Prude or prudent?
Opinion Column
As so often happens with contemporary debate, arguments being proffered in support of allowing teenagers as young as 15 (and possibly younger) to buy the “morning-after pill” without adult supervision are false on their premise.
The Bush I knew is a kind man with a gentle heart
Opinion Column
In a reprieve from the horror of the most recent terrorist attack, the nation’s attentions turned to the man who declared the war on terrorism, George W. Bush.
The governor, the soul mate and ... The End
Opinion Column
As the reporter said to the novelist: Why bother to make stuff up?
Fear comes back again the day after tragedy
Opinion Column
You know the feeling. You wake up filled with dread but, still groggy, you can’t put your finger on the reason. Possibilities flitter across the landscape of near-consciousness: An exam? A deadline? A speech? What day is it? Oh my God, Boston.
Taping of McConnell was the violation
The recent kerfuffle over a secret recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s campaign strategy meeting, which focused on opposition research about a likely opponent, actress Ashley Judd, has divided observers into two groups. One consists of those disturbed by the bugging of a private conversation. The other consists of people who were mostly offended by the content of the conversation, which concerned Judd’s emotional problems, and laughter about certain odd comments she has made over time.
New gun regs can't prevent another Newtown
Opinion column
The biggest obstacle to the Obama administration's push for tighter gun control may be its own best argument: Newtown. This is because nothing proposed in the gun control debates would have prevented the mass killing of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and everybody knows it. At best, tighter gun laws will make us feel better.
Lean on the world to save women, girls
Opinion column
The striking juxtaposition of the preternaturally perfect Angelina Jolie, waifish and wispy in a ghostly gown, and the scrappy Pakistani schoolgirl Malala, her face cruelly misshapen by the effects of a Taliban bullet to the head, captures the confluence of feminine power assembled here to "lean on" the world to save women and girls.
Artwork a tribute to reconciliation
Opinion column
It isn’t often that one gets to hear both the strains of “Dixie” and an African drum concert in the same public square. Nor, usually, are statue unveilings the riveting stuff of storytelling.
Dissecting Hillary Clinton shows positive traits
Opinion Column
No matter what Barack Obama does, he cannot escape the shadow of his former political opponent.
Little empathy is left in our American youth
Opinion Column
The recent rape conviction of two teenagers, one of whom also distributed a photo and sent cruel text messages about their victim, has captured the “bystander effect” in graphic and nauseating detail.
Hargitay remains silent on rape no more
Opinion Column
Mariska Hargitay, better known as “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” Detective Olivia Benson, is the human intersection of life and art.
The White House shows contempt for dissent
Opinion Column
To the world beyond the Beltway, it might not mean much that Bob Woodward of the famed Watergate duo went public with his recent White House run-in.
Droning on about feelings
Opinion Column
First they came for the drones. No, not the unmanned kind that kill strangers from a safe distance but the sort who sit in meeting rooms and repeat slogans until they absorb the proper way of thinking. The killers, figuratively speaking, are the diversity trainers who numb the human mind with slogans and rote instruction on emotional correctness.
Bowling for sanity a popular sport
Opinion Column
When President Obama said in his State of the Union address that “This time is different,” referring to his push for tighter gun-control laws, he wasn’t just whistling Dixie.
What did take place in Benghazi and why?
Opinion Column
We may never know exactly what happened in Benghazi the night Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that our response was short of optimum.
Four ladies from Burma
Opinion Column
Imagine living under a military dictatorship where free speech is punishable by incarceration, torture or worse. Imagine sitting in an 8-by-8-foot cell alone for 11 years with nothing but a small water jug, a “sink” for waste, and a 15-minute daily break for a cold bath in a communal tub. rker.
From I don't to I do
Opinion Column
More than perhaps anyone else in America, David Blankenhorn personifies the struggle so many have experienced over same-sex marriage.
The sirens of the Pentagon are blaring loudly
It must be true what they say about women — that they are smarter, stronger, wiser and wilier than your average Joe.
Royal change will soon come to this Nation
My inner Pollyanna was basking in blissfulness, rolling in the hay of righteous rhetoric, backstroking through the sunny sibilance of aspiration.
Lance Armstrong’s fallen as far as he can
To the world-weary, Lance Armstrong’s confession to Oprah was just one more in a series.
Guns without roses
Opinion Column
Unlike many who recently have joined the debate about gun rights, I have a long history with guns, which I proffer only in the interest of pre-empting the "elitist, liberal, swine, prostitute, blahblahblah" charge.
Plots and clots cause hysteria
Opinion Column
To be deemed a serious analyst at the moment seems to require a lot of hand-wringing and sneering over how awful Congress looked over the last few days as it rushed a fiscal cliff deal into law.
Some things are better left unsaid
‘Tis the season when columnists write mea culpas, make predictions and list their resolutions.
Life through a lens, lightly
In today’s world of social media, where everyone’s every little thing is on display, it is sometimes difficult to recall a time when exhibitionism wasn’t ubiquitous and was, in fact, not admired.
Un-hitching the middle class
Opinion Column
As politicians compete to prove who loves the middle class more, they’re missing the elephant and the donkey in the room.
The initiation of Susan Rice
Opinion column
A variety of insults have been deployed in opposition to Susan Rice's likely nomination for secretary of state: She is not qualified; she's too aggressive; she "misled" the public following the lethal attack on the American consulate in Libya.
The fly sees all at Obama, Romney power luncheon
Much speculation has followed the private luncheon between President Obama and Mitt Romney, about which little is known.
Women get short end of The Petreaus Affair
Opinion column
As events have unfolded in what shall ever be known as “The Petraeus Affair,” one cannot escape noticing that the women in this sordid saga have been handed the short end of the shtick, as though the men are mere victims of ambitious, hormonally driven vixens.
Fat lady’s aria opening act for new show
No matter which man you preferred, there is something unsatisfactory about the end of this race.
Critics busy exhausting the insignificant slip-ups
Oh, to be 12 again, the better to enjoy the presidential debates.
Obama gets knocked out in Denver debate
Contrary to conventional wisdom that debates are rarely, if ever, game-changers, the first presidential debate was a demolition derby.
Once upon a disappearance
I've written variations of this column a couple of times during the past 20 years, but certain occasions bear revisiting -- and surely the disappearance of a friend is one.
Now introducing President MSNBC
They came, they were adored, they conquered. I'm talking about the media -- and especially MSNBC, whose presence and influence in Charlotte were nearly as grand as the president's. They came, they were adored, they conquered.
Stepfather’s life was a life well lived
I had hoped he would wait until I got here, but he was in a rush to go.
As they say, all roads lead to Rome
The period of the American Revolution coincided with publication of Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1776), and ever since we've been vigilant for signs that the U.S. was following in Rome's footsteps.
When 'boring' can be a good thing
With Mitt Romney's announcement that Paul Ryan will be his running mate, we finally can extricate ourselves from one of the sillier debates and put to rest the narrative of the benighted "boring white guy (BWG)."
The first lady blues strike again
Not surprisingly, Barbara Bush said it most succinctly: “The first lady is going to be criticized no matter what she does.”
Trolling for boos has catchier ring to it
We're still a few weeks from summer's dog days and the conventions, and already feral rabidity has set in. Add to the long list of psycho-political syndromes the "Romney Derangement Syndrome."
Rainey's record speaks louder than his words
South Carolina politics never fails to amuse -- and bemuse.
The other war on women rages on
By now most sentient Americans have heard about the war on women. That is, the so-called Republican war on women, which has been framed as a battle waged by stodgy old white guys who want to deny women reproductive freedom.
The banality of Watergate still evident
Forty years ago, all of America learned the name of a particular condominium, hotel and office complex along the Potomac in the nation's capital.
Sharing the stage helpful to president
All the world's a stage, all right, and never so much as when presidential politics are in play.
Cory Booker's problem teaches lesson
The past several days of Newark Mayor Cory Booker's life have been painfully amusing to watch.
Justice Roberts unfairly under fire
Novelist John Grisham could hardly spin a more provocative fiction: The president and his surrogates mount an aggressive campaign to intimidate the chief justice of the United States, implying ruin and ridicule should he fail to vote in a pivotal case according to the ruling political party's wishes.
Campaigns push real issues aside
This past week’s news cycle has produced two narratives: One, Barack Obama is an evolutionary,
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