Doyle McManus

When it comes to national security, Michael V. Hayden is no shrinking violet. As CIA director, he ran the Bush administration's program of warrantless wiretaps against suspected terrorists.

But the retired air force general admits to being a little squeamish about the Obama administration's expanding use of pilotless drones to kill suspected terrorists around the world -- including, occasionally, U.S. citizens.

For months, Mitt Romney's rivals in the Republican presidential race have hammered him as a closet moderate, especially on third-rail social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

"Mitt Romney: Not conservative," charged one recent and typical television commercial sponsored by supporters of Newt Gingrich.

Is that true? Is Romney really more liberal than he'd have GOP voters believe?

As he unveiled his administration's new blueprint for U.S. defense strategy last week, President Obama sought to vaccinate himself against charges that he was gutting the nation's military.

Even after the strategy is fully implemented, he said, "the defense budget will still be larger than it was at the end of the Bush administration."

It was a bad year for the villains of the world.

Three of the biggest bad guys met their ends: Osama bin Laden, killed by U.S. commandos who stormed his villa in Pakistan in May; Moammar Gadhafi, killed by Libyan insurgents who captured him (with the help of a NATO airstrike) in October; and Kim Jong Il, the ruler of North Korea, who died Dec. 17, reportedly of a heart attack.

Women in Saudi Arabia won a small but promising victory this year. No, they aren't being allowed to drive; that's still forbidden. Most of the time, they still can't work, travel or even open bank accounts without the approval of a male guardian. But they do have this: Saudi women can now buy lingerie in stores from female salesclerks, instead of the sometimes leering men who used to staff the counters. If this modest wave of liberalization continues, they may even get fitting rooms.

Conservatives were quick to accuse President Obama of embracing class warfare in his speech last week in Osawatomie, Kan. And liberal Democrats were thrilled to see a hint of the populist president they had hoped they were voting for in 2008.

The polarized reactions suggest that Obama's speech succeeded in one of its goals: to frame the 2012 election as a clear choice between two philosophies, a contest he might be able to win, instead of a referendum on his own unhappy economic record.

Republican voters face a choice: Do they want to play it safe, or do they feel like taking risks?

For those choosing option one, the obvious candidate is Mitt Romney, whose cautious but uninspiring campaign has attracted the support of roughly one in four Republican voters, but who can't seem to rise above that ceiling. The second, more adventurous alternative is offered by Newt Gingrich, whose edgy conservatism has boosted him to front-runner status alongside Romney, but who now faces the test of making his sometimes unorthodox views palatable to a larger audience.