Twelve years ago I wrote a piece for the Nieman Watchdog chastising my former news colleagues for laziness in writing that it took 60 votes to pass a bill in the Senate. My point was that by writing that, rather than saying it took 51 votes to pass a bill, they were misleading readers. Then,…

Our text for today is taken from “Six Crises,” an early memoir written in 1962 by a former vice president of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. In the book, Nixon discusses six events involving him that he chose to characterize in a melodramatic way as “crises”. The wisdom he imparts from these experiences is…

  It’s  been a long four years since this time in January 2017 when Barack Obama was succeeded by the 45th President. In the past four years we have become aware, if we didn’t already know it, that our country is seriously–may even dangerously–divided. If we didn’t know it before, we certainly did after January…

A couple of months ago I suggested that given the destructive, chaotic behavior of the soon to be departed Chief Executive it was hard to know what else we should worry about his doing. Since the election his desperation has grown along with the outrageousness of his actions. We’ve all remarked on his being aided…

As most of you know, after 33 years of incisive political analysis every Friday night on the PBS NewsHour, Mark Shields has decided to leave his seat opposite David Brooks. For us devoted fans, it is a bittersweet moment. Many of us made a point of not missing those Friday nights, and if we couldn’t…

On September 22, the United States recorded its 200,000th death from Covid19. Since then, the death rate has accelerated so that in eight short weeks another 50,000 men, women and some children have died. At this rate–and we have no reason to assume that it will decelerate–by Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021, we will have…

This will be the last time I bother you before the election. I trust everyone has voted or has a plan for voting. Without fear of exaggeration, I think we all realize that this really is the most important election of our lifetimes. For the first time in our lives in this election we are…

Some years ago, in a moment of dark humor, I blamed Jerry Springer for the profusion of violent “reality” shows on television. I was convinced, among other things, that the increased use of coarse language could be traced back to him. Words like “asshole” and “pissed off” started occurring with some frequency on television dramas…

I haven’t written for a while because, like many of you I suspect, I’m feeling overwhelmed by events. Simply too much is going on to stay on top of it even if I attempted to write every day which would be an imposition on you (assuming you read what I write) and a burden for…

Once upon a time we had leaders who found ways to inspire us rather than denigrate various parts of our population and warn us that we were going to be overrun by evildoers if we didn’t let the powers that be work their will. Ordinarily, we might count on the good sense of the American…