When will the American press grow up and realize that America may at last be adult enough to catch up with the 21st Century and elect a woman as president. One doesn’t have to support the candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton, or her positions to take a little pride in that possibility and to consider [...]

Fox News and the Republican Party of Florida were the sponsors of a 90-minute Republican presidential candidate debate in Orlando last Sunday. The Fox interviewers, Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Wendell Goler and Carl Cameron, asked more than 40 questions. I missed the debate on TV but looked over the transcript. I was hoping to see [...]

Reporters and editors who are about to cover the 2008 presidential and congressional campaigns will almost certainly have to deal with the issue of Social Security, which won’t go away. But they’ll do it badly, unless they get a few facts straight. Here is an example of what I mean. On Bloomberg.com, which is supposed [...]

Now, was that so bad? When six Republican candidates for president showed up last night for a forum at Morgan State University in Baltimore, my hometown, people in the audience all acted like they had some sense. The panel – Pulitzer Prize winner Cynthia Tucker, PBS’s Ray Suarez and Juan Williams, an NPR and Fox [...]

In the Iowa straw poll for Republican presidential candidates, critics routinely point out that votes are bought. The fundraiser for the state Republican party masquerades as an election, they say. But there’s another story to be told, another shoe to drop. This year, the campaign of Mitt Romney spent enough money – at $35 a [...]

David Yepsen, the Des Moines Register’s chief political writer, lately has described how some of the presidential candidates stack up in terms of their presidential personas. To Yepsen, Barack Obama “looked presidential” in a recent debate, and Fred Thompson “looks the part of a president and carries himself that way. His slow talk and deep [...]

I think I understand at least one reason why so many readers now look to media critics and blogs, like this one, to provide the rest of the story, and maybe some truth. For it seems to me that too many straight reporters have been unable or unwilling to confront and challenge official lies. And [...]

As states try to elbow each other out of the way to lead off the presidential nominating race, Iowa’s secretary of state, Michael Mauro, told the New York Times, “We intend on maintaining our status as first in the nation.” Not that Mauro has a say in the matter. Unlike New Hampshire, where the state [...]

Perhaps we should give up asking President Bush any more questions. While the questions may be interesting, his answers, I’m certain, will be useless or irrelevant. But there is an important and possibly revealing question to be asked of the presidential candidates, especially the Democrats, for we can presume what the Republicans will say. And [...]

The 2008 presidential election is a long way off, the primary season is barely in sight, yet the religious ritual has already taken hold. There’s been so much God talk lately, it’s become meaningless. God is not a candidate or a campaign manager. Yet, it’s expected and accepted for candidates to declare their faith views. [...]