As night follows day, Iowa’s precinct caucuses bring in their wake a raft of features about hard-working productive Iowa and its salt-of-the-earth citizens who welcome candidates into their homes with perceptive questions and thoughtful comments about affairs of the day. Perhaps as an antidote to such pap, University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom recently [...]

“The House Republican leader on Sunday flatly rejected a short-term, bipartisan Senate measure to extend a payroll tax break and unemployment insurance, setting the stage for a bitter year-end collision and the potential loss of benefits for millions of Americans. “In an interview on ’Meet the Press on NBC, John A. Boehner, the House speaker…..” [...]

No retrospective on the Iraq war would be complete without reference to the part played by Colin Powell in convincing the country to go to war. Public opinion about the war was lukewarm until Powell spoke at the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003. He gave such a boffo performance, complete with convincing visual aids, [...]

On Dec. 4, the New York Times, in a 13-paragraph editorial, took an in-depth look at the prospect of changes for Medicare. “What about Premium Support?” the editorial asked and proceeded to raise key questions about the term being touted by those who would drastically change, if not scrap, Medicare. Among the questions addressed by [...]

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 [...]

Having for years emaciated education and other public services, the powers that be in California are considering raising taxes. That’s right, the great unmentionable suddenly has become fit for conversation in mixed company. While on the subject of taboos, I would fix responsibility for making it virtually impossible for years to have rational debate on [...]

The New Hampshire Union Leader’s Nov. 27 endorsement editorial, “For President, Newt Gingrich,” drew a lot of attention. Having written and edited many endorsement editorials over the years, my take on the Union Leader’s effort may be somewhat different. For starters, it ran on the front page and was not the usual anonymous voice of [...]

Fresh from stalemating the deficit-reduction panel, anti-tax zealots can turn their attention to their movement’s close cousin: the campaign to privatize Medicare. A preview of the battle to get rid of government-run health care can be found in Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott is determined to privatize everything in sight, including the state’s 16 publicly-financed [...]

What took so long? Why, many months into the presidential campaign, with Newt Gingrich at or near the top in the preference polls, did the press not raise questions sooner about his character flaws and money-grubbing ways? Connie Bruck and the New Yorker waved warning flags about Gingrich many years ago, on Oct. 9, 1996, [...]

Republican presidential candidates are flooding into Iowa attempting to reach and influence the tiny sliver of GOP voters who actually will express a candidate preference at the much-hyped Jan. 3 “first-in-the- nation” Iowa caucuses. If past experience is a guide, the press will go ga-ga over the event, but most Iowa Republicans will have nothing [...]