In a vigorous and powerful speech to the Senate yesterday (July 25), Arizona Senator John McCain wasn’t a Republican or Democrat; he spoke as an American and political figure fitted with the responsibility to do something for “the public good.” He spoke less about the health care debate that brought the Senate to a vote, and more about their lack...

There have been many issues on which I have disagreed with Senator John McCain. However, I respect the Arizona Republican for one simple reason: I trust him; I trust that he acts in the best interests of the country, not his own. Last week, when it was announced that McCain had brain cancer, I was stunned not because such a...

Charlie Gard is only 11 months old, but his short life has stirred a controversy concerning the ethical limits of medicine. Charlie has a rare, genetic and incurable disease that has now involved doctors, three British courts, the European Court of Human Rights, as well as hundreds of thousands of petitioners, including Pope Francis and President Trump. The bottom line...

Everything action we take, large or small, has the potential to reveal character. While most of my commentaries have involved weightier issues such as vaccinations, the death penalty, dishonesty, fraud and abuse, smaller acts take place every day that demonstrate who we are and what we stand for. A personal account by Mike Kerrigan in The Wall Street Journal (July...

In the early evening hours of October 25, 2007 in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, Army Staff Sargent Salvatore Giunta and seven troops were returning to camp when they were ambushed by Taliban fighters from all directions. “There were more bullets in the air than stars in the sky,” Giunta said. “A wall of bullets at every one at the same time...

“I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” – Ronald Reagan “For the first time in the seven-decade effort to avert a nuclear war,” The New...

In 2005, New York Times Magazine described him this way: “ ‘Can you smell money?!?!?!” Jack Abramoff wrote. “The scent of money was coming from the Saginaw Chippewa, the owners of the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort — a $400-million-a-year enterprise in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. Abramoff and his informal business partner, Michael Scanlon, an independent public-relations consultant who had been...

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  – George Santayana Recently, I received an e-mail from a reader to a 2016 commentary (Fact-Checking a Reader) I wrote regarding candidate-Trump’s original statement calling for a “total and complete shutdown” of all Muslims entering the United States. “I think if Trump would have left out the word Muslim,”...

Political heroes are rare. The last genuine political hero, Senator Philip S. Hart, is remembered on the front of an office building in Washington, D.C. as: “A man of incorruptible integrity and personal courage strengthened by inner grace and outer gentleness…. His humility and ethics earned him his place as the conscience of the Senate.” Last Friday (June 30), another...

There is no nice way to say it: I am tired of political leadership in Washington using words like “inappropriate,” “inconsistent,” a “distraction,” and “un-presidential” to describe what my parents, grandparents, teachers, religious leaders, and most anyone with common sense would otherwise call, WRONG! To state the obvious: we have a 71-year-old president whose Twitter rants demonstrate that he is...