Recent Responsibility Commentaries

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Conspiracy Theory, Conclusion
Early in All the President’s Men – a film that follows Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein track down and piece together the 1972 Watergate scandal – there’s a moment where editor Harry Rosenfeld is listening to Woodward read through a list of the five men caught in the break-in at the Watergate complex. When Woodward mentions that one of the...
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September 23, 2013
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Conspiracy Theory, Part II
Who was Michael Hastings and why would anyone want to assassinate him? Author-Journalist Michael Hastings was a reporter for the Internet based website, BuzzFeed and contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine. Hastings profile rose after an interview he conducted with General Stanley McChrystal in which the four-star general was both candid and critical of individuals in the Obama administration. Hastings himself spoke...
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September 20, 2013
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Conspiracy Theory, Part I
“Evidence Indicates Michael Hastings Was Assassinated” “Hastings Sent Chilling E-mail to Colleagues Before Death” “Did the Pentagon Murder Journalist Michael Hastings?” Those are just a few of the story links that stood at the top of a Google search I conducted into the death of Michael Hastings. I’m not in the habit of running down conspiracy theories that are suggested...
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September 18, 2013
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Two Creeps
I can’t believe the words that come out of the mouths of two individuals who hold themselves up as responsible, trustworthy leaders worthy of putting their own interests aside in service to a larger purpose. Before I go any further, let me just state, for the record, that the only direct evidence of wrongdoing toward women by both San Diego...
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July 29, 2013
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Visiting Hiroshima
David Krieger is a friend and president of The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation His most recent book is “ZERO: The Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.” I recently visited Hiroshima to give a speech.  It is a city that I have visited many times in the past, and I am always amazed by its resilience. The city represents for me the...
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July 8, 2013
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Moments of Principle
By now, most everyone has heard of the 11-hour filibuster waged on the floor of the Texas state senate in Austin by Senator Wendy Davis to prevent passage of a bill that would effectively close most of the medical facilities available for abortion in the state. What most may not know is that this wasn’t Davis’ first time at the rodeo. Anyone...
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July 1, 2013
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Profile in Courage
President Obama formally nominated former Justice official James Comey to succeed Robert Mueller as the next director of the F.B.I. However, it was in 2004 that Comey nearly resigned his position as acting attorney general under George W. Bush. In March 2004, a gravely ill Attorney General John Ashcroft had been taken to a Washington hospital for gallbladder surgery. At...
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June 21, 2013
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Returning to the Summer of ’68
It was forty-five years ago, last week that we lost Robert F. Kennedy – June 6, 1968. It’s difficult to describe to a younger generation the impact the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy had on so many of us. I was in my first year of college and what captured my interest in this man was something that...
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June 10, 2013
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A Priest
In his 1986 memoir, Confessions of a Parish Priest, Father Andrew M. Greeley wrote, “I’m a priest. Not a priest-sociologist or a priest-journalist, or a priest-novelist, or any multiple variation of those hyphenates. I’m a priest, a parish priest. The other things I do in life: sociological research, journalistic writing, storytelling, are merely my way of being a priest.” But no...
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May 31, 2013
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It’s Not Luck
Lucky Leo’s is back! The boardwalks are back, and so are many of the beaches in Seaside Heights. After being devastated by Hurricane Sandy last October, this “Jersey shore is open for the summer and ready to receive our customers,” Governor Chris Christie said during a reopening ceremony. “This is going to be a really good week.” They’re cleaning up in Granbury,...
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May 24, 2013

Read Some of the Most Recent Articles
The Latest... And Often Greatest
A Tale of Two Voices
Two voices, both alike in reach and power, Speak into a divided world. One feeds grievance. The other calls for grace. Influence still carries power....
How Do We Manage Division?
Recently, I found myself returning to a question I’ve asked in different forms for years: what does it actually take to hold a country together...
The Supreme Court is Broken. How Do We Fix It?
As distilled from an email update from Michael Waldman, President and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down...
Leadership as a Moral Act
Britain’s King Charles III spoke to a chamber that, for a moment, set aside party labels—Democrat and Republican—and listened not as factions, but as participants...
Unity is Not a Declaration. It’s a Discipline.
How does a country move from argument to action? The shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is not an isolated event. It is part...
When the Line No Longer Holds
There are moments when events reveal more than they intend. What unfolded Saturday at the Washington Hilton was not simply an isolated act. It was...