Franklin Roosevelt once offered this piece of advice about giving a speech: “Be sincere; be brief; be seated.” Okay, here it goes. Ladies and Gentlemen of Congress, The American people are sick and tired of hearing excuses for your lack of effectively working together. They’re tired of listening to the arrogant sound bites at “impromptu” press conferences. You were not...

In 1940, journalist Edward R. Murrow stood in a church in England while the country endured German bombers night after night. Inside the church was a crudely written sign which read, “If your knees knock, kneel on them.” I don’t know about you, but my knees have been knocking a lot over the last several months. Within the last year,...

Hold on to your hats, folks, I’m getting ready to be brilliant. I have the answer to the health care debate.  No, really! Last Saturday, the House narrowly passed its version of health care reform.  Now, we all hold our breath as it goes to the Senate and then back to the House and… let’s skip past all the parsing...

Whenever I’ve had a question about health care, or check up on President Obama’s progress; whenever I want to get the straight dope about people, pundits and policy issues, I pay a visit to PolitiFact.com. Who is PolitiFact? PolitiFact is a site owned and operated by The St. Petersburg Times  whose purpose is to help anyone,  » Read more about: Who is PolitiFact and Can They...

“You are trampling on our constitution,” Craig Miller shouted at Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector last Tuesday. “This is about the dismantling of this country,” Katy Abram added. “They are talking about killing people,” said Laurel Tobias. The question that kept coming up for me was, WHY. Why are people so angry? Why are so many lashing out, like never before, at...

“They can beg and they can plead But they can’t see the light, that’s right Cause the boy with the cold hard cash Is always mister right…” – Madonna, “Material Girl,” 1984 That’s it, right next to the Boca Burgers.  That’s the $90,000, in cash, the FBI found in former Representative William Jefferson’s freezer. Wednesday afternoon the Democratic Representative from Louisiana...

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”             – Winston Churchill What is said:  “I’m lovin’ it.”  “Can you hear me now?” “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” What you hear:  McDonald’s, Verizon, M&M’s. As pollster and word specialist Frank Luntz points out in his book “Words...

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...

“You know that the liberal media elites and the Obama Democrats are hoping you will put this letter down right now and do nothing…” – Michael Steele Steele is the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and current chairman of the Republican National Committee. “‘Let’s play grown-up.’ When I was a child, that’s what we said when we ran out of things...

President Obama appears quite comfortable with religious language but clearly wants to defuse the strong, divisive rhetoric surrounding it. This was apparent in his inaugural address when he referred to the country as a “patchwork,” made up “of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers.” More than just multi-religious diversity, the deeper, more contentious clashes between believers and non-believers...