this week on "the journal editorial report, ""from the obama care implosion, we take a look back at the big stories from 2013. and our panel picks for the hits and misses of the year. welcome to this special edition of "journal editorial report," our look back at the biggest stories of 2013. joining us is dan heninger. columnist mary anastio mcgrady.

dan, certainly a lot to talk about. ways your choice? >> i think obviously the biggest story of the year was obama care. officially the affordable care act. it also has a story, it has told us about the future of liberal governance. barack obama came into the presidency. the first inaugural speech, he told us he was going to deliver benefits from the government, the government should be able to do that. in fact, two weeks ago, he said we are all the american people the government. the government is us. they introduced obama care. the first thing that didn't work was the website. it just didn't function. this was when people expect websites to work. i think in some ways, more important thing is the cancellation of the policies. limited choice of doctors. this was not a failure of the act. it was intended to work this way. in other policies would be terminated, people would go

into the ones defined by the act because they were broader and this would be a good thing. instead of being a good thing, people are turning against the idea of a plan like this. normally, big government operates below the surface. this one has been all up for everyone to see. it's been a bad experience for promoters. >> it's gone directly to the question -- the president's reliability. because his promises, you can keep you were doctor in you like him, directly undermined by the bill itself and the way it's rolled out. also the way it was designed. this was intentional. >> absolutely. you have all these people who voted for the president and now feeling like he actually lied to them. what really amuses me is how the millennials seem to be waking up to this president, that they played a large role in putting into office, and now all of a

sudden they're realizing that government doesn't create wealth, it has to come from someone, and they didn't realize it, but they're supposed to be one of the suppliers. >> liberalism is suddenly expensive again. now people are discovering it costs money. a lot -- maybe in other ways. >> i think not just the millenniums but all americans. when you look at polls are returning to the national distrust, the healthy distrust of government, that i think is really our tradition and has served us well. in a lot of ways, it could only get worse. you look at these initial reports that people are not signing up, especially healthy people, especially young people. so what it means is, along with all the problems of the last few months and the canceled policies, you're going to see a big premium spike next year. >> let's move on to another subject. >> my big story for the year is the oil and gas revolution in north america. in the last four year, paul, we've had $150 billion in new foreign direct investment come

into the u.s. in the shale fields. and basically what's happening is we're having a gusher, an oil gusher. we have 800,000 barrels per day increase between now per year, between now and 2016, where we'll reach 9.5 million barrels per day. that's higher than the energy department forecast this time last year. >> that's happening in places like pennsylvania, north dakota, texas. >> this is really a technology revolution. what's happening is the drillers can actually see through the rock because of the seismic -- it's really a seismic technology that allows them to know where the oil is. that's what the real change is. and of course put that together with fracing and you have lots of new supplies. so the u.s. is a big energy producer now. canada has been an oil gusher for at least a decade.

now mexico's buying in by private investment into what has solely been a state-owned sector. >> big competitive implications for manufacturing, in particular, company, users of energy, manufacturers, and chemical industry and so on. >> yeah, it's really -- it's a huge change. it couldn't come at a better time. we catalog all of the mistakes coming out of washington. all of the policies. obama care and other things that are a big drag on hiring. a big drag on productivity. and countering that is roughly $4 natural gas makes manufacturing in the united states a lot more appealing and efficient and competitive. >> let's move on here. for the third. your story, james. >> i think the biggest story of 2013 was the irs scandal. the deliberate targeting of tea party groups leading up to the 2012 election. i think it's really -- as bad as obama care has been, as positive as this energy revolution is, i think the irs scandal is really

the biggest story of the year, because it goes right to the heart of our democratic process. you're talk about an agency the federal government attacking the opponents of the president and really in a close election, possibly having an impact on the outcome. >> why has the scandal vanished then? it seems to have gone away -- >> well, they may not be able to stone wall forever, because what's happened relatively recently is obama appointee is the irs chief counsel, interviewed by house investigators and basically didn't know, avoided answering dozens of questions. as they continue to look for documents, and let's hope the congressional and private litigants continue their effort here, i think we may learn more. >> polls show that belief and faith in government is at an

all-time low. almost dangerously low. an example of the sorts of reasons people have -- no matter what their politics -- to wonder what are is going on in washington. >> and it undermines the ability of government or congress to accomplish goals that might actually be constructive. for example, like immigration reform, things like that. it undermines trust in things we need for our security. >> i mean, you can talk about presidents who refuse -- who lied to us about the war and about hidden munitions and all of that. when you got to obama care and that outright lie this is the most permanent incandescent lie that will live in the hearts of americans. people simply cannot get past it. >> much more to come as we reveal our pick, for the biggest stories of 2013 right after the break.

welcome back to this special year end edition of "the journal editorial report." as we continue with our picks for the biggest stories of 2013. dorothy, what's yours? >> i think now of america's retreat phrase on everybody's lips now and i think of 1941 when henry luth, editor, said america must involve herself, this is the american century. he was talking about a crumbling civilization. >> involve themselves in the war. >> in the war. what would he think now? look back on obama and syria and obama and iran. think about first iran. we have given up, thanks to obama's push, the only ingredient that would have kept iran in check, the sanctions. we've badly loosened them. look back to september when we had the syrian -- 1,400 syrians are murdered by poisoned gas and

everything going forward to essentially take a strike. what happens the next day, president obama comes in and says we're going to turn this over to congress. by the way, they're on vacation, they have time. and kerry chimes in and says yes, we have time. you have to think about what could have happened if obama had been president in 1941 and sending those destroyers when britain was on its way out, about to be defeated? well, you know, turn it over to congress, leadership, the idea of leadership which is you take a stand, go ahead of the people. isolationism when there is a point in the crisis. we are now seeing the reason for american retreat. >> another development in the world this past year was china's new aggressiveness in the east china sea. against some of the southeast asian nations. as the new president xi jinping consolidates power and seems to be giving the people's liberation army what it wants to

do to press its advantage in the western pacific and drive the u.s. out. i give the obama administration better marks. they are actually beginning to push back. >> back to the middle east, i mean, some of the post war alliances such as with saudi arabia that existed for 40 or 50 years are breaking down. egypt is now doing deals with russia. any time you have an alliance system like that disintegrating, the world becomes more disordered. i think that is what is happening in the middle east. the result of the obama government not paying close enough attention to those relationships. >> all right, i get it. i'm going to pick the edward snowden leaks, stolen documents on the national security surveillance programs. did enormous damage to our national security. created big diplomatic incidents with germany and others because we were discovered to be listening in on angela merkel's phone calls. also i think greater damage domestically, politically. because it threatens to break

the post-9/11 consensus across the parties, to fight terrorism. i think this is very dangerous. >> but, paul, you know, you can hardly expect any different outcome when you have a president who has created an environment where nobody trusts what he is doing in washington. and so if the american people are pushing back against, you know, nsa listening, it's because they really don't have any confidence in how they're using the data they collect. >> i agree, given the obama care consumer fraud, irs, hard to trust the government, hard to trust this president. it is important to remember that there are still people in the world trying to kill us and we can't defend every soft target in the united states. we have to be on the offense on intelligence. this is our great advantage over our adversaries, is we do have tech kn technological abilities. >> there hadn't been a single use of the irs the way it was

used by obama until there was. so i don't think that's a good defense. i think basically -- >> how about punishing the irs offenses so we can have some confidence if people abuse the nsa, then they will be punished. >> precisely. i think the way you explain the failure of this consensus, the fact that this president has abused his power. >> it is a great irony of this era, paul, that president obama wanted to restore trust in government, has really brought it to a new low since i don't know knicnixon perhaps. >> i just don't understand how we can find any expo tation of mr. snowden at any point, including president obama. that one just won't work. >> all right, we're going to give you a shot here at snowden again. still ahead, as we look back at 2013, our panel's pick for hits and misses of the year.

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time now for our hits and misses of the year. let's start on a high note with the hits. dan. >> well, paul, i'm going to give a hit to the good old american economy. i mean, what has been the watch word around the economy for the past three years? uncertainty. uncertainty has occurred because of obama care, the fact we've only had about 2% growth for three years. dodd/frank was introduced. for all that, the economy has begun to push back to 3% growth. the tech sector is thriving. companies are well managed. i think the potential upside is tremendous. it, as ronald reagan used to say, the government will simply get out of the way. >> you think gridlock in washington, such as it is, with not much happening, it may actually be a benefit? >> no question. there's a school of thought, they should be gridlocked forever, the economy would boom.

>> go ahead. >> i was going to say the good news i've learned from reading mary's columns is it's very hard to kill an economy. you have some room for error. been a lot of mistakes in this looks like the economy is managing to keep growing. >> all right, dorothy, your hit. >> this goes, oddly enough, to mayor bloomberg who is about to exit. >> new york city mayor. >> new york city mayor. >> 12 years. >> as we know. in the end, we feel we are going to miss this mayor very much, because particularly with the advent of his successor, mr. de blasio, and the assault of progressivism we now see coming at us in droves. look at things he has done. he has, incredibly enough, gotten rid of smoking. he has stood up against occupy wall street. of course he has assaulted us with other health indangering things like bicyclists on the prowl. but all in all, we owe him

thanks. >> mary, how about you? >> my hit goes to breakthroughs in medical research, particularly the area of brain science. the first is we made some major progress in working towards the treatment of parkinson's disease. in december, a professor of neurology won a prize from silicon valley, a breakthrough prize, for his work on understanding the circuits that go bonkers with parkinson's disease. this goes straight to the treatment of the disease. >> very exciting developments on the science front. james. >> my hit is to the earth and the sun. who have conspired to blow up the predictions of those promoting the global warming thesis. these two -- the earth and the sun have just refused to show a warming trend over the last 15 years on earth's surface temperatures. so i think the amount of

suffering that's been avoided by avoiding all the regulations they wanted to impose is quite significant. >> i'm going to have to be silent on this one. we'll take one more break when we come back. our hits and misses of the year. i won't miss that one. veot a bi, but my sinuses are acting up. it's te for advil cold and sinus. [ male announcer ] truth is twon't relieve all your symptoms. new alka seltzer plus-d relieves more symptoms than any other behind the counter liquid gel. oh what a relief it is. ♪ ♪

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time now for our misses of the year. dan, first to you. >> i'm giving mine to lance armstrong who admitted that he has been blood doping and using other techniques to win all those tours defrance. really reraises the issue of cheating in sports. in august, major league baseball suspended not only alex rodriguez but 12 other players for essentially the same reason. sad thing about this, paul, i think it calls into question the credibility of athletic performance. you have to be worried when you're saying i don't know if it's real. >> do you have any sports heroes? big papi, the red sox, my favorite, aaron rodgers of the

green bay packers? >> as far as aaron rodgers, didn't know. he's not going to win another super bowl this year. >> cowboys fan. dorothy. >> my big miss is to all of the supporters and protectors of snowden, multiplying ferociously all over the place. they include barbara walter whols made him one of the most fascinating people of the year. not the most. and this is her last broadcast and not a moment too soon. and also it was tom friedman who announced that he was a whistleblower. thanks, that explains everything, tom. >> dorothy just got herself a lot of invitations to media parties going into 2014. m mary. >> my miss is the rise of left wing populism in this country. i think most clearly exhibited by the election of the new mayor in new york city, mayor de blasio. not only because of what it

means for new york but for what it means more broadly about how the electorate seems to fall for this and what it means to our freedom. now we have a lot to write about with the mayor. >> you think this is the direction the government is going to do? they're going to need a new theme for the 2014 election. is this going to be the big theme? >> these promises run out of gas. until that happens, we have -- we suffer a lot. we're seeing that now with obama care. >> james. >> this is a miss to outgoing federal reserve chairman bernanke for continuing this year to buy another trillion dollars in mortgage backed securities. the financial crisis was five years ago, years since the recession ends, and now we have this real distortion of service. >> you put any more confidence

in janet yellen, the new fed chairman? >> no, no more confidence. >> you think there's going to be something easy as far as the eye can see here? >> just baby step, cut back by $10 billion a month, when the markets really were ready for more. they were ready more more last summer when ben bernanke did his head fake. i think it's time for government to step back and let markets run. >> short summary, freeman is long for going into 2014. >> always. >> right. my miss goes to the republicans who engineered the government shutdown in the name of a goal they couldn't achieve. defunding obama care. they hurt your party image and reduced whatever leverage they had in the budget negotiations. now they decided their party when they need to be unified going to 2014. we call them kamikazes before the showdown. that may be unfair to the c kamikazes who at least were fighting the enemy. the shutdown leaders were fighting their own ships.

so neither party looks to be in fabulous shape in 2014. which one is going to show some upside next year is my question. >> if the republicans can avoid another calamity on the debt ceiling, you've got to give them the momentum. if they focus on obama care, rather than criticizing it, offering constructive reform, not doing something that is unachievable. we all support the defunding of obama care. we have in the newspaper since -- well, going back 25 years. it's a question of what is achievable and what will the american people listen to. i think a critique that offers real solutions for the individual insurance needs of americans is going to succeed. >> i think a number of republican pick ups in the senate is also achievable next year. >> all right. if you have your own hit or miss from the year, be sure to tweet us at jeronfnc.

thanks to my panel. thank you for watching. happy new year. we hope to see you right here next year. fox news alert. welcome, everybody. a major setback in the rescue of a russian ship stuck in antarctic ice. an icebreaker meant for that purpose that was en route to help has been forced to turn back. there are more than 70 people stuck on the original ship since christmas eve. they are safe but their supplies are now limited. another icebreaker now rushing in to help. more detail also in a live report later in the show. new figures on how many americans are seeking health insurance under obama care.