E. J. Dionne Jr.

Ever hear the German phrase Arbeit macht frei? The literal translation is fairly neutral: "work makes you free." But the reason the phrase resonates for people around the world is because when Jews, gypsies, union leaders, gays and other victims of the right-wing apocalypse of the 1940s arrived at the Auschwitz, Theresienstadt and Dachau death camps this phrase, in metal letters, was the first thing they saw above the gates. Work did not make them free.

Plus update: At Mozilla, Prop 8 supporter is out"From now on, will there be more healthy skepticism about conservative claims against the ACA? Given how many times the law's enemies have said the sky was falling when it wasn't, will there be tougher interrogation of their next round of apocalyptic predictions?"-- E. J.

Over the weekend, E.J. Dionne suggested in the Washington Post that Democratic Party strategists are blowing the 2014 midterm cycle. "Listlessness is bad politics. Defensiveness is poor strategy. And resignation is never inspiring."

It may be hard for normal people to understand that there are actually candidates to the right of Thom Tillis running for Senate in North Carolina and that he's playing the role of the Establishment (Art Pope) shill. Tillis was first elected to the North Carolina legislature by beating a more mainstream Republican, John Rhodes, in a primary in 2006 and 4 years later was elected by the far right as Speaker.

"At a time when the political news is dominated by a debate between do-little conservatism and do-nothing conservatism -- which is to say, between a right-tilting Republican establishment and the radical tea party -- [Senator] Gillibrand's package includes building blocks for a broader counter-vision inspired by the idea of an Empowering Government."-- E. J.

by KenThe working theory tonight is that a picture is worth, well, a whole lotta words, and above you have a picture, not just of how washingtonpost.com's opinion e-updates usually look when they arrive in my e-mailbox, with this weird line breakage that pushes authors' names up into cahoots with the (actual) previous author's column blurb, but an actual reproduction of the way this morning's opinion roundup looked, making it appear to the uncareful glancer as if Washington Post editor

Is it really much consolation to the president to be linkable to this pack of born-and-bred nitwits and liars?"For Obama, there is no escaping health care. He needs to engage in an aggressive new defense that acknowledges problems in the individual market. . . . But he also has to grapple with the wider causes of discontent. . . . He can survive his enemies. He needs to win back the citizens who were once his friends."-- E. J.

Someone's got to have the best voting record in Congress, might as well be Mark!Wednesday I got an e-mail from the Gay And Lesbian Victory Fund with the subject line "What a Night!" And what a night it was for them!

by KenI make no secret of the fact that I love Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne Jr., not least for his seemingly unshakable decency. Even the bad people he finds it necessary to dress down come out sounding less, well, indecent in his retelling.