We need to cut Michael Steele some slack.. If someone is willing to pay him big bucks to make a speech, he'd be a fool to say no. True, he has gotten into trouble about some of the dopey things he's said, but he may as well make some money...

Remember the late George Carlin's routine where the "Hippy Dippy Weatherman" reports that radar pinpoints a line of thundershowers? He goes on to say that radar also shows Russian missiles heading our way "So don't sweat the thundershowers."

This is similar. There are urgent predictions that unless there is meaningful...

Remember during the early primaries when the moderator would present some question and ask the gaggle of candidates for a demeaning show of hands? Well, not to be outdone in the Asinine department let's have another one.

How many have gotten seasonal cards that include a note from the senders...

There are certain cliches that can get really really irritating. It's a condition called "Platitudinous Baditudinous Attitudinous" and it flares up each and every time someone says "We shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good". Some sort of ridicule is in order, like maybe a "Kick me" sign.

"Do you want a bureaucrat to get between you and your doctor?" It's the mantra of Republicans and other conservatives and it is effective.

It is the chant that can whip up a crowd against any sort of health care public option or any change for that matter....

Those who are not sports fans will probably not know the term "BCS", or that it means Bowl Championship Series, or that it is highly controversial because it chooses a national football champion without the kind of playoff elimination games one finds in other major sports. Now you know.

Even...

You know we laugh when somebody says "Show Business Is My Life"? It's a joke. Right?

Perhaps it is, but it's not funny. That's because we live in an age of image making and media manipulation where much of Life is truly show biz. Reality is what the PR people...

When I was off chasing some grueling or even dangerous story, like say, a shooting war, I had a standard response for anyone who complained: "It sure as hell beats covering some Congressional committee". That was a heartfelt as could be.

After sitting through hundreds upon hundreds of...

Let's dispense with the cheap shot first: The Salahis were not invited to the White House Summit on jobs.

Unfortunately, neither were the unemployed, not in any meaningful way. True, there is no shortage of concerned speeches, including one by the Concerned-Speechmaker-in-Chief, addressing a collection of economists and...

An apparently uninvited couple waltzes past what we have always been told is an impenetrable human wall against danger to the President.

We may have already forgotten forget the failures a few months ago in what we had grown up believing were the fail-safe procedures to prevent cataclysmic...

"WHAT AN INCREDIBLE NIGHT THIS WILL BE!!!"

Rush Limbaugh is beside himself. He's the moderator of the first GOP presidential debate of 2012, carried exclusively on Fox News Channel. What a highly charged confrontation we can expect! Who would have known four years ago that the candidates would include Sarah...

I'm sorry. I can't contain myself. I have to write about this:

It is probably not true that when President Obama announces Tuesday he'll be ordering thousands more Americans to Afghanistan, the first two to go will be the couple that crashed the White House State Dinner. But there are...

Those Humane Society commercials on behalf of neglected, abused and hungry dogs and cats are heart wrenching to me. No one loves animals more than me, dotes more on his own pets.

HOWEVER: Don't we need a similar campaign for human children? Given the new study that shows one fourth...

Unlike the wide coverage given to the tedious sessions President Obama has held about Afghanistan, the planning for the White House State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was conducted in complete secrecy. No leaks whatsoever.

It's a pity. First of all, the President himself also convened these...

"Thank you for asking".

If I am ever able to realize my dream to establish an Insincerity Hall of Fame that phrase will have a prominent place.

It's the usually dismissive response from someone who has just been asked "How ya doin'?". I always want to fire back...

With all the reports coming out that recommend we scale back on life saving medical exams there is one we might soon see from still another group of experts.

This one concerns depression. It concludes that diagnosis, medication and counseling won't work anyway, so why bother trying. After all,...

Chances are you've been following the Washington Redskins epic lately. You don't have to be a football fan to be fascinated by the story of a team owner who has managed in 10 short years to squander generations of goodwill from an area that came together on little...

You've heard this before. It doesn't matter whether those of us who fancy ourselves politically informed are right or wrong when we pontificate. No one really pays close enough attention to remember, and certainly we don't. It's a great gig.

Well, I hope you're sitting down, because this pundit-wanna bee...

President Barack Obama: You are about to set the world record for presenting the same show on the most channels in the same day. The record is currently held, of course, by "Law and Order". The only network where you will not be seen is Fox. And that Mr. President,...

Even though we've moved way beyond emails with texting, instant messages, Twitter, Facebook and what have you, emails are still in play. But we have never understood what they really say.

So as another in my series of vital public services, I am interpreting the language of electronic mail... what...