Michael Smerconish

Thank you, Navy SEALs, for killing Osama bin Laden. And thank you, President Obama, for turning them loose to do their job, just as you said you would.

This past week, an Obama campaign Web commercial featuring Bill Clinton, quotes Mitt Romney, in 2007, downplaying the significance of...

Les bandes audio du 911, publiées à tout vent dans Internet, pourraient suffire à inculper George Zimmerman en relation avec la mort tragique de l'adolescent Trayvon Martin, survenue le 26 février dernier dans une rue de Sanford, en Floride. Des analyses vocales détermineront si Zimmerman a proféré une insulte raciale...

Pending the outcome of some voice analysis, there is arguably enough evidence in the 911 tapes to warrant the arrest of George Zimmerman in connection with the Feb. 26 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The voice testing is needed to determine if Zimmerman uttered a racial slur while in...

Though the advertising boycott of Rush Limbaugh is significant for its size and scope, it will ultimately prove ineffectual in dislodging him from his commanding perch above the talk-radio world. That kind of movement would require a different type of acquiescence, namely on the part of program directors, not advertisers....

Mitt Romney has missed several golden opportunities to turn this campaign's religious fixation to his advantage.

Given that polls show he faces prejudice among a sizable share of primary voters because of his Mormon faith, you would think Romney would be eager to try to redefine the role of faith...

Sean Hannity has implied that if President Obama had his way, Osama bin Laden would be alive. Earlier this week he had this exchange with Frank Luntz:

HANNITY: I know the president will say, 'Well, we got bin Laden.' Putting that aside...

Nike co-founder and chairman Phil Knight delivered quite a broadside to the Penn State board of trustees on Jan. 26 during the memorial service for Joe Paterno.

As evidenced by the thunderous reaction, his comments provided a salve to mourners, but when viewed unemotionally, his words were misleading at best....

Permit me one New Year's prediction about which I am absolutely certain, and two for which I have a strong hunch.

The sure thing: The Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal will be "the" state and local issue of 2012. Not even Pennsylvania's role in the presidential race will be able to...

Outrage.

That's all I could think of when watching Bob Costas interview embattled former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky. And I was personally outraged, but I also had a book title in mind.

After O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of murder, famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote a book called...

Among the many things that need to change in the aftermath of the Penn State scandal is Pennsylvania law.

First, the commonwealth needs to require that any witness to child abuse call the police. Second, the statute of limitations for civil claims against child abusers needs to be expanded.

Consider...

There is one line amid the 23-page grand jury presentment that marks the depth of the alleged depravity in the Penn State scandal. As a father of three sons, it makes me sick to read.

Here is the context:

It was about 9:30 p.m. on March 1, 2002 -- the...

Each of my trips to Shanksville, Pa., has been inspiring, for different reasons.

My first trip was six years ago, when the Internet was ablaze with criticism of the planned memorial to the passengers and crew of Flight 93. The project was then in the design phase, and some saw...

Michele Bachmann, meet Ben Haney.

In other circumstances, Ben could have been a real asset to your campaign. He's a 28-year-old Republican with experience as a traveling advance man for John McCain and Sarah Palin in 2008. Ben was born and raised in the critically important suburbs of Philadelphia. Having...

Last week, New York state characterized freeze tag, Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball as potentially hazardous, thereby subjecting camp providers overseeing those games to state regulation.

Out West, the NCAA is at odds with the University of North Dakota over the continued use of the nickname "the Fighting Sioux"...

Every time I hear Donald Trump talk about President Obama's birth certificate, I think of O.J. Simpson.

The conspiracy theory invented by Simpson's defenders was every bit as loopy as the fantasies concerning Obama. Remember the O.J. defense ruse?

Years before the murder, conspirators would have had to incite Simpson...

Perhaps you heard Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a 50-year veteran of law enforcement, say:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this...

Over the weekend, Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, rejected calls for an international investigation into his country's raid of the now-infamous flotilla headed for Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was less definitive on Sunday: "I told the United Nations secretary general that an investigation of the facts has to...

Larry Kane still has game. The veteran journalist who recently celebrated his 45th year in broadcast journalism, the guy who in his early twenties accompanied the Beatles on their first tour of the United States, is the one who first thought to ask Joe Sestak whether the White House offered...

He has angered me, too.

In my case, it was in 1987, when Arlen Specter was torpedoing the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork. I then believed Bork was qualified. At the time, Specter said he had "substantial doubt as to how [Bork] would apply fundamental principles of constitutional law."

Bob Schieffer delivered a commentary on Face the Nation last Sunday that made me think of Joe Biden and Arlen Specter. Yesterday, I got the opportunity to tell the vice president why he had come to mind.

"Not long ago," Schieffer said, "a staffer for a congressional leader actually...