I’m beginning to think the U.S. Senate Democratic majority is slipping away … and rapidly.

A number of Senate Democrats are announcing their retirements after the 2014 mid-term election. And a good number of those Democrats come from Republican-leading states. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., was just the latest. He joins Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., in saying he won’t seek re-election next year. Plus, you have liberal lion Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, bailing out next year – but that seat could stay in Democratic hands if Republicans nominate one of their fruitcakes, such as Rep. Steve “Birther” King to run for the seat.

Other Democratic senators may be facing trouble in states such as Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/morning-examiner-senate-democrats-2014-hopes-keep-getting-dimmer/article/2525637

But the question is this: Is that a bad thing for the country? Possibly no.

I recall in 1995 when the entire Congress flipped from Democratic to Republican control, while the White House remained in Democratic hands. Bill Clinton, who had been elected president two years earlier, learned quickly to work with Republican leaders in both congressional houses and managed to craft some good legislation into law involving welfare reform and tax policy.

If the Senate flips next year and the GOP holds its House majority, that will leave President Obama with the prospect of dealing even more directly with the “loyal opposition.” Can he do it? Will he do it? Like all second-term presidents, Barack Obama is hoping to build a legacy and that must mean finding even more ways to compromise.

Republicans already have shown their hand. They ain’t in the mood for compromise and with a stronger legislative position possible after 2014, they’ll dig in their heels even more.

Obama has several templates from which to work. The Clinton model is one. So, too, is the one that Republican George W. Bush faced when he became Texas governor in 1995, He had a Democratic majority in both legislative chambers but found a way to work hand in hand with a crusty Democratic lieutenant governor, the late Bob Bullock, and Democratic House Speaker Pete Laney, a son of the Texas Panhandle.

The Democrats’ political hand in D.C., though, isn’t looking so strong these days as we move toward the next off-year elections. President Obama had better start planning now for ways to turn bad political news into a positive policy development.

CNN has been all over a story regarding the May 2011 commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

It involves an apparent dispute over which of the SEALs fired the shots that took out the world’s most notorious terrorist.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/26/world/bergen-who-killed-bin-laden/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this story is that it’s even taking place. Whatever happened to espirit de corps? We are now being treated to an exhibition of dueling accounts regarding the top-secret mission by a team of the world’s most elite fighting units. Frankly, I find the whole thing disgraceful.

Bin Laden’s death was conducted in the dead of night by a combined force of Navy SEALs, CIA operatives and Army Special Forces pilots. I always had understood that the men who took part in that raid lived by a code, that the team did the job and that none of them would take individual credit for firing the fatal shots.

Indeed, a lengthy article in The New Yorker not long after the raid told of President Obama’s visit with SEAL Team 6 at Fort Campbell, Ky., and how the men who met the president wouldn’t tell him who did the deed. The story told of how the Secret Service advised the president not to ask the question. He didn’t. Instead, he thanked every member of the team collectively for completing the harrowing mission successfully.

Now comes a member of the SEAL team saying in a recently published book that he fired the shot that killed bin Laden. Others are disputing the claim, saying that someone else did it.

As much as I would love one day to shake the hand of the man who put bin Laden out of our misery, there are some things none of us needs to know.

All that matters is Osama bin Laden is dead. Each of the SEALs who stormed bin Laden’s residence is a hero.

I might have a theory on why the University of Texas System regents can’t keep their hands off UT-Austin’s administrative tasks.

Could it be that the guy who runs the system’s flagship campus, Bill Powers, isn’t a true-blue Longhorn?

I looked it up. Powers received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of California-Berkeley. He then earned his law degree from Harvard University. Both are fine institutions, two of the best in the world. However, it now seems that the regents – who are tasked with setting broad university policy – can’t seem to quit meddling in what ought to be Powers’s administrative purview.

Down the road, in College Station, the Texas A&M University System is being run by a bona fide Aggie, former Texas Comptroller/Railroad Commissioner/state Sen. John Sharp. I guess Sharp is fluent in Aggiespeak, enabling him to avoid the trouble that has befallen Powers over at UT-Austin.

I think the Dallas Morning News editorial board has it right in calling for the UT regents to let the man do his job.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20130326-editorial-regents-quit-micromanaging-ut-and-bill-powers.ece

I realize that Sharp’s role as A&M chancellor is a bit different from Powers’s role as president of the UT-Austin campus. They don’t share the same standing on their respective systems’ organizational charts.

But they both have key administrative roles to play in each institution.

My own advice to the UT board? Butt out.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert keeps bringing on the hits.

The East Texas Republican – who’s made a name for himself by questioning President Obama’s place of birth and by suggesting that citizens armed with semi-automatic weapons are the best defense against mass murderers – has now gotten into a spat with a U.S. National Park Service patrol officer over a parking violation.

What’s more, he reportedly pulled congressional rank by telling the officer he sits on the House committee that controls the Park Service’s purse strings.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/louie-gohmert-cops-parking-ticket-89375.html?hp=t3_3

In an odd way, I love having this guy in Congress. He’s good for a laugh. The problem is that when he makes us laugh, he’s also embarrassing many of his fellow Texans, such as yours truly.

Gohmert questioned whether should have gotten the ticket in the first place. The park officer who cited him, though, said he acted like a bully and “ranted” during the conversation with the officer over issuance of the parking citation.

Good grief. The guy pulls down a six-figure annual salary. He should just pay the fine and keep his trap shut. And spare me the notion that it’s “the principle of the thing.”

Carolyn Heinrich has it spot on. Texans often fancy themselves as being from the best state with the best of everything, but in terms of educational achievement, we’re falling short while leading the way in the taking of tests.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/26/guest-column/

Henrich’s essay in the Texas Tribune lays out some findings about the plethora of tests our public educators demand of our students. Her findings are rather grim. Texas still doesn’t rank very well in achievement. But we sure know how to administer tests.

Is this the kind of thing ol’ H. Ross Perot had in mind when he led the commission that carried his name toward some new educational reforms back in the 1980s? I rather doubt it.

You might remember the Dallas gazillionaire’s demand that the state should concentrate on educating students better in the classroom and worry less about whether we’re producing blue-chip football players. He popped off around 1983 about the lack of achievement. Then-Gov. Mark White called him out and said, in effect, “OK, Ross, I will appoint you chairman of a blue-ribbon commission to come up with educational reforms. Are you game?” Perot accepted the challenge.

The Perot Commission produced a comprehensive reform package, which Perot himself then pitched to civic groups, media representatives and educators all across the state. I saw him deliver one such sales job in Beaumont. He was impressive.

The Legislature then convened a special session in 1984 and approved House Bill 72, which laid out all kinds of new restrictions and procedures. They included a whole range of tests.

How have they worked? Not too well, according to Henrich.

“We have over-invested in testing (as if it was some kind of ‘magic bullet’) and under-invested in other tools for educational improvement,” she writes. Indeed, teachers hate all the tests. Parents don’t like them either. Students? Well, they do what they’re told.

I don’t disagree with the need to have standards that all kids must meet, but we’ve become addicted to the tests, assuming that the good test-takers are going to excel academically. The results say something else.

Maybe we need yet another blue-ribbon commission to fix the remedy.

Ann Coulter told fellow conservative Sean Hannity that the nation needs to elect a true-blue conservative for president next time or the nation is “finished.”

Here’s the exchange she had with Hannity.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/03/26/coulter_on_christie_we_have_to_run_someone_who_can_win_or_the_country_is_finished.html

We’re all entitled to our opinions, correct Ms. Coulter? It’s written somewhere that we are, even though she believes her opinions are worth far more than, say, mine. For that matter, I value my own world view more than I value hers … but I digress.

Actually, I’m uncomfortable using the term “finished.” We’ve gone through many serious crises and come out all right: the Civil War, World Wars I and II, presidential assassination, the threat of nuclear confrontation over missiles in Cuba, immense civil unrest over the Vietnam War, Watergate. Have you heard about those historical events?

I believe the nation would worse off if it elected a conservative cave-dweller who does not comprehend that the nation no longer resembles what it once did. We aren’t just a nation of old, Anglo, middle- and upper middle-class, heterosexual, “nuclear families.” We are changing every single year. The new majority population no longer is white. We are increasingly diverse, no matter how badly some folks want to limit its diversity.

Ann Coulter is an engaging and articulate advocate for her political point of view. She’s just misguided.

That chill under my feet must have been hell freezing over.

How else does one explain the sight of David Boies and Ted Olson – on the same side of a potentially landmark U.S. Supreme Court hearing.

Both men argued before the High Court against Proposition 8, the California law that bans gay marriage in that state. The justices heard their arguments, asked probing questions of both men and now will deliver their decision that same-sex marriage advocates hope determines that “marriage equality” is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

What needs our attention today, though, is how the law can bring two opponents together, fighting for the same outcome.

Boies and Olson once opposed each other. Bush v. Gore. Remember that one? Texas Gov. George W. Bush was elected president of the United States in 2000 after a Supreme Court ruling that ended a recount of ballots in Florida. When the counting stopped, Bush had 500-plus more votes than Vice President Al Gore, winning the state’s electoral votes and capturing the presidency by a narrow Electoral College majority.

Boies represented Gore; Olson represented Bush. Thus, the men – two top-flight lawyers – had been described as bitter legal rivals.

Then a funny thing happened. California voters approved Proposition 8 in 2008 and more than four years later, Olson – who went on to serve as solicitor general in the Bush administration – ended up arguing alongside Boies that marriage equality is a fundamental right of every American citizen.

Some alliances simply defy description. This is one of them.

I truly do not wish bad things to happen to Michelle Bachmann, the loony Minnesota congresswoman who at one point during the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign actually was thought to have a chance of being nominated for the highest office in America.

The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating her campaign for allegedly transferring campaign money illegally.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/25/bachmanns-presidential-campaign-under-investigation-by-congressional-ethics-panel/?hpt=hp_t2

Her people say she’s done nothing wrong. I’ll give her the presumption of innocence until the OCE proves otherwise.

What is kind of a shame, although I do support the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and expression, is that she can’t be investigated for some of the absurdly stupid assertions she made during her brief time under the presidential spotlight.

Such as the time she asserted that a presidential trip to India was costing taxpayers $200 million a day; or when she accused more than 80 percent of congressional Democrats of being communists; or when she – along with Sarah Palin – said the Affordable Care Act would produce “death panels” to determine who lives or dies.

Bachmann’s rhetorical idiocy hasn’t stopped since the election. She recently went before the Conservative Political Action Conference and accused the White House of paying a WH staffer to “walk the president’s dog.” She omitted some key information, of course, which was the staffer happens to be the White House groundskeeper, the guy who keeps the “people’s house” in tip-top shape.

Bachmann has been a lot of fun to watch in recent years. Prior to the 2010 off-year elections, few Americans outside of her Minnesota congressional district even knew who she was. But she’s made a big splash, especially with her stump-speech goofiness.

Sometimes, though, these so-called serious public officials need to be called to account for their outrageousness. I guess we’ll have to settle on determine whether her presidential campaign misused campaign cash.

I suppose I’m hoping she comes out clean on this OCE investiation, if only to keep her available for political comic relief.

The Federal Aviation Administration is considering whether to relax rules that ban the use of in-flight electronic devices. For the techno-geeks out there, that’s good news.

But I have even better news: The FAA is not – repeat, not – considering a change in rules banning in-flight cellphone conversations.

http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/travelkit/disruptions-f-may-loosen-curbs-fliers-use-electronics-1B9053926

I do not consider myself to be a technoid. I was a bit behind the curve in obtaining a cellphone … but that was on purpose. I declared victory in my publicly stated desire to be the last man on the planet to get a cellphone. And the phone I now possess is not a “smart phone,” but rather it’s a dumb device that performs essentially two tasks: It allows me to make phone calls and to receive them.

So, I don’t care much about whether the FAA allows I-Pads and I-Pods and Play Station devices to be used while jetliners are in flight. Have at it, folks. As the article linked here notes, the FAA does allow pilots to use these devices to chart their flight plans. Thus, some folks say, it’s only fair to let passengers have a little fun with these gizmos while they’re sitting in cramped seats back in the passenger compartment, right?

I am happy to report that sanity continues to rule at the FAA, as it regards the use of cellphones.

I can think of few more unpleasant circumstances than to be caught sitting next to someone – in a pressurized aircraft cruising at 35,000 feet above the Earth’s surface – who is chatting nonsensically with God-knows-who on a cellphone. Enduring water torture is worse, I suppose.

I barely can contain myself when I see motorists blabbing on these devices, even though Amarillo has said this activity is now illegal.

Our streets are crawling with lawbreakers, City Hall!

The day the FAA allows that kind of activity on board commercial jetliners is the day I stop flying anywhere. I am guessing I won’t be the only one who’ll stay on the ground.

John Sharp wanted to be Texas lieutenant governor so badly he ran twice for the office, but lost – in order – to Rick Perry and David Dewhurst.

But as the Texas Tribune reports, these two men – one of whom is a college classmate of Sharp – have become his major political allies. And it’s bringing good things to the institution that Sharp now leads.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/24/m-sharp-charts-smooth-course-major-changes/

Sharp has had his share of electoral success in politics. He served as state senator from Victoria, as a Texas railroad commissioner, as state comptroller (and was the last Democrat to win a statewide office when he won re-election in 1994). He ran for lieutenant governor in 1998, losing to Perry by a narrow margin and again in 2002, losing to Dewhurst also narrowly.

Then the Texas A&M University System needed a chancellor. Who were Sharp’s biggest fans? Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, who argued that  Sharp’s legislative skill would serve him well as the Aggies’ chancellor, and finally, Gov. Perry, who appointed his former rival-turned-pal to the post in 2011.

It’s paying dividends for the system, which has taken off on smooth waters while stormy seas have made life difficult for the folks over at the “other” university, the University of Texas – or as Aggies are fond of calling it, “tu,” which is shorthand for “texas university.”

UT regents are being accused of micromanaging the school’s flagship campus in Austin. UT-Austin President Bill Powers has been in a snit with his bosses over some regents’ alleged interference in administrative matters. Meanwhile, Sharp has been steering the A&M System through some legislative funding successes.

Texas Democrats have been looking for someone to break the Republicans’ elective-office stranglehold in this state. Sharp has come close twice in his most recent bids for statewide office.

Something tells me John Sharp isn’t about to surrender the good gig he’s enjoying in College Station. After all, how much better can it get when the Aggies bolt to the powerhouse Southeastern Conference, more than hold their own on the football field and then have one of their own win the Heisman Trophy?

I’m guessing Chancellor Sharp is a happy man these days.