If race is not an issue in this presidential contest (and I believe it is and will be), then how come virtually every mainstream black columnist has been effusively and unabashedly supporting Sen. Barack Obama, and highly critical of and even caustic towards Sen. Hillary Clinton? Columnists have every right to their views, even if [...]

The New York Times has taken a lot of guff for its Feb. 21 story about Senator John McCain and a female lobbyist, Vicki Iseman; even the paper’s public editor, Clark Hoyt, chided it: “…if a paper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair…it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to [...]

Just suppose the lobbyist who buddied up to John McCain eight years ago and bragged about having an inside track with the senator happened to be a fat, balding, cigar-chomping dispenser of money and seats on the corporate jet—name of Victor, not Vicki. Would The New York Times have focused so strongly on what two [...]

In December 2006, the ever-prescient columnist and best-selling author Molly Ivins was asked whether or not Barack Obama should run for president. Her answer: “Yes, he should run. He’s the only Democrat with any ‘Elvis’ to him.” The month before, I was sitting with Molly in the Texas State Capitol listening to Obama address an [...]

News organizations are so busy giving their own take on the presidential nominating contests they apparently can’t be bothered to let readers in on the facts they need to draw their own conclusions. Take the recent voting in Louisiana, Nebraska, Kansas and Washington state. Reading the accounts online in the Washington Post and both online [...]

Google Obama and drugs and you will find more than half a million references — and now comes the New York Times on Saturday with what will certainly not be the last mention of Barrack Obama’s admitted teenage dabbling with marijuana and. although more nebulous, possible cocaine use. A Clinton aide has made much out [...]

Veteran political reporter Myra MacPherson joins the Watchdog Bloggers, and shares her impressions of election coverage in the electronic age. The absurdity that accompanies the lightning speed of today’s instant election results reached a crescendo in the cable TV theatrics of Super Tuesday. Pie charts, whirling circles and statistics whisked on and off the screen [...]

For this election season, I would like to be a television pundit, commentator, consultant or whatever title seems appropriate (and pays well). I have the credentials: I do not have a steady day job. I have not covered or been involved in politics in a generation. I am white, generally liberal, and Jewish. I can [...]

When covering the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, it was the easiest of questions, and it seemed that many journalists couldn’t resist. Black women were tracked down in churches and beauty parlors or chased while walking down the street, and asked: Are you going to vote for race or gender, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? [...]

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising. John McCain edged past Mike Huckabee in the South Carolina Republican primary on Saturday, making him the front-runner – this week. He won over a little more than a quarter of evangelicals. If Huckabee can’t win in a state with this many evangelical voters, can he win anywhere else? Who [...]