Michael Hirsh

The most terrifying moment in modern economic history occurred two years ago this month. For several long days after the fall of Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15, 2008, the financial system was in danger of total collapse, and the United States seemed on the precipice of another Great Depression.

The most powerful woman in American politics has kept her head down for most of the first 18 months of her tenure as secretary of state. She is also by far the most unscathed senior member of a badly battered administration. And the once defeated Democratic candidate may have the most promising political prospects of just about anyone in the administration.

In marking the end of America's combat role in Iraq, President Obama sought to shift his priorities to the United States' own deep problems at home. "We have met our responsibilities. It is time to turn the page," Obama told the nation from the newly refurbished Oval Office, seeking to open a new chapter in his troubled presidency.

In his speech tonight, the president must do the impossible: plan a finish to a war without end.

Why the 44th president is no FDR—and the economy is still in the doldrums.

America may be declining, but don't despair.

As the grim jobs news continues, and with no hope for more government stimulus, the president finds himself without a solution.

President Obama's economic team is the ultimate insiders' club, which is exactly why an outsider is needed to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

No one doubts that Michael Steele suffers from chronic foot-in-mouth disease. So when Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, declared recently that Afghanistan was a war that Obama had chosen, and that America shouldn't get bogged down in a place where "everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed," he initially encountered the usual reaction from conservatives leery of his leadership: derision and calls to resign.

The new regulations are a step in the right direction. But political concessions weakened the effort and left many important decisions unresolved.

The funnyman turned freshman senator has quietly made himself a force to be reckoned with in Washington.

A prosecutor best known for putting terrorists behind bars is about to take on one of the biggest challenges of his career—proving Goldman Sachs committed fraud.

Glass-Steagall, meet Dodd-Frank. The Wall Street reform bill makes big changes, but the too-big-to-fail monster still lives. The big banks are as essential as ever.

The abrupt dismissal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal for making inappropriate remarks and the simultaneous announcement that he would be succeeded by his superior, CentCom Commander David Petraeus, papered over Obama's real problem: the counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy that McChrystal championed and Petraeus virtually invented may be fatally flawed, at least as it's practiced in Afghanistan.

The Obama team may be overcompensating for the mistakes made by George W. Bush, who possessed a too-great eagerness to expand the idea of radical Islamism in order to gin up the war against Iraq—though it was unrelated to Al Qaeda—and to connect the "war on terror" to all extremist groups, including Hamas and Hizbullah.

On Wednesday, the Treasury Department announced the latest in a series of sanctions slapped against Iranian financial companies. But a question was put to Undersecretary Stuart Levey at the news conference: why not make Iran's choice suddenly and unmistakably, rather than "increasingly," clear?

The reason you can't give regulators (of Wall Street or big oil) too much "discretion" is that they'll always be outsmarted by the private sector. That's why standards have to be spelled out in the law.

Another misstep by Israel—a flotilla raid that brought Gaza back into focus—has tanked Washington's plan to stop Iran, advance peace talks, and heal the region. Why can't Israel focus on what really matters?

If Barack Obama and George W. Bush are like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—opposites in world view and approach—why do they share so many ideas about national security?

The financial-reform bill will do its part to save the economy—by creating jobs for accountants and lawyers.

When is a bill like a doughnut? When it has a huge hole in the center of it, one that is so critical to the success or failure of the bill that it becomes the legislation's defining characteristic.

The biggest financial overhaul since the Great Depression—which has been flirting with incoherence for weeks—lurched backward yet again Wednesday, with a failed vote of 57 to 42 to close off debate in the U.S. Senate.

When are the Europeans going to learn that appeasement doesn't work?

Hamid Karzai, who is on his umpteenth visit to Washington, is a royal pain who has made no secret of his growing anti-Americanism, to the point of threatening to join the Taliban.

Call it the Goldman effect. For whatever reason, it looks as if the Senate is holding firm, for the moment, on tough new regulations on Wall Street. The Street's lobbyists are no longer getting the traction they once did in congressional corridors paved with millions of lobbying dollars.

From J.P. Morgan to Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, the Street's sense of social responsibility seems to have nearly evaporated.

Sen. Carl Levin (Win McNamee/Getty Images) After two years of hemming and hawing in Washington about the real culprits on Wall Street, Sen. Carl Levin's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations finally got to the heart of the matter this morning.

Clinton's played the heavy with Iran, Russia, and even Israel—and her sometimes hawkish views are finding favor with the president.

Hillary Clinton on Obama, Iran, and a world of troubles.

Washington is suddenly looking very unkind to the firm that used to be known as "Government Sachs." Now the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, is planning to focus hearings scheduled for next week at least in part on Goldman Sachs's role in the financial disaster.