticulously thought out, well-designed, tightly written government health care plan -- a plan so simple, so clear, so easily understood and so strictly limited in its potential interpretations that it could stand the test of a full and thorough debate. Obviously, I'm not talking about anything that's knocking around the majority side of... Full story »

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm surprised -- and not necessarily pleasantly -- to see so many of you here. And so very well-dressed. I really thought that scheduling a town hall at 4 a.m. in the worst part of town I could find would cut down on attendance, but it looks as if we've got a lot of early... Full story »

The White House has been showcasing a little muscle lately. I'm not talking about sending Bill Clinton to North Korea to schmooze loose a couple of American hostages. Yes, it's great that they're home. Now we can all get back to ignoring the likelihood that the North Koreans will someday figure out how missiles work and duct-tape a nuke to... Full story »

This round of the health coverage debate is a long way from over, so Americans are by no means safe from the effort to destroy their health care system and leap to the end-game of a 100-year campaign by "progressives" to transform government from the people's servant to their master. But the glimmer of hope that good sense may yet... Full story »

It's your lucky day, Cleveland. Dr. Obama's Traveling Medicine Show is in town. Step right up, folks. Press in close around the wagon and hear the good doctor pronounce with preternatural poise on the prodigiously potent properties of his potion, a panacea so powerful that he predicts -- nay, promises! -- that it will prevail even over the laws of... Full story »

Ohio has a budget. With an expiration date of July 14. So the Great Slots Debate, which must be resolved somehow before Ohio can figure out how it will collect and spend its money over the next year or two, will grind on for at least a little while longer. I wouldn't play a slot machine if I came down... Full story »

It's International Empty Threat Week, and this year's big events are happening right here in the United States. To cap the week's festivities, Hawaiians will be looking skyward Saturday not only for the traditional Independence Day fireworks, but for an incoming North Korean missile. Kim Jong Il, ever hopeful of becoming the petty tyrant whose name is on everyone's lips,... Full story »