You sit on the California state parole board looking into a request to release Susan Atkins, the terminally ill prisoner convicted of participating in the killing of actress Sharon Tate and four others in 1969. At the parole hearing, you listen to family members of the victims. Debra Tate, sister of the actress: “I will pray for her soul when...

It’s curious to reflect on three moments in my life that are marked by the same question: Where were you when Kennedy died? As a high school freshman in New York, I was in the middle of learning some important but long forgotten piece of Algebra when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  Our teacher, Mr. Freeman, was called out of...

Former Washington Post columnist, teacher and good friend Colman McCarthy wrote the following eulogy about his friendship with Eunice Shriver. I thought it was well worth repeating. My friendship with Eunice Kennedy Shriver began in 1966, when I bumped into her — literally — during a pickup basketball game on her backyard court at the Timberlawn estate in Rockville. I had begun...

“The summer of 2009 has not been our finest hour.” So wrote Newsweek editor Jon Meacham (Aug. 24) in response to those individuals who have brought Hitler and Nazism into the debate on health care. There’s political commentary and there’s hate speech and I’m sick and tired of hate speech passing for commentary. Earlier this month, conservative radio talk host Rush Limbaugh...

Right now an eminent TV actor, (an up-and-coming Dustin Hoffman type) is busy researching his role as the lead in the next made-for-cable hit. No, not “Weekend at Bernie’s III.” It’s “a gripping docu-drama” about the man who out-Ponzied Ponzi entitled “The Man who Made off with Other People’s Money.”  (Of course it’s a dumb title, it’s cable.) A little putty...

When people allow themselves to be overwhelmed by fear things usually get crazy. Sadly, such is the case concerning Health Care reform. During a series of town hall meetings around the country last week, members of Congress have been jeered, shouted-down, and threatened with death.  Many of the protesters have been ginned up by talk show pundits and political organizations:...

Based on just the past 18 months of ethics-related scandals, it’s safe to say that trust is difficult to come by in corporate and political leaders, not to mention the media. With the passing of Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America,” the Washington Post asked readers to submit their own nominees for trustworthiness.  Here are a few: Oprah Winfrey, “because...

Ever since I started searching the Internet I started collecting quotes.  I opened a file and every time I came across a quote that made a connection, I’d add it to the file.  It didn’t take long to discover a pattern – that true wisdom knows no period in history, religion, culture, race, age, gender or TV channel. Here are...

I was in the midst of writing a piece on President Obama’s initial remarks made last Wednesday concerning the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley when news came Friday of Mr. Obama making a new statement to “recalibrate” his language. More accurately, he was recalibrating his judgment. When I first heard the news that Mr....

It was announced that former Vice-President Dick Cheney has sold the rights to his memoir.  “Mr. Cheney’s memoir,” the New York Times reported, “will focus on the past 40 years of his life, mostly in Washington.” By way of unnamed sources, I was able to get a draft copy of the introduction to “Past Perfect: The Truth, as I Lived...