Gut check

"I told them what we needed was a gut check to see whether we had the stomach to go ahead."

There's an old parlor game, a kind of gut check for the heart and head. Would you rather be rich or pretty? Happy or famous? Is it better to be good or to be smart?

But for investors looking for long-term winners at the start of the year, it’s best to give yourself a gut check before you buy.

For President Obama, this is gut-check time on Iraq. He is moving the nation back onto a pitiless battlefield, with a war plan that is long on good intentions and short on clarity about the ultimate mission.