Whatever happened to the second paragraph, or the third, the one in which the reporter explains what the story is really about? It’s not necessary, you know, to let a politician’s assertion or anyone’s quote go without comment, without saying what the facts are. In one Washington bureau where I spent my time, the bureau [...]

Has anybody noticed how good we are getting at holding memorial services, candlelight vigils, prayer meetings and funerals for dead young Americans? We’ve had a lot of practice. Since Columbine in 1999, I count 22 fatal school shootings in the U.S., including Virginia Tech. The mourning ceremonies continue as I write. In four years, more [...]

It seems that apologies, regrets, saying I’m sorry, are in fashion. For actors, comedians and glorified disc jockeys who can’t control their racism and antisemitism, as well as flip-flopping politicians. Former Senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards gets high marks for honesty when he admits he “made a mistake” in voting to authorize what [...]

In 1964 Congress made the terrible mistake of approving the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing then-President Lyndon Johnson to take “all necessary steps” to prevent aggression in Southeast Asia. Given the green light by the resolution to escalate the war in Vietnam, Johnson did it with a vengeance. Tens of thousands of deaths later, in [...]

Too many of us in journalism are still stuck in that stupid old rut: We won’t follow up on a good story broken by someone else, as if the reader cares who got it first. We are reluctant to acknowledge someone else’s scoop. And that’s especially true if the news was broken first in a [...]

As far as I can tell, President Bush first pronounced it as American policy on August 12, 2005, when he replied to an Israeli television interviewer who asked what the president would do if diplomacy didn’t turn Iran away from its nuclear ambitions. “Well, all options are on the table,” Bush said. “Including the use [...]

Where are those critics now, the right-wing know-nothings and the bloviating Bill Bennett who wanted to arrest the Washington Post’s Dana Priest for treason when she outed the CIA in November 2005 for hiding captives in “black sites”? She was a shill for the Democrats, one wingnut cried. Why are they not congratulating Priest and [...]

It was a rare White House moment: A senior administration official actually inviting the press corps to hold the White House accountable on its Iraq policy. Can we please take him up on it? At a White House press briefing on January 10 on Bush’s plan to send more troops into Iraq, one of the [...]

Talk about Congress cutting funding for the Iraq war has been moving from a mumble to what I expect will be a roar before long. It brings me back to a moment in the spring of 1973 when the House voted to block military aid for South Vietnam, the first step in a series of [...]

As far as I can tell, among all the briefings, press conferences and punditry, only the liberal Center for American Progress made the connection between the Iraq Study Group and the primary reason for its existence. On the day the group made its report, the center noted, 10 more Americans met violent deaths in Iraq. [...]