The Vatican and Victory Churches

The other morning at breakfast my friend Richard the intellectual laid down his newspaper and said, ‘I thought you told me you and Jack Betts were friends?’   I looked up.  ‘We are.’   ‘Have you read his article in the newspaper this morning?’   I looked at the headline.  ‘Well, Jack supports the Ground Zero…

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The New Bev?

That was a flash of steel Governor Perdue showed, firing Kenneth Lay. And there may be more to come.   John Hood of the John Locke Foundation said at the John Locke Luncheon Wednesday that a Republican legislature could be the best thing to happen to the Governor.   She would no longer have to…

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Tea Party Skunk

I thought it was my job to be the skunk at the garden party: yesterday’s John Locke Foundation “Headliners Luncheon.” Then Mr. Herbert Hoover Rosser (yes, his real name) stood up.   I was the token Democrat on the panel. The other panelists and audience members were savoring the prospect of big Republican wins come…

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Gary Responds to Carter’s Response

Carter, if you and I are going to start being all reasonable with each other, we’re going to lose our readers!   Your response poses a question I can’t begin to answer: How will Muslims around the world interpret it if we let the Islamic community center go up?   (Though I would be happy…

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The Main Attraction

Today’s N&O story by Jay Price and Mandy Locke captured a telling vignette from the competing political rallies by the “Spending Revolt” bus tour and Organizing For America: Both featured videos of President Obama.   It reminded me of a conversation I had with a thoughtful Republican. He opined that the anger driving this year’s…

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The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight

A few years ago the Department of Health and Human Services set out to reform mental care and wrecked it.    Next it set out to reform in-home care for Medicaid patients and wrecked it.    And, now, it’s got another – $265 million dollar – train wreck on its hands.   Back before he…

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Carter Responds to Gary

Now, Gary, that’s what I call a reasonable response. And you’ve raised a good question: Does building the mosque at Ground Zero make it easier or harder to win the War on Terrorism?   The theory that building the mosque takes us a step closer to victory, it seems to me, goes like this: By…

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The Same Old Republican Pledge

For the fourth consecutive decade, Republicans are “pledging” to cut taxes and cut spending.   Ronald Reagan made the pledge in the 1980s. Newt Gingrich made it in the 1990s. George Bush made it in the 2000s. And now it’s back in the 2010 “Pledge to America.”   Jon Stewart did a masterful job of…

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Call it Religion

The school board down in Johnston County has a problem:  Every time fourteen-year-old Ariana Iacono walks through the door of her school with her ‘stud’ in her pierced nose she gets suspended – but she simply won’t give up.  She goes home, serves out her suspension then demurely returns to school with the stud in…

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Gary Responds to Carter

Well, Carter, to be fair, I didn’t call you “a bigoted skunk.” I’ve grown more mellow these days, and I try to avoid name-calling.   Instead, I said your ad for Renee Ellmers was “an appeal to anti-Muslim prejudice.” I think that is a fair statement.   “Sixty Minutes” had an interesting piece about the…

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