Civil words over a civil war in Iraq
NBC is the first major TV network to call the war in Iraq a "civil war" instead of an insurgency. With that, a new front has opened over what words...
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Slurs merit ire, not laws
Until his racist rant at a Los Angeles comedy club threw his faltering stand-up comedy career onto a bonfire of insanity, Michael Richards was best known to millions as The...
Americans running out of appealing options on Iraq
What next for Iraq? The cover of the latest New Republic, a liberal-leaning magazine that went totally neo-conservative in the run-up to the Iraq war, makes one's head spin with...
O.J. and checkbook journalism
Something sounded eerily familiar about O.J. Simpson selling a sleazy near-confession in book and TV deals. Then it came to me: Emmett Louis Till. The brutal 1955 murder of Till,...
Judged by the customers he kept
"Suppose you picked up this morning's newspaper and your life was a front-page headline. And everything they said was accurate, but none of it was true." That's a line from...
The restlessness of a rebel
My son, who is dabbling in high school journalism, wonders why all of the geezers like his parents are making such a big deal about Ed Bradley's death. Child, let...
Rumsfeld loses ground with military insiders
Defenders of the Iraq war have found a clever way to put their critics on the defensive. They're answering a question with a question. It goes like this: "Do you...
Bush and Kerry are joined at the lip
No wonder President Bush and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) show so much contempt for each other. They have so much in common. Both went to Yale. Both belonged to the...
Kerry’s mouth-bound combat boot
A lot of political watchers have been wondering whether an "October surprise" might help to save the Republicans from an anticipated disaster in the midterm elections. It appears to have...
Adoption plan crosses line–of race
Madonna's taking a lot of heat for adopting an African child shortly after Angelina Jolie did the same. But I'm confident neither kid is going to mind. Every child deserves...