Obama’s First Crisis

Joe Biden warned us that Barack Obama would be tested. We just didn’t realize the test would come within six weeks and would come from crooks at home, not terrorists abroad. The “pay to pick” scandal in Illinois is getting so much attention we’re all going to learn how to pronounce Gov. Blagojevich’s name. Republicans…

Read More

Going Deep

“Drill, baby, drill” was the Republican mantra during the campaign. The GOP concluded – and nervous Democrats agreed – that the public wanted no potential source of cheap gas left undrilled. Now Skip Stam of Apex, the Republican House leader, wades into the debate with a novel justification for drilling off North Carolina’s coast: It…

Read More

The Great Grab

The Great Grab is on: American government is a treasure chest where anyone who needs cash – and has political clout in Congress – can reach in and help himself. Take shell-shocked CEOs facing Christmas without bonuses (which sounds a lot like bankruptcy to them). Like GM: Consumers are spending less, buying fewer cars, so…

Read More

What’s Wrong With State Government?

Back during Jim Hunt’s first stint as Governor, his patronage man was a wily old fellow from Pilot Mountain named Joe Pell, who became legendary. Joe’s job was to get state jobs for Hunt’s friends and supporters around the state. One day Joe was having breakfast at Finch’s with a county sheriff who had supported…

Read More

Heman Clark

The News & Observer noted that Heman Clark, who died last week, was a lawyer, prosecutor, judge and Cabinet secretary. At 93, he was one of the last links to the Terry Sanford era in politics. But I’ll remember Heman most for an evening of kindness to my then-11-year-old son. It was in 2000, when…

Read More

Rechanneling WRAL

News that long-time sportscaster Tom Suiter is retiring at WRAL-TV takes long-time viewers back. Back to what some of us view as the Bad Old Days at the station. The N&O noted that Suiter, from Rocky Mount, was brought to the station by Jesse Helms, then WRAL’s executive vice president for news – and nightly…

Read More

Totems and Taboos

Totems and taboos are fascinating kinds of devices – they’re a mixture of rational and irrational or, depending on your point of view, heresies. The Celts worshipped tree spirits and there have been taboos (on everything from kosher foods to cannibalism) since before the dawn of time. Today, racial slurs are tabooed. That doesn’t sound…

Read More

Please Don’t, Bev

The most worrisome news today is that Governor-Elect Perdue is conducting a “nationwide search” for a secretary of Health and Human Services. I hope she has better luck than Governor Hunt did. When he was first elected in 1976, Hunt did a nationwide search for an expert to run the state’s troubled and overcrowded prison…

Read More

Obama and Terrorism

Obama’s fleshing out his plan to whip terrorism. But I’m not sure about his new policy in Afghanistan. It comes down to this: We’re going to shower them with money – so by the time we finish pouring cash on them and building roads and schools and bridges and supermarkets they’ll love us and turn…

Read More

Team of Rivals

Presidents fight two wars. One to get elected. And one that starts the morning after the election. Only they may not know about the second war. Naturally, Barack Obama may think his authority (in the legal sense) as president gives him power to run his own government. But authority is a long way from control.…

Read More