Looks matter. They matter particularly in electoral politics. Would Rick Perry be anywhere near the top in polls if he were bald, potbellied, stooped, shrimpy, acned and spoke with a lisp? A lot of people seem willing to forgive or overlook oddball views if the speaker looks good. The two women receiving the most attention [...]

I did a double-take when I saw that New York Times columnist Joe Nocera had apologized for harsh criticism of the Tea Party in a column and then a quadruple take upon reading that the Times public editor, Arthur S. Brisbane, thought Nocera’s apology “reflected well on him and, I believe, on The Times, too.” [...]

On Saturday August 13th, I cleared the deck of distractions and sat glued to C-span’s coverage of the Iowa GOP’s fundraiser in Ames, the extravaganza better known as the Iowa Straw Poll. I didn’t want to miss a word. The word I especially didn’t want to miss was “Bush.” How, I wondered, would this highly [...]

It’s difficult to know what is more absurd: the actual description of the Republican so-called straw poll this weekend in Ames, Ia., or the seriousness with which the press is taking the stunt. George Will spent a recent column giving credence to the Ames goings-on by discussing it dead-pan even while conceding the “zaniness of [...]

The prize for impolitic remark of the year goes to House Speaker John Boehner, who told a television interviewer Aug. 1 that, in the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, “When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 per cent of what I wanted. I’m [...]

Once upon a time there were independent and moderate Republicans in this country. Think, among others, Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton. And don’t overlook the likes of Iowa’s Robert Ray, who governed from 1969 to 1983 by appealing across party lines to independents, to Democrats and to fellow moderates in his own Republican party. Bob [...]

Notice how House Speaker John Boehner turned a deaf ear to the president in his so-called rebuttal to Obama’s July 25 address on the debt ceiling? If you hadn’t noticed, you have plenty of company. The press evidently wasn’t paying attention either. In his talk, Obama took a hard crack at the GOP for not [...]

A bizarre sideshow to the hacking scandal involving Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. was on exhibit July 18 when the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal weighed in with an editorial – hold onto your seats – backing the News Corp! The Journal lashed out venomously at ProPublica, the non-profit news organization specializing in investigative journalism, awarding it [...]

No, Rupert Murdoch did not personally hack into anyone’s electronic messages. And if anyone sought his OK he might well have vetoed it as too risky. But Murdoch created the sleazy work environment that made hacking seem like a dandy idea to some of his editors. For that, Murdoch deserves all the brickbats he has [...]

Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper owner, lopped off another 700 employees from its payroll recently. My former paper, the Des Moines Register, lost 13, among them a Pulitzer Prize winner. The Register’s once brilliant Washington bureau lost its last remaining member. At the same time, the Gannett corporation doubled the pay of its CEO, Craig [...]