Another debate, another round of Obama bashing. The audience barely had settled in their seats Dec. 10 when Newt Gingrich excoriated Obama for a jobs plan consisting of “higher taxes, more regulation, no American energy, and attack(ing) people who create jobs with class warfare.” I counted at least 25 separate assaults on Obama or his [...]

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is running an extraordinary three-part series on city police violating the laws they were sworn to uphold, ranging from minor offenses to sexual assault, and often getting off with a slap on the wrist or, sometimes, no punishment. The series started Oct. 23; a second article was to appear Oct. 26 [...]

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 [...]

I got a few questions from a Norwegian journalist asking my reflections on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The questions tend to be a little lofty; as the writer, Tore Saevik, noted, “It is possible to write books about several of them.” But they all are good questions, so I took a shot at them. [...]

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.” [...]

DES MOINES—If we were to take the advice of Scottish poet Robert Burns, the Iowa GOP Straw Poll would be toast — finally put out of its news media-induced merriment and ending the misery of those who take democracy seriously. You know, as though self-governance were something to nourish and value, not something to debase [...]

DES MOINES–The Des Moines Register will no longer allow people to post anonymous online comments about items published in the paper. On Aug. 7, Julie Thompson, the paper’s digital editor, wrote that effective August 11th, “You will have to have a Facebook account to comment, which will eliminate use of anonymous screen names.” For years, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]