Disparate “crises” in three corners of the Obama administration, and the efforts of the political establishment to weave them into a single narrative about presidential decline, have so dominated talk in the nation’s capital these last two weeks that you might think nothing else is going on the world.

The most charitable explanation for the sudden tendency of Republicans and their supporters in the media to compare Benghazi to Watergate – "worse than Watergate" is the usual formulation - is that, 41 years after the crime that eventually led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation, people have forgotten what that episode was all about, or aren’t old enough to remember it.

It is a measure of how corrupt the Afghanistan enterprise has become that, when confronted with allegations he’d received millions of dollars in piles of cash from the CIA, President Hamid Karzai didn’t even bother to deny it.

Thanks to the charitable efforts of our nation’s postal carriers, it doesn’t get much easier for the rest of us to help “Stamp Out Hunger.” Letter carriers across the country will not only be delivering the mail; they’ll also be picking up non-perishable food donations for some special deliveries.

As details emerge about the family history of the two young men charged in the Boston Marathon bombings, one finding has sparked outrage in some quarters. During their 10 years living in Cambridge, the family, legal immigrants from Russia, sometimes received public assistance. Beacon Hill lawmakers, always eager to make themselves look relevant to a big story, are vowing to get to the bottom of it.

Technology can be both a blessing and a curse.

The same devices that make it possible for kids to easily access information in an instant and ace that research paper can also get them into some serious trouble. 

Now that the applause has faded, it’s time for a serious review of the week’s events. Law enforcement may have been good, but it was also lucky, but while there’s no arguing with success, every engagement deserves an after-action assessment.

In the blink of an eye, a beautiful and celebratory Patriots Day was shattered by unthinkable chaos. Twin explosions Monday tragically turned a joyous annual celebration that’s a big slice of life in Massachusetts into yet another national nightmare.

A double bomb blast has killed at least three and injured/crippled many others at the Boston Marathon, among the world’s most prestigious sporting events and something of a rite of spring passage in the U.S. If you wanted to make a gruesome, evil statement with all eyes watching, this fit the bill.

Thick smoke boiling up from a city street, throngs of frightened people running away — the scene was so terribly, eerily familiar.

Could we really be on the precipice of war with North Korea?

The Democrats’ loud calls to bring a gun bill up for a vote seems, at first blush, too modest. Only a vote? Why not a law? But the demand reveals how far we’ve come on this issue in a very short time.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died at age 87, in death only slightly less polarizing than she was in life.

To film critic Roger Ebert, for telling us what movies not to waste our money on, for being such a staunch and compelling advocate for the profession of journalism, for reminding us that downstate guys can make good, for never running out of ways to reinvent himself, and most of all, for showing us how to make the best of being dealt a bad hand.

Those practiced in decrying the cost and social impact of traditional welfare programs have a new target, thanks to the sharp rise in people collecting Social Security Disability Insurance payments.

One of the best things about Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan for funding investments in transportation and education is that, by cutting the sales tax while increasing income taxes, it makes the Massachusetts state tax rate more progressive and more fair.  Unfortunately, it appears House Speaker Robert DeLeo is only prepared to embrace its least fair component: a punitive increase in cigarette taxes.

Two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this week regarding gay marriage represent one of those delicious situations likely to compel Americans — including those nine on the court — to confront their own competing beliefs and biases, and to choose.

Almost 14 years ago, chatting in his California living room with a Peoria Journal Star editor, Vice Admiral James Stockdale — war hero and native of Abingdon, Ill. — was asked, “Was Vietnam a mistake?” If anybody in the world had the right to answer that question and the unique insight to do so without challenge, it was Stockdale, the late Navy pilot who personally was witness to the lie of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that prompted direct U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, who called the Johnson administration out on it years later, who led the squadron that fired the first shots of that conflict in the initial bombing run on North Vietnam, who later spent 71/2 years as the senior POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, who was tortured repeatedly, who missed a big chunk of his kids’ childhoods.

The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope represents a number of firsts for the Roman Catholic Church. He is the first pontiff from the Americas, specifically Argentina; the first Jesuit to hold the position; and the first to take the name Francis. Pope Francis was chosen on day two of the conclave of eligible cardinals, succeeding Pope Benedict XVI, to whom he reportedly finished as runner-up in 2005.

So the United Nations Security Council is preparing to unanimously pass a new lineup of sanctions against North Korea for blowing up another nuclear bomb underground — its third — and Pyongyang and its little leader are all bent out of shape at ... the United States? Tell it to China.