Recent Personalities Commentaries

Featured image for “Words and Images with a Question”
Words and Images with a Question
This image along with Governor Chris Christie’s words of praise for President Obama’s actions concerning disaster-struck New Jersey have been played and replayed in video and news outlets for the last three days “The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit,” Christie said. “I’ve been on the phone with him, like I said, yesterday, personally, three...
Read More
November 2, 2012
Featured image for “The Fool and the Statesman”
The Fool and the Statesman
One day a fool and a statesman were featured on a television broadcast. While the fool had been featured on many, manybroadcasts over the last year, the statesman – ever mindful of thinking before speaking – chose to stay out of the spotlight. The fool carefully primed the media pump by telling many,many people – especially Fox News’s FOX & Friends – about a...
Read More
October 26, 2012
Featured image for “Clint Eastwood: Actor, Director… <em>Ethicist?</em>”
Clint Eastwood: Actor, Director… Ethicist?
Who knew the legendary star of screen and Republican conventions was into the great ethical conundrums of the universe! In the years that Dr. Sara Anson Vaux taught religion at Northwestern University, never once did she consider that underneath Clint Eastwood’s gruff veneer was… a gruffer layer, but… underneath that was the heart of “…an ethicist, a theologian even.” Vaux recently published a...
Read More
October 1, 2012
Featured image for “Perception Just Became Reality”
Perception Just Became Reality
For months the Democrats have painted Mitt Romney as out-of-touch, elite, and uncaring about the middle class. In conversations, I’ve defended him against many of those generalizations. While that was before his Libya statements, I kept thinking, he’ll bounce back. All that went out of the window with a video we shall now euphemistically call The 47% speech: . “There are 47...
Read More
September 20, 2012
Featured image for “The Age of the “Dullest Beanbag””
The Age of the “Dullest Beanbag”
I like Peggy Noonan, have for some time. As a former speechwriter to President Reagan, she’s not only smart but takes the necessary time to inform herself before writing her column that appears weekly in the Wall Street Journal . However, in her latest piece (The Age of Would-Be Princips, Sept. 15) about the killing of four Americans in Libya...
Read More
September 17, 2012
Featured image for “What a Payne!”
What a Payne!
Martha Payne is amazing! On her first day in school, the Scottish nine-year-old pictured and posted a review of her school lunch online. Below a photo of a small pizza, cupcake, some sweet corn and a single, reconstituted potato croquette, Payne wrote, “I’m a growing kid and I need to concentrate all afternoon and I can’t do it on 1...
Read More
July 11, 2012
Featured image for “BREAKING NEWS”
BREAKING NEWS
We interrupt our special Fourth of July commentary for this TMZ Exclusive: Jim Lichtman, ‘Renowned’ Ethics Specialist, is Lost! Lichtman was last seen giving Mel Gibson advice outside an L.A. eatery (as captured by this grainy cell-phone photo) around June 14th. Sources close to the writer confirmed that in spite of his work with the “ethically challenged,” Lichtman was reported to...
Read More
July 4, 2012
Featured image for “Far Worse”
Far Worse
Watergate — a name forever synonymous with former President Richard M. Nixon. Forty years ago this month, I was glued to the TV watching the Senate Watergate Committee hearings, and astounded at the laundry list of accusations made against then President Nixon that would eventually lead to his resignation – something no one could ever imagine, let alone see come to...
Read More
June 11, 2012
Featured image for “Freedom vs. Responsibility”
Freedom vs. Responsibility
“We’re not taking away anybody’s right to do anything. All we’re trying to do is remind you that this is something that… is detrimental to your health and to do something about this national epidemic.” That’s New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg defending his proposal to ban sugary sodas in containers larger than 16 oz. from restaurants, concession stands and movie theaters in...
Read More
June 8, 2012
Featured image for “The Blowhard”
The Blowhard
“I do not understand the cost benefit here… what voter is gonna vote for [Mitt Romney] because he is seen with Donald Trump? The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious, it seems to me.” In a rare moment of pique, that’s how mild-mannered, conservative writer George Will described Donald Trump – the business magnate, author, self-obsessed TV...
Read More
June 1, 2012

Read Some of the Most Recent Articles
The Latest... And Often Greatest
If It Looks Like a Duck…
Donald Trump has never hidden his disdain for anyone or any institution he believes stands in his way. Near the top of that list is...
A Tale of Two Voices
Two voices, both alike in reach and power, Speak into a divided world. One feeds grievance. The other calls for grace. Influence still carries power....
How Do We Manage Division?
Recently, I found myself returning to a question I’ve asked in different forms for years: what does it actually take to hold a country together...
The Supreme Court is Broken. How Do We Fix It?
As distilled from an email update from Michael Waldman, President and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down...
Leadership as a Moral Act
Britain’s King Charles III spoke to a chamber that, for a moment, set aside party labels—Democrat and Republican—and listened not as factions, but as participants...
Unity is Not a Declaration. It’s a Discipline.
How does a country move from argument to action? The shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is not an isolated event. It is part...