“A good moral character is the first essential in a man.”  – George Washington After the Florida debate in January, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich called rival Mitt Romney “fundamentally dishonest.” The former House Speaker expanded his comments with conservative commentator Sean Hannity about Romney’s tenure at Boston-based venture capital group Bain Capital. Gingrich said, “We’re talking about the character, the...

I can’t figure out if Republican Rick Santorum is running for president or Pope. “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country… It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” (Oct. 2011)...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,...

Responses to my commentary It’s Confirmation Bias Time in America, about the political spinsmanship regarding Clint Eastwood’s Super Bowl ad, were all over the political map. From, “I Love Clint Eastwood” to “The message was the same: American Exceptionalism;” from, “We are going to Politically Correct ourselves out of existence,” to “It was disturbing to me and completely contrived.” However, one reader,  » Read...

Who would think that a TV ad featuring Clint Eastwood giving America a pep talk would create so much political uproar? “I was, frankly, offended by it,” said Republican strategist Karl Rove. “I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and...

The Super Bowl is about everything that is over-the-top. From the two-hour pre-game to the intro of the teams, and the million dollar ad buys for commercials that compete for most creative, funniest, most special effects, well… you get the idea. This year caught all of us completely flat-footed. You could hear a pin drop… not when Madonna made her...

Hold on to your cynicism, kiddies, it’s my end of the year wrap-up of the highs and lows. Here’s just part of the past year’s craziness summarized in words: “The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal-consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short.” – Standard and Poor’s, in a statement regarding the downgrade in the U.S....

Tenzin Gyatso is the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. He is both head of state (in exile) and the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He is admired and esteemed worldwide as a man who has championed policies of nonviolence. His consistent compassionate nonviolence, even in the face of great aggression, led to his receiving the Nobel Prize for Peacein 1989....

England’s finest Prime Minister and Statesman Winston Churchill famously said, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” Considering the ticking clock deadline for Congress’s bipartisan supercommittee to find a path to cut at minimum $1.2 trillion from the budget over ten years, Churchill’s words seem sadly prophetic. “It wasn’t so much of a...

Writers are, for the most part, invisible to the public. Sure there are those exceptions who have used their talent to stand in the spotlight, but Norman Corwin was more focused on his craft than the attention. Corwin was not just extraordinary with words; he was master of radio, stage and screen. Such a master of radio drama, that Orson...