We planned our Nieman Watchdog series on torture before President Obama released four secret memos that spelled out what techniques interrogators could use, thereby unleashing furious public reaction and an enormous wave of news and editorial page coverage. Now it seems that what we had in mind—keeping Bush administration torture and other abuses of power [...]

The book is not yet closed on torture and other possible crimes ordered by American leaders in recent years. A lot is known but a lot isn’t. Exactly what happened in Bagram, in Guantanamo, in Abu Ghraib and in dark rendition prisons? How many people were whisked off and put away for no good reason? [...]

Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee Jan. 30. He won on the sixth ballot in voting that a Washington Post writer said “displayed a level of drama rarely seen in national politics.” A question reporters might ask Steele is how he feels about a plank in [...]

I’ve written several times recently about how the press, including the leading news organizations, has been running away from damaging stories about John McCain, hiding them. The response is mixed: In emails today and yesterday, a former colleague thanked me but a Naval Reserve lieutenant commander said I was writing drivel. Interestingly, several people took [...]

John McCain doesn’t seem interested in dealing with very serious questions about his years as a Navy pilot, his time as a prisoner of war and why as a U.S. Senator, according to writer Sidney Schanberg, he “has worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike [...]

I’d like to tell you about a couple of changes we’ve made to this site in recent weeks. One is a new home-page feature, “Elsewhere on the Web,” aimed at letting readers know about some excellent watchdog reporting. As news becomes more and more an online venture, a lot of good work is put out [...]

The poll numbers these days are a big tease. They are promising an enormous Democratic blowout while at the same time showing pretty much a dead heat. The latest entry is a Pew Research Center poll showing that fewer people call themselves Republicans these days—fewer than at any time in 16 years of polling by [...]

I got this email today from somenone named Chris in Virginia, referring to my criticism last week of a Des Moines Register poll of prospective Democratic caucusgoers: “So, what do you say now about the DSM poll, which seems to have been right on the money? Is the Sussman column ‘inoperative,’ as Ron Ziegler would [...]

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 [...]

In the better-late-than-never department, use of the phrase “War on Terror” is now getting a little scrutiny. Not much, perhaps, but some. It’s about time for such a development and editors and reporters should encourage it. They should, for one thing, ask national leaders what they mean when they say “war on terror” or “global [...]