One of the problems with modern political journalism is that when something manifestly absurd takes place, as long as there are people willing to argue both sides, our top reporters feel obliged to treat it as deserving of serious debate. Case in point: John McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. [...]

At Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing — entitled “Coercive Interrogation Techniques: Do They Work, Are They Reliable, and What Did the FBI Know About Them?” — former FBI interrogator John E. Cloonan raised some important questions — questions the press should be asking, as well as the senators. From his opening comments: There are 3 [...]

I.F. Stone’s 100th birthday comes at what feels like a real low point in terms of the iconoclastic, independent journalism with which Stone is so unmistakably identified. So it’s particularly appropriate that the observations of Stone’s birthday aren’t just fond looks back at the rebel journalist’s storied career; they have a strong focus on strengthening [...]

Bloggers and other citizen journalists have a new and exciting opportunity to find and shed light on stories the mainstream media are missing – by combing through transcripts of recent Congressional oversight hearings. Without any fanfare, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has started posting preliminary transcripts of many of its hearings on its [...]

Depending on whom you believe, Vice President Cheney may have already persuaded President Bush that the only effective way to check Iran’s political and nuclear ambitions is to launch a military attack sometime before the end of his term – maybe even very soon. Could members of Congress prevent that from happening? Not if all [...]

Legendary military correspondent George C. Wilson, writing in his “Forward Observer” column for CongressDaily, raises some essential questions that should be asked about launching an attack on Iran — “before,” as Wilson puts it, “it’s too late”: “How can you bomb anything nuclear in Iran without spewing radioactive debris into the atmosphere and poisoning it [...]

At a panel discussion I was on the other day about the state of mainstream political reporting, a member of the audience expressed concern over the credulous coverage of the administration’s overhyped warnings about the threat posed to America by Iran. MSNBC reporter David Shuster responded in part by saying that journalists have generally not [...]

Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has been widely reviled by a fair number of First-Amendment activists for dragging reporters into court to make his case against former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby. Fitzgerald’s approach has been described by some of his critics as encouraging a full-bore government assault on reporters and their ability [...]

It was a rare White House moment: A senior administration official actually inviting the press corps to hold the White House accountable on its Iraq policy. Can we please take him up on it? At a White House press briefing on January 10 on Bush’s plan to send more troops into Iraq, one of the [...]

Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them [...]