It was impossible to know how it would turn out. Of course, there were a few hints. But they were so subtle that only someone with a bit of brain would have picked up on the clues. And it seemed...

The wonderful thing about having George Bush as president is that a commentator can write about the same subject repeatedly and it will always be timely and

2008...

What does George Bush have in common with prostitutes? For the answer see the end of the next paragraph...

Why can’t Americans be more like the French? The slightly altered line from My Fair Lady is inspired by the fascination with which we in the United States have viewed the sexual peccadilloes...

John McCain has two advantages over Barrack Obama. Whereas Barrack has only one spiritual advisor, John has three, two of whom say nuttier things than Jeremiah Wright, Barrack Obama’s pastor...

As John McCain and his presumptive vice-presidential running mate, Joe Lieberman, toured the middle East together (Joe to remind John of who is on first in Iraq so as to correct gaffs born of...

There are advantages to be gained from taking possession of a country rather than simply befriending its leader. Consider Iraq and Pakistan...

Herewith a modest proposal-so modest in fact that none of those charged with resolving the issue has thought of it. The issue wanting resolution is how to enfranchise the voters in Michigan and...

Iraq is a sovereign and free country. That means it gets to decide whom to invite for dinner and sleepovers. It was made free by George W. Bush. That means he gets to decide who can invade Iraq...

Herewith an introduction to Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan...

The man can’t keep his word even though the words are always the same. Having mouthed them so often you’d think he could remember them. What’s surprising now is that the forgotten...

It is not often I feel compelled to offer an apology to a corporation but one is required this week. Last week, in poking fun at Merck and Schering-Plough for having failed to disclose the results of...

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose -the news about the newest cholesterol lowering drugs and disclosure of the fact that there had been non-disclosure. It was reminiscent of...

a necessary inheritance...

It’s only money. And when most of your effort is devoted to making sure that the country is safe from terrorists it’s easy to see how keeping track of money can just be the straw that...

The question everyone is asking is whether anything is happening in the United States of America other than a two year long marathon to decide who will be the next president of the United States...

The question everyone is asking is whether anything is happening in the United States of America other than a two year long marathon to decide who will be the next president of the United States...

The question everyone is asking is whether anything is happening in the United States of America other than a two year long marathon to decide who will be the next president of the United States...

Things are not as they as they seem. Especially not when George Bush is the explainer. Consider the proffered reasons for the pocket veto of the military authorization bill...

Boy. With all the Environmental Protection Agency has been doing in the last few weeks it’s hard to believe its employees had time to enjoy Christmas or make plans for the new year-there was...

The administration has done something that on the surface appears to be anti-environmental when in reality all it is doing is implementing the Paperwork Reduction Act...

Pesky. There’s no other description for evolution. It just keeps evolving. The most recent flap comes from Texas, the state that demonstrated that evolution is not as far along as we’d...

If craziness loves company, U.S. citizens should take comfort from some of the other world leaders. Evidence was offered by a teddy bear and a South American leader...

Mr. Bush is not disappointed in them. Quite the contrary. He’s envious. Although sharing their goals, he is far less successful than they. They have shown how democracy works in an ideal...

I was half right. In late May I wrote that September was going to be an exciting month in Iraq. I observed that that was the month in which funding for the war would end and the debate about the...

2007...

2007...

Most United States voters spend hours each day contemplating things like taxes, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the trade deficit, and other weighty matters. Fascinated by the complexity of these...

Although this writer enjoys reasonably good health and has no expectation of dying in the near future, the envelope that came from an organization called the Neptune Society, hinted at exciting news...

The fault lies not with its proprietor, but with his tongue. It keeps saying things that surprise both speaker and hearer and in two recent cases its utterances were completely unexpected and...

It is easy to take pot shots (as a drunken Blackwater USA employee would tell you) but occasionally they misfire (as a drunken Blackwater USA employee would tell you.) And on this occasion, a news...

It seems only fair. From Europe we have received Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, to name but a few and to Europe we are now exporting the learning of the illustrious members of today’s equivalent...

Dear Miss Manners...

2007...

2007...

Who’d have thought it? The airlines have now become reflections of society’s ever changing mores and in the case of Continental Airlines, its spokesman has become an instructor in the...

2007...

The party may simply be suffering from PCSS (post coital stress syndrome). Enough, it may be thinking, is enough, which given several of its members’ recent moral lapses, it clearly is. On...

For those who are skeptical about the power of prayer to say nothing about the existence of God, it was an encouraging development. Indeed, it may well have turned a number of atheists into devout...

It’s not like they did it on purpose. It was just a mistake and then a bunch of soreheads go and make a big deal out of it. The soreheads are Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, Inc., Wendell...

George Bush is busy inventing the wheel. And what a fine group he has assembled to help him accomplish the task. It is safe to say that all the designers he is employing have some notion of what a...

It is just as everyone feared. No sooner do the Democrats take over Congress than they begin to undo some of the legislation so carefully crafted by the Republicans when they were in control. A...

It is time I set the record straight. I applaud all George Bush has done as president during the past 6 ½ years and if any one reads anything I have written during the past five years as...

So you were surprised? Blame it on your short memory. If it were longer, life would have fewer surprises. Consider George Bush and health insurance for children. He likes children, he loves money...

At first it seems like incredible intolerance. Reflection reveals it’s nothing more than a space problem. I refer to Pope Benedict’s latest pronouncement...

I’m almost turning into a Republican what with defending the administration at every turn. Being an impartial sort, however, it seems only right that I do so when the opportunity presents...

It was not enough to elect him president. Now they’ve gone and crowned him king. Of course he’s been acting like a king for some time now. The Supreme Court simply formalized it. It...

Although I am not normally one to spring to the defense of Dick Cheney I have to say that people are being really petty about the latest kafuffle over his conduct. Mr. Cheney is not, after all, just...

They were greeted somewhat differently. Fortunately the first to arrive did not witness the treatment accorded the second to arrive and so their disparate treatment did not add to their depression...

It was a confusing few days for the climate and those affected by it. On May 22, 2007, Robert Sullivan, the former associate director in charge of exhibitions at the National Museum of Natural...

The Puritans are back and who more worthy to lead them than Cotton Mather and John Hathorne (now known as James Dobson and Bill O’Reilly) successful witch hunters of the 17th century whose...

September promises to be an exciting month in Iraq. That is the month in which funding for the war in Iraq runs out and the debate about the future of the war will resume. But that is only the...

The stars are aligned. Guantanamo detainees and their prosecutors wish for the same thing-fewer lawyers. Alberto Gonzales has gone to court to see if the judges will grant their wishes...

While Cowboy Dick is traveling around the Middle East telling the world of plans he has for blowing up some more bad people, others were figuring out how to deal with the consequences of some of the...

From time to time events ecclesiastical eclipse things political. It’s happened before and will happen again...

In his April 21 radio address to the nation (inspired by the violence at Virginia Tech earlier in the week) George Bush announced that he has directed federal officials to conduct a national inquiry...

When it comes to choosing people to serve the country, occasionally Mr. Bush gets lucky. Although repeatedly letting everyone know how much he likes Messrs. Gonzales and Wolfowitz, secretly Mr. Bush...

It is a web site that many people in the Bush administration should refer to. It is called Writing Express and it comprises samples of letters that one can use in day-to-day intercourse. The ones I...

If you thought all the Pakistanis got for their friendship with George W. Bush was a lawsuit and eventually a bunch of F-16s think again...

Italy is not the United States. Here is how you can tell.
...

The one thing we’ve learned but Mr. Bush has not, is that depending on whom you do it to, lying can be a crime even if you are not under oath. Mr. Bush knows that if his in-house liars, of...

If people in New Orleans and environs are feeling depressed at the pace of reconstruction they should take heart from Iraq. Unlike New Orleans, Iraq has not dropped off George Bush’s radar...

If you didn’t like the results of the most recent UNICEF report on children you’ll like the future ones even less...

It has an appealing symmetry. George Bush is deploying a missile defense system that may or may not work to defend against nuclear weapons that might be fired from Iranian secret weapons sites that...

Bicycle racing and NASCAR have more in common than the fact that both depend on the wheel for their success. Both are infected by the doping bug. Everyone knows that the sport that some might...

2007...

What recent events tell us is that what something is called has substantive repercussions far greater than one might think. Consider “foreign terrorist organization”. It has been in the...

It was an interesting week. China got Mr. Bush bent out of shape and Mr. Bush got Russia bent out of shape...

There’s one thing George Bush knows. You don’t get to be the biggest arms merchant in the world by only selling arms to friends. If that were the case the only countries to which...

It is perfectly obvious that the barrage of criticism accompanying the statements made by Charles D. Stimson arises from a misunderstanding as to what people think Mr. Stimson thought he was talking...

It’s time for one of our periodic looks at the Internal Revenue Service. In July it announced it was eliminating one-half of the IRS personnel who were responsible for auditing the tax...

Mr. Bush is nothing, if not a man of his word. When Mr. Bush was running for president he promised he would relax rules that assorted groups believed were onerous. And once elected he courageously...

Science is not as intimidating as it first appears. Anyone can do it. It is important, however, that when done by scientists it be properly vetted by amateurs. And it is important that ordinary...

It’s a tremendous responsibility that has been thrust on those who are imprisoned by George Bush. They have, albeit it unwittingly, become our allies in the war on terror. They remain...

Iraq is not the only thing that’s broken that the administration can’t get fixed in a timely fashion. The FBI’s computers are another. But first some background...

By the time this column sees the light of day much will already have been written about George Bush’s newest program to protect us from ourselves if not from him. It is, however, such a clever...

It may have been a way of saving money. That would make sense given the amount of money the Catholic Church has had to pay in settling lawsuits arising out of the sexual abuse of children by...

It was a short honeymoon. Barely a week. If you’re in bed with George Bush it’s long enough...

It was nothing more than a coincidence. During the days after the election there were stories about how Halliburton was hoping to fix problems created by Dick Cheney when he worked there and George...

The populace was alerted to the perniciousness of The Military Commissions Act when the media reported that the agency with the quaint name of “U.S. Justice Department” furnished the...

The drug companies are our friends. Making drugs that make us well is not all they do. They use part of their profits to make sure that the very best people are elected to the House of...

Timing is important. So, it seems, are clothes...

Here’s a surprise. Congressional hearings can be enlightening, the caliber of the participants notwithstanding...

The pig is back at the trough and the farmer is happy to slop it. Its first visit to the trough was early in the Iraq war when Farmer Bush hired the pig known formally as the “Lincoln...

Once again we are reminded of the importance of invitations. Who among us has not breathlessly awaited the advent of the sought after invitation, the arrival of which signifies that the recipient...

2006...

From time to time this column strives to provide historical perspective to current events. And what could be more current than the welcome news that Ferdinand Marcos has, at long last, found a...

They were very good students. That is why they remembered the techniques that we taught them back in the 1980s...

They were very good students. That is why they remembered the techniques that we taught them back in the 1980s...

It’s time for an update and an apology. The update is on the consequences of having one’s criminal conduct discovered. The apology is for someone who, though not a crook, could be...

There are so many choices it’s like being in a candy shop. What public information about the government can George Bush now turn into secret information so that an uninformed citizen will be...

2006...

The poor are such a nuisance. Just when Congress tries to bring sense to its self-created chaos, the poor get in the way. The most recent example is the collision between the very poor who are...

It’s time for a brief update on the unfortunate encounters with the justice system that three of Mr. Bush’s appointees have enjoyed. My favorite (and each reader will have his or her own...

2006...

2006...

Neither of them believes in science. They both believe in God. They both have a weapon available to them to enforce their beliefs. George Bush can veto. Pope Benedict can excommunicate...

Two hundred eighty six members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 67 U.S. senators would have loudly applauded loudly the decision by the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeals...

June 24 was a big day in the Philippines. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed a bill abolishing the death penalty. According to Amnesty International, the signing brought to 25 the number of...

Once again Mr. Bush is in a gazing mode. Who can forget when he first met Mr. Putin in June 2001 and following the meeting said: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very...

Every so often Mr. Bush and his friends offer up little surprises that are amusing when not alarming. That’s what makes it so much fun to have George Bush in the White House. The week of May...

It’s all becoming clear-not that Mr. Bush has any responsibility for starting Hurricane Katrina. His responsibility began where the hurricane left off. And it proved as much of a windfall for...

It keeps coming up roses. Now the roses are being fertilized by manure manufactured by Bush & Co. instead of fertilizer purchased from outside sources...

It was so easy it’s odd that that the administration waited until now to bring it to an end...

It keeps coming up roses. Now the roses are being fertilized by manure manufactured by Bush & Co. instead of fertilizer purchased from outside sources...

It’s a sad thing when the jury gives the answer the Court is seeking. But it shows how civilized our country is when we struggle with something the rest of the world no longer needs to...

It’s all in the eyes of the beholder and the beholder could not help but be struck by what was seen when two videos and two people were juxtaposed. One of the people was described in a BBC...

Only a politician would have thought of it and having thought of it, only another politician would have abandoned it. And who better to have thought of it than the majority leader of the United...

George Bush, in what is surely a holdover from his childhood, loves secrets. The ones he loves the best are the ones he knows and no one else knows...

Once again the tidings of the season and the news from the news reminded one and all that it is better to be rich than to be poor. The week ended with news of the Cheneys’ tax refund and began...

There is some good news (in the non-Gospel sense) and some bad news from the Roman Catholic Church. The good news is found in the audit report prepared by the Gavin Group, Inc. for the United States...

It’s becoming a bit clearer. Mr. Bush’s support for democracy has its limits and a solution to his concerns is not immediately apparent. That there are limits to his support came as...

It makes great good sense and will teach Random House a thing or two. One of the things it will teach it is to be more careful. I’m not sure what the second one is but perhaps we’ll...

Watch out Bolivia. George Bush has you in his sights...

The more one learns about the sophomores in charge of the country’s affairs the more one marvels. In addition to ineptitude, at least two of them share one other quality-lying to enhance their...

The great news is that we’re rid of Tom DeLay. The coffin of the Hammer, as he was known when majority leader, has been nailed shut. And the man who cultivated the field of lobbyists has...

Some are fired. Some are simply muzzled. When considering whether those events are a distinction or a disgrace the question that must be asked is “Who did it?” If it’s George W...

It’s no good comparing one criminal sentence with another criminal sentence. After all, there are different facts and circumstances involved in each case and what may appear to be quite a...

The critics don’t know when they’re well off. Instead of ranting against George Bush they should be grateful they live in this free country with telephones instead of some other place in...

The poor are still with us and once again it’s George Bush’s IRS that is insuring they do not take unfair advantage of those of us who have, through our own diligence or felicitous...

The comparison is superficial. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expressing a wish. Pat Robertson was offering a rational explanation of the event. Those two things are quite different...

It is popular but unfair to criticize credit card companies for their recent successful efforts to persuade congress to change the bankruptcy laws. Rather than criticize we should acknowledge all...

2005...

It was another great week on the national scene. First it was George Bush showing his lack of scruples and then it was the New York Times belying its motto: “All the news that’s fit to...

Jose Padilla may be about to get a New Year’s present to add to his Christmas present...

Facts need friends. With the right kind of friends facts can alter their appearance. The Bush administration has gone out of its way to create friends for facts and the altered facts in turn have...

His indictment by the federal government at first seemed like a welcome start for his holiday season. Indictments are not always so. Jose Padilla’s case seemed to be the exception until...

Again we have been treated to the workings of a truly compassionate administration. In one case it took two tries, in the other it was doing what comes naturally and got it right the first time...

It is probably nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence that Homeland Security released its report on what to do in the event a terrorist explodes a dirty bomb on our shores while the...

It is an opportunity foregone and it is likely that no one regrets it more than Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin. Especially when he considers the more likely alternative...

Who’d have thought it? The first proposal that Congress came up with to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina was a proposal to permit people who died in the hurricane avoid estate tax. Of...

Herewith a primer on the death penalty. It is the device society has chosen to teach murderers that the taking of human life is wrong. It is also a way of insuring that were they to prove themselves...

Once again we are reminded that when a president decides he would like to be a war president, we go to war, to paraphrase Mr. Rumsfeld, not with the accounting system you would like to have but with...

She’s unsophisticated and certainly doesn’t read the newspapers so she’ll not have noticed. Were it otherwise she’d be as puzzled as her limited intellect would permit. And...

He’s clearly not as bad as the press makes him out to be. But it’s easy to overlook that fact if one focuses on his conduct instead of his defenders...

September was a remarkable month for the Bush administration. We had grown so accustomed to the sight of competent people being set free from their jobs for telling the truth that it was refreshing...

Even absolutely terrible events have silver linings. Hurricane Katrina is an example. It demonstrated, to the surprise of at least this writer, that George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress not...

Golly. All people are thinking about are the hurricane victims. No one is thinking about Michael Brown who is now unemployed. Stephen Jones, the lawyer who defended Timothy McVeigh, hired Mr. Brown...

No one likes to admit to being dull, so occasionally the task of making the observation falls to others. George Bush is a case in point. All his friends tell us his is a keen mind that cuts right...

Pat Robertson is the man whose website commends to the reader his booklets that describe Age-Defying Antioxidants, Age Defying Protein Pancakes and Age-Defying Protein Shakes, the latter two having...

Mea culpa. All during the years in which John Ashcroft embarrassed the country by serving as attorney general, I told anyone who would listen that I waxed nostalgic for the halcyon days when...

A secret’s not a secret anymore. In days of yore, a secret was treated with the greatest respect. A person to whom a secret was imparted treated the secret as inviolate, refusing to disclose...

Sunday, August 14 promises to be a great day for the Lord. Not that it’s the only exciting day. George Bush gave Him another in early August. But I get ahead of myself...

So marvelous are the benefits that it almost makes a human being giddy. Congress passed an energy bill before its members hurried home to their well-earned rest. (By September 3, when they return...

It is time for an update, albeit belatedly, on things in China that though trivial in the eyes of some, are central to the concerns of others in the governments of those two countries. I refer, of...

Friends change over time. Consider Albert Gonzales and the FBI. Prior to Judge Roberts’s nomination, liberals were hoping Albert Gonzales would be Mr. Bush’s nominee for the vacant...

It was the juxtaposition that caught the eye. It was the fact that the G8 meeting began on the same day as the site of the next Olympic games was announced. Each occasion was important. Each...

Republicans in Congress have done wonderful things for people in the military all of which goes to show that while helping the rich get richer through bountiful tax cuts, they have not overlooked...

It’s just not the same as living in Texas. In Texas everyone was his friend. They liked him, his parents, his siblings, and Laura. They gave him nice presents like the 10 % interest in the...

One of the first things Thomas B. Griffith will want to do is convince his colleagues of the importance of changing their Rule 49. It shouldn’t be that hard since he’s now a member of...

Life is full of surprises. Just ask Johnny. Johnny is Johnny Weida, the Brig. General in the air force who became the commandant of cadets at the Air Force Academy in April 2003 just as the sex...

One of Mr. Bush’s great skills is the ability to turn a small amount of money into a large amount of money with virtually no effort. Another is to give the impression that small amounts of...

The by-product would come as a big, but welcome, surprise to Mr. Bush, although the law itself is one of the things that he considers to be one of the signal achievements of his presidency. Among its...

The good news is that the Sinclair Broadcast Group is just as concerned with the deaths of U.S. service people in Iraq as the rest of us. That wasn’t obvious a year ago. It is now. It was...

Life is full of surprises. Just ask Johnny. Johnny is Johnny Weida, the Brig. General in the air force who became the commandant of cadets at the Air Force Academy in April 2003 just as the sex...

Whereas one of the consequences of 9/11 was the curtailing of the freedom of the people in the United States by the imposition of new laws and sanctions, that same event freed Congress to do all...

It’s probably just because we have a shortage of good jails. Otherwise being a country concerned with human rights we’d not consider it...

He just goes from glory to glory. The only question is why...

The risk, of course, is that the International Court of Criminal Justice might agree with United States Military investigators and decide to prosecute. That would be most unwelcome. It was all...

When you do something dumb it’s nice to have attention drawn from you by someone doing something even dumber. Just ask Cobb County...

A sucker is born every minute. It may not always be obvious who the sucker is. Pakistan is negotiating with the United States to buy some airplanes. Apparently there is no one left in Pakistan who...

Instead of beginning today’s column with a discussion of world events, we begin with a vocabulary lesson. The lesson is inspired by the confluence of two words that seem to have nothing in...

It is easy for the poor to become so excited over the proposals in the new bankruptcy law that they lose sight of the exciting changes that may soon be coming in the Medicaid field...

It’s easy to get crosswise with the United States. Just ask Qatar. In 1988 it was Stinger missiles-today it’s Al Jazeera...

The week that included Valentine’s day seemed as good a week as any to put the world on notice. Not the entire world-only parts and, for that matter, one part was even given a reprieve...

For this week’s musings we return again to Cobb County Georgia...

It must have been the juxtaposition. Without it I might not have noticed or been surprised. Paul and Roméo would have noticed but would not have been surprised. Their memories would have...

The quick and the dead. Those are the ones the administration finds useful in promoting its policies. It was the quick who started off the storm of criticism...

Everyone who is rooting for Us instead of Them is hoping that it wasn’t a metaphor. The FBI has had enough bad news since 9/11 including, of course, the event itself. The metaphor to which I...

Only the most callous would refuse to sympathize with the United States government. It makes it seem more human. That’s because few of my readers have not at one time or another found...

Even I, biased as I am, am constrained to come to the defense of the oppressed majority now and again. Although I would be the first to contradict the commonly accepted notion (by Republicans and an...

Again we are reminded. There is nothing government does that the private sector can’t do better. What “Plastics” was to Dustin Hoffman’s “Graduate”...

He sure knew what he was talking about. He should. He is president of the World Bank...

For all three groups Christmas came early. For the first group it came in September. For the second group it came in mid-December and for the third group, which got the best present, it came at the...