That’s what a reader asked me recently. Searching my site, I found four commentaries in the last four months: Running on Empty (June 19); The Ethical Take (July 23); Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtuoso of Ignorance) (Sept. 8); The Scorpion and the Frog (Oct. 1); and a Let’s Be Honest graphic,  » Read more about: “What is your obsession with Donald...

No sooner had The House Select Committee on Benghazi concluded an intense, 11-hour Q&A of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then journalists rushed to interview Committee Chair Trey Gowdy asking a very basic question: “What new things did you learn today?” Totally flat-footed, Gowdy said, “Uh… I think some of Jimmy Jordan’s questioning — well, when you say new...

Less than two weeks after he essentially said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to running for House Speaker, Representative Paul Ryan put his finger on the precise problem with Republicans in general and the Freedom Caucus in particular. “We have become the problem. If my colleagues entrust me to be the speaker, I want us to become the solution.” In making...

On Face the Nation Sunday (Oct. 19), the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Trey Gowdy, defended his committee’s work despite two House Republicans who publicly stated that the purpose of the panel was to place blame on former Secretary of State and current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her actions or in-actions regarding the attacks leading...

On the CBS news program Face the Nation Sunday (Oct. 20), Trey Gowdy was asked about the credibility of The House Select Committee on Benghazi in light of two Republican colleagues and a former investigator calling the committee politically motivated. “Why would all these people say that?” journalist John Dickerson asked the committee chairman. “I guess because they don’t have...

On Monday I talked about the Freedom Caucus – a group of about 40 unyielding House Republicans whom Republican strategist Frank Luntz says “…believes that it is better to blow-up the process than it is to fix it.” But there is another group in the House. The Liberty Caucus, a group of about 36 members, was founded in 2011 by...

Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards sat before the House Committee on Oversight to answer questions about funding and more specifically, respond to a widely circulated video purportedly showing an aborted fetus being prepped for organ harvesting by a Planned Parenthood sponsored medical facility. The video has been debunked by a variety of fact-checking organizations. Nevertheless, that did not stop House...

After Kevin McCarthy’s abrupt withdrawal as front-runner to be the next Speaker of the House, Republican strategist Frank Luntz offered a dire assessment of House Republicans. “I started working up on Capitol Hill in 1993 under Newt Gingrich. So, it’s been more than 20 years, and it was confused up until the last three or four days. It is now...

From the outset, Jason Chaffetz, Republican chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform attacked Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, at one point using a chart that showed “Abortions up/Lifesaving Procedures down.” “In 2006,” Chaffetz said, pointing to the chart, “Planned Parenthood performed more prevention services and cancer screenings than abortions, but in 2013, there were more abortions…....

By now, presidential candidate Donald Trump’s principal success has been in branding his behavior as relentlessly rude, crude and uncurbed, believing he can bully and badger his way to the White House. And when it comes to the facts, he doesn’t just play fast and loose, he just plain ignores them. Trump likes to use the word “fabulous” in describing...