While Americans continue to struggle with a deadly virus and financial starvation, excellence in national leadership has been reduced to a group of toxic enablers that appeal to an insular “base” that promotes our worst impulses instead of our best. The ’60s suffered its own challenges. Civil rights. Vietnam. The assassination of three political leaders. But then something stunning happened....

In 1620, a small band of pilgrims came to this country to escape religious intolerance. They were also looking for freedom from political turmoil, warfare, poverty, famine and disease. They were looking for a new beginning, a new hope in a new land. While they endured unimaginable hardships, their courage, determination, and hard work made them stronger because they were...

We are living in dangerous times. In his biography of George Washington, Douglas Southall Freeman wrote that President Washington led the country “by directness, by deference and by manifest dedication to duty.” Donald Trump is the polar opposite of Washington in character and duty. Indeed, Washington would be sickened to see that the nation’s capital that bears his name has...

Three virus-related stories. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The coronavirus vaccine is on its way. The bad news is it’s under cyber-attacks aimed at stealing “technology for keeping the vaccines refrigerated in transit or to sabotage the movements [of shipments],” The New York Times reports (Dec. 7). “Josh Cormay,” the Times writes, “a coronavirus...

In his Peace Studies class at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, Colman McCarthy engages students in his chosen religion: nonviolence and peace. “If peace is what every government says it seeks,” McCarthy writes, “and peace is the yearning of every heart, why aren’t we studying it and teaching it in school?” In Reverend McCarthy’s weekly sermon, “studying peace through nonviolence is...

“It’s good to be the King!”  – Mel Brooks, “History of the World Part I” It’s fifty days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. While the Covid-19 virus remains the top priority for both the incoming president and Congress, there are steps that both can take to begin to restore trust in government, protect the interests of Americans, and...

“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.…” – Winston Churchill We think of America as exceptional, the leader of the free world, an example of doing the right thing. However, we’ve made our share of...

With Republicans’ utter lack of integrity in cowering to President Trump’s daily recklessness, their blatant irresponsibility in not passing a much-needed stimulus bill to help the very blue-collar families that support the president, and the thousands of supporters marching in streets chanting the same “rigged election” messaging by Trump, each day the country grows more combative. As of November 17,...

“Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.” Those alarming words come from former secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, who was fired by Trump in a tweet. In an exclusive interview with the Military Times, the former West Point graduate and Lieutenant Colonel from the Gulf War described...

In October 1962, an American U-2 reconnaissance flight discovered Russian offensive missiles in Cuba, posing a direct threat to the United States. In the film adaptation of Robert Kennedy’s Thirteen Days, about the Cuban missile crisis, the United States and Russia stood at the abyss of nuclear war. After Russian sponsored Cuban missiles shot down a U.S. reconnaissance plane, President...