As I was the lone passenger on an airport shuttle bus from Santa Fe to Albuquerque the day after Senator Edward Kennedy died, the loquacious bus driver naturally started talking to me. He had been listening to talk radio and the host was having trouble finding anyone to say a good word about Kennedy. When [...]

The elevator opened on the penthouse floor of the Statler Hilton and I dashed into the hall, late for the press conference, so late that it was all over. Two burly guards halted me with a not too friendly stiff arm on the shoulder. “Where ya goin’ kid?” said one while the other yelled back [...]

This great and compassionate man was a “writer’s writer” and a “reporter’s reporter” — someone we all vainly hoped to emulate in his vision and passion for the average man and in the care he took to encourage young writers. He was 96 when he died, and yet it seems way too soon.
His voice was [...]

With help from the media, this past week proves that down and dirty campaigning can be considered a success. Economic collapse and suicide bombers in Baghdad were no match for the media’s rolling thunder that greeted the slime-time ad that John McCain approved regarding Obama’s canceled visit with wounded troops in Germany. As the New [...]

During the primary, the national press corps, led by Maureen Dowd’s continuing Obambi imagery, depicted Obama as a doe-eyed, political naïf, too inexperienced and unseasoned for hardball Hillary. Instead of mouthing such silliness, if they had done some legwork and looked into his Chicago political roots, they would have seen one tough pragmatist not [...]

Like many, I am sure, who have seen the new New Yorker cover, I am still reeling. Nothing the far right wingnut media brigade has promulgated is as offensive or damaging as this cartoon: Obama in full Muslim gear, Michelle in an Angela Davis style Afro, terrorist rifle slung over her shoulder, fist bumping while [...]

“Say it Ain’t So, Joe” was the legendary plea of a young fan when famed baseball hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson, testified to his part in throwing the games during the great Chicago Black Sox scandal of 1919. (The boy apparently was more grammatical and said “it isn’t so, is it Joe?” but media hype [...]

While he may possibly have flat feet and at 55 is probably a bit long in the tooth for battle, gung ho neocon William Kristol still could join the “all volunteer” army if he wanted to serve in some capacity. After all, this is a war that he and other neocons have championed– [...]

I knew I was losing it when I turned on the TV at 6:30 pm for the final roundup last night. That was way too early for anyone with a real life. Obama, McCain and Clinton wouldn’t speak for eons. Polls in Montana and South Dakota wouldn’t close for hours and here I was, [...]

All the media hoopla over Scott McClellan’s book would lead someone to think that he had uncovered secret Bush-Cheney-Rove plans to nuke Iran. The most succinct comment on the tube came from Watergate specialist John Dean who said that the book corroborated what anyone but a Rip Van Winkle has known lo these years—the staging [...]