The first time I met The Lion of the Senate, I was not nearly as in awe of him as I was of then House Speaker Tip O'Neill. I was about eleven years old, four-foot nothing, and the Speaker was enormous to me. In truth, he dwarfed most. Being precocious...

This is not your grandfather's Grand Old Party. Now revealed as a cabal of quitters, liars and philanderers who propagandize a new brand of Hatriotism, there's nothing grand about it.

In their desperation to replay an election they lost last year, they have left no lie unchampioned. They use...

How ironic. I caught the flu right in the middle of blogging about health care reform. After two days of misery, I awoke this morning to see Tina Brown on CNN talking about how, as a Brit, she has been able to go to the doctor whenever necessary without question...

The need for healthcare reform has been a brewing storm for decades. It became an emergency in December, 2007 when the U.S. economy entered into the worst recession in seventy years because of the disastrous economic policies of the George W. Bush administration. Their policies not only inflicted a class...

As Congress prepares to leave D.C. to sip cocktails by the pool, the healthcare debate is mired in spin, slick advertising and parliamentary brinksmanship, leaving the rest of us dazed, confused and not a little scared. This is not change, and we don't believe in it.

One of the most...

Forty years ago today, I was a four-and-a-half-year-old tot sitting on the floor of my grandparents' den staring at a black and white television with rabbit ear antennas as astronauts walked on the Moon. I was so small, but I remember it all so clearly. In that single moment, suddenly,...

I never go to the beach. What's the point? I'm not going to get in the water. No way. I know what's in there. Personally, I prefer to eat the buffet, not to be the buffet.

Yes, I admit it. I have the world's most ridiculous shark-phobia. In 1975, I...

Live by the press release, die by the press release. This is one of the many rubrics of public relations that I share with my clients. If you put it out there, it will likely come back to bite you in the nether regions, unless of course you have the...

I wonder if Congressman Pete King bothered to watch the Michael Jackson memorial service today? Or did his cynicism win out? Don't get me wrong. With the Iranian people still courageously protesting their oppressors and the Chinese ethnic conflict and our brave U.S. troops still fighting on two fronts overseas...

Sarah Palin has announced her abdication of the Governorship of Alaska. If I were a citizen of Alaska, and especially if I had voted for her, I'd be pissed off.

Who cares if she feels she has checked off her personal laundry list of things to do? There remains...

Everyone and his mother's uncle's second cousin is talking about Michael Jackson today. (Sorry Farrah.) Many are blogging and Tweeting about him. Lord knows I spent several hours doing just that and simultaneously texting, calling and emailing while live monitoring CNN and finishing up my client deadlines du jour. In...

In the branding biz, there is no greater measure of success than when your name or tag line becomes part of the cultural lexicon: We FedEx a package, even if it's sent UPS. We Twitter, even if using another micro-blog service. To this end, Nancy Reagan must be so proud...

This is an introductory installment of a series that will examine the crafty use of language in the political propaganda on the most important issues of our day and the news media's coverage of the public debate.

Language is one of the richest forms of expression we have. Like any...

They say when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So sums up the not-so-surprising defeat of Terry McAuliffe in his race to become the Democratic Party nominee for Virginia Governor.

It's also not surprising to find all of the national pundits and Beltway insiders scratching their heads...