Two of America's leading black intellectuals, John McWhorter and Glenn Loury, recently had the best conversation I've yet seen about Barack Obama's race speech, one that's worth watching in full, but that struck me as particularly interesting when it turned to the question of the candidate's grandmother.

Obama's critics...

America's most oft-quoted man on the street, Greg Packer, arrived outside a New York City Barnes and Noble at 3 a.m. on a recent morning, squatted on the sidewalk and grinned.

The Long Island resident, 43, was first in line for a 12:30 p.m. book signing by NFL fullback-turned-sportscaster...

HBO's The Wire hasn't won its fair share of Emmy's, but the critically acclaimed drama, the creation of former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, has generated astonishingly positive press. We're talking about a series Slate's Jacob Weisberg once called "the best TV show ever broadcast in America," because...

The GOP divide on immigration is most inexplicable on the question of whether a wall along the southern border should be partly "virtual," as favored by President Bush, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, or a physical "bricks and mortar" wall as favored by Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and most GOP...

What news coverage of the Paris riots needs is citizen journalists who live within the troubled suburbs and are willing to contribute, anonymously or not, to a blog or a newspaper Web site or any other forum that lends insight into the mindset and tactics of the rioters.

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For all I know Barack Obama really is a foreign policy lightweight, but it's nevertheless maddening to observe his critics willfully misinterpreting his words to fit that narrative.

If you wonder how it all happens, consider the remarks he delivered in New Hampshire as reported by the

I don't understand why Barack Obama is taking so much flak for saying that he'll meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea if elected president.

It would make sense if his critics were arguing that an American president shouldn't talk to rogue leaders....