Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Return of John McCain
Watch for a John McCain comeback in the Republican presidential campaign. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have taken their star turns. And the social conservatives who dominate the Republican Party can’t be happy. Giuliani is taking them on directly. He says his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights should not matter. Good…
John Edwards’ Transparency
The other day two radio commentators on NPR were joking about a survey they’d taken of presidential candidates. One of the questions each candidate was asked, What is your dream job? The first commentator said, I love Congressman Tom Tancredo’s answer best. Tancredo – a dark horse candidate – when asked what his dream job…
Buying Drugs in Canada
It just seems like just yesterday that the newspapers reported the Democrats in Congress were about to pass legislation to let pharmacists and consumers buy prescription drugs in Canada. The pharmaceutical industry quashed that idea like a bug. It was alive one day and dead as a doornail the next. Why? The big pharmaceutical companies…
The Wake Schools Plot
It’s all a vast right-wing conspiracy. And it’s about to wreck the Wake County schools. The plotters started by opposing a school-construction bond issue in 1999. They beat it. Then they targeted the school board elections, but lost. So they targeted election of the county commissioners, who control the school money. They won there. The…
The Deal of a Lifetime
Imagine this. Your employer loans you $12.5 million to build a country-western music theatre, pays you $1.5 million a year to manage it, then tells you when the debt is repaid you can buy the theatre for $1. And as a perk he gives you a house to live in. That would never happen you…
Democratic Derby
If the Democratic presidential race was the Kentucky Derby, John Edwards would be the third-place horse hoping for Hillary and Obama to stumble – or leave him a gap to run through. Edwards’ best chance for a breakthrough is on the war. No other issue matters: health care, global warming, none of them. It’s all…
Putin’s Soul
Two things jumped out from the pictures taken of George Bush senior, Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin at Boris Yeltsin’s funeral: Putin’s cold killer’s eyes. Which reminds us what George Bush junior said when he met Putin: he looked in his eyes and saw his soul. And decided it was good. Which explains why Bush…
With Friends Like These…
Driving along U.S. 64 to the Outer Banks – through Martin, Washington and Tyrrell counties – you see an endless string of “No OLF” signs. Handmade, in various sizes, shapes and lettering, they make clear residents’ opposition to the Navy’s Outlying Landing Field. Now virtually every politician in Raleigh has jumped on the “No OLF”…
Our Commander-in-Chief
President Bush calls himself “the decider.” Now he has a new wartime title, bestowed upon himself by himself. Bush met with congressional leaders Wednesday on the war-spending bill. Then he gave a speech criticizing Democrats for their get-out-of-Iraq deadline. He added: “The question is, ‘who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders?’…