General
Godspeed, Gene Conti
Gene Conti’s appointment as Secretary of DOT pleases me not only because he’s a pro, as the N&O headline said, but also because he’s a good friend and good golf partner. (Defined as a golfer who does not beat me too badly too often.) Gene now takes over one of the toughest challenges in state…
Read MoreRoy Cooper for Senate: The Case that Won’t Go Away
You have to credit Raleigh attorney Gene Boyce with the virtue of stick-to-itiveness. Eight years ago Boyce’s son, Dan, ran for Attorney General against Roy Cooper. If I remember the facts correctly, during the campaign Cooper ran an ad attacking Dan Boyce (and his father) for their handling of a lawsuit on behalf of state…
Read MoreBev’s First Picks
There were all kinds of interesting twists to Governor-elect Perdue’s first Cabinet appointments. Like President-elect Obama, she started by announcing related posts. Her theme was public safety. That shows the power of the press to dictate her agenda. But she may not have been happy that the N&O focused on her decision not to keep…
Read MoreHappy News Year!
Christmas should always come on Thursday. Because that means New Year’s Day is a Thursday. Which puts off Back-to-Work day to January 5. You have to love the quiet week between the two holidays. But it has its disadvantages. Newspapers and TV news – with little of consequence to cover – deluge us with lists:…
Read MoreThe Mean Ole News and Observer
People have been dying in our state mental hospitals for lack of care; our parole system is so broken criminals on parole have murdered 580 people – and, now, Governor Easley says, at the end of his term, that it’s a shame the mean ole News and Observer hasn’t treated him ‘nicer.’ The governor puts…
Read MoreRepublicans and Ostriches
The smoke’s clearing from the election and the voter statistics tell a simple straightforward story: Four years ago African-Americans were 19% of the voters – this year they were 25%. Obama’s campaign said it was going to turn out 250,000 new African-American voters – and darn near did it. Thanks to Obama’s relentless ‘ground game’…
Read MoreFathers and Sons
For Christmas, I usually ask for books. And I get some unexpected pleasures. Unexpected this year was Jacob Weisberg’s The Bush Tragedy, which I started reading Christmas night and found captivating. I hadn’t read it before, because I had expected predictable Bush-bashing. But Weisberg – who makes the perceptive observation that journalistic insight often comes…
Read MoreBlue Christmas
A Blue Christmas is a Merry Christmas for Democrats. Not so much for Republicans who are sure the end of the world is nigh. So let me offer a note of hope and cheer. Yes, the news is bad. Retail sales are down. Home sales are down. Car sales are so down Toyota is losing…
Read MoreDriving Off the Cliff
George Bush may have screwed up everything else in eight years, but even he knew better than to drive America’s automobile industry into bankruptcy at Christmas. Not so with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and some of his Republican colleagues in Congress. All I have to say to them is: Keep driving, boys. Because – if…
Read MoreObama’s War
Don’t those words have a startling ring – after all, Democrats loathe wars (and instead, at least, these days in Congress, seem to have fallen in love with bailing out Wall Street billionaires). But, now, the Democrats have a war of their own – and they’ll own it lock, stock and barrel the moment Obama…
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