I’m not crazy about congressional Democrats right now.

As I write this, congressional Democrats are engaged in a furious partisan battle to pass their idea of health care reform. Alas, it is an idea the majority of Americans do not share. It is in fact an idea that the majority of congressmen do not share, which is why President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are twisting arms, bribing, cajoling and threatening all manner of mischief in order to eke out a majority vote—or non-vote—on a bill the people have made clear they do not want. They may succeed.

(NNPA)—This week, the National Urban League will join the Congressional Black Caucus in a “jobs surge” hearing on Capitol Hill to listen directly to some of the more than 15 million Americans, a disproportionate number of whom are African-American and Hispanic, who are struggling to survive in the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The percentage of high school students who went on to college or trade school within a year of finishing high school climbed from 47 percent in 1973 to 67 percent in 2007. That’s good news; our students are falling behind other industrialized nations in terms of graduation rates and we must play catch up. The bad news is that many young people, gifted in their own ways, don’t feel college is for them simply because they don’t thrive in the classroom.

In his column on Friday in The New York Times, conservative pundit David Brooks offered a surprisingly clear-eyed view of the Obama presidency more than a year into its first term—and the challenges that a rigidly partisan political culture poses for a leader like Obama.

Conservative Republicans denounce Obama as “a big-government liberal,” Brooks writes, who plays “by ruthless, Chicago politics”: “arrogant toward foes, condescending toward allies.” Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, complain that Obama is “an inspiring but overly intellectual leader who has trouble making up his mind and fighting for his positions. He has not defined a clear mission. He has allowed the Republicans to dominate debate.”