Two of my Nieman classmates (1962-3), the late curmudgeon Pat Owens, and Dan Berger, who retired from the Baltimore Evening Sun, were editorial writers and they despaired at the use of the cop-out cliches of their business: “On the other hand…,” “It Remains to be seen…” and Dan’s favorite, “It bears watching.” The words may [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

So far, of all the top officials in the Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has gotten away relatively unscathed in the main stream press. Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, George Tenet, the Joint Chiefs and President Bush himself have taken punishment, at least in the polls. But except for her shoe buying during the [...]

Despite the inevitable scatological humor and what some of the public might think, White House reporters and the rest of us wished President Bush well when he underwent an unpleasant but necessary colonoscopy at Camp David. And we’re glad it did turn out well. But I don’t think it would have been in bad taste [...]

I was there that long, warm evening of July 25, 1974, in the packed hearing room of the House Judiciary Committee, when it considered articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon. I’m reminded of it often these days when I hear appeals for the impeachment of George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, or both. [...]

It’s a good bet that no one among the White House press will ask the press secretary or the president about such a mundane subject as children’s health. And, indeed, no one has. Presumably that’s because they’re busy asking searching questions about other issues, or perhaps it’s because their own children have no problems getting [...]

Now can we get back to what most Americans consider the most important issue facing the country–the war and the killing in Iraq? Sure, the president’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence was, and is, a good and important story. And it was fun to poke fun at puppeteer Dick Cheney’s effort to declare himself [...]

Michael Moore’s documentary about the American health care non-system, “Sicko,” was barely into the theaters before some of our journalist brethren began an effort, with the silent thanks of insurance companies, to talk us out of the notion of universal, publicly financed heath care. For example, the Washington Post/CNN Media Critic Howard Kurtz, who keeps [...]

Ten more young Americans died in Iraq on Mother’s Day weekend (not counting the three who were captured by insurgents), bringing the total dead so far to a new mark, 3,400. It was grim grim news for moms, and dads and the dozens of folks who were touched by these lives and their deaths. The [...]