Where’s the Line?

Where’s the line between showing a media-obsessed society too much and too little? Where’s the line between glorifying a killer and glimpsing what lies behind evil? Where’s the line between protecting the rights of clearly disturbed people and protecting the rest of us? Where’s the line between protecting people from a shooter who may be…

Read More

The Republican Silence

Are the Republicans in Raleigh intent on ending the corruption in state government? It’s impossible to say. Because by and large they have been silent. The latest scandal involving Richard Moore is an example. Just as Jim Black was leaving office and Democrats were praying they would never hear the words ‘pay to play’ again,…

Read More

Would the Real John Edwards Please Stand Up

In his presidential campaign, John Edwards portrays himself as a mill town boy who pulled himself up by the bootstraps. He knows the poor. He feels their pain. His political speeches are filled with his compassion. But, now, the News and Observer (4-19-07) reports that while Edwards has been out crusading to eliminate poverty, he…

Read More

Dick Cheney’s Responsibility

Vice President Cheney said on Face the Nation Sunday that Democrats are “irresponsible” to push for withdrawal from Iraq. Irresponsible? I’ll give you irresponsible: Irresponsible is leading America into one of the greatest foreign policy disasters in history. Irresponsible is pretending that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Irresponsible is short-changing the military force…

Read More

Yankee Politicians

A little over a decade ago I spent a sojourn in New Jersey working on a presidential campaign. It was my one immersion in “Yankee Culture.” The first time I saw a true-blue, street-smart, dyed in the wool Yankee politician in action it was pretty impressive. I remember a reporter asking him a tough question,…

Read More

Moore Trouble

The storm flags are flying again for State Treasurer and would-be Governor Richard Moore. Now it’s a report by David Ingram in The Charlotte Observer that: “The employees who manage the $70 billion N.C. public pension fund are traveling out of North Carolina on official business more than twice as often as they did just…

Read More

The Hoax – Part II

Thomas Crowder has perpetrated the ‘Great Pawnshop’ hoax and he’s gaining steam. Two weeks ago, Crowder, Mayor Meeker’s bosom-ally, announced a legion of pawnshops is moving into Raleigh neighborhoods. The threat doesn’t exist. A city detective testified to Crowder’s committee that he couldn’t even recall a pawnshop opening in a neighborhood in the last five…

Read More

Separate Powers, Witch-hunts and Good Ideas

The Democrats in Congress are pounding President Bush over the head and he’s punching right back. Speaker Pelosi says – but not in so many words – that Bush is an arrogant jerk. He says she’s for cutting off bullets to the troops in Iraq. Senator Harry Reid adds Bush thinks he’s king – when…

Read More

Trial by Media Fire

The Don Imus and Duke lacrosse cases had three things in common: race, money and media frenzy. Imus had all three factors against him, so he lost. The Duke players had two with them: money and, in the end, media. They won. From the start, the Duke case was justice by media. The DA convicted…

Read More

Barack Obama

The history of presidential elections is filled with ‘flash in the pan’ candidates – charismatic, articulate young leaders who wanted to take the country in a new direction, enjoyed their fifteen minutes of fame and faded into oblivion. But none of them ever raised $25 million. Barack Obama has. In politics the golden rule is…

Read More