CNBC commentator Rachel Maddow believes Herman Cain is a “performance artist” and his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination is “performance art.” Could be. It could be also that Cain is a satirist and his campaign a satire on presidential politics. Satire: the use of “irony, sarcasm and ridicule to attack the follies of humankind.” [...]

Rick Scott, Florida’s first-term governor, recently gave students in his state free vocational guidance. His message: study useful subjects like science and engineering instead of wasting taxpayer money on frills like anthropology not likely to have a pay-off in the job market. Scott’s single-minded focus on bottom line measures reminded me of the satirical essay [...]

“I think it’s time,” declaimed Rick Perry out of the blue during the Oct. 18 GOP candidates debate in Las Vegas, “for us to have a serious discussion about defunding the United Nations.” No one seconded the notion. Was this the opening round of a Perry effort to boost his flagging campaign by playing an [...]

As American troops prepare to head for the exit in Iraq, pundits prepare to critique the war. Let me contribute my two cents worth: the war was a spectacular failure for the vaunted American system of checks and balances. The only checks in evidence were those written to pay for the trillion or so dollars [...]

Bill Keller, who stepped down recently as head of the news operation of the New York Times, wrote a candid piece about this country’s invasion of Iraq for the Sept. 11 Times magazine that deserves more attention than it received. Keller labels the attack on Iraq “a monumental blunder,” and he is as unsparing of [...]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry put his foot, cowboy boot and all, in his mouth when he declared Social Security to be an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme. Unconstitutional? Social Security has been the law of the land since 1937. It was validated by several of the country’s finest legal minds. If there is ever a high court [...]

On Oct. 28, 1940, when I was 15, my parents, brother and sister and I gathered by the radio, as was our custom, to listen to a speech delivered at Madison Square Garden by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The key part of the speech remains imprinted on my memory more than 70 years later. It [...]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is at risk of having his presidential campaign derailed because of far-out remarks about Social Security – a “Ponzi scheme,” “a failure,” “a monstrous lie.” In June 2010 Iowa Republicans outdid Perry and called for scrapping not only Social Security but also Medicare and Medicaid. The Iowa GOP declared: “We believe [...]

Iraq looks more and more like the proverbial tar baby the U.S. can’t get off its hands. The Obama administration had visualized getting rid of the sticky mess by year end but now several thousand American troops may well be slated for duty there beyond the planned departure date. Speaking of the embarrassment that is [...]

In downtown Des Moines several years ago I witnessed a woman fatally injured by a car as she crossed the street. I was an ideal witness. I had an unobstructed view of the accident, which had happened directly in front of me. But I learned later that, when police questioned me, the only accurate things [...]