Roger Smith

There they go again, Republicans will shout -- more Bush bashing. No, this discussion of job creation under our former president is not an attempt to blame him for our current dilemma, at least not all of it. Nor am I trying to rescue him from the ballgame-attending semi-obscurity to...

Like so many people, I was unfamiliar with the Troy Davis case until a week ago. My death-penalty views extend beyond the usual left-liberal's opposition into a fairly absolutist anti stance. (When pressed on occasion, I try to shut off the discussion by saying "I was opposed to executing Eichmann....

Since Elaine Kaufman's death nearly a week ago, there has been an avalanche of words written and spoken about this iconic New York restaurateur. Most were written by -- or about -- the celebrated writers and journalists who made her simple eatery such an institution for more than 45 years....

Last Sunday's "Week in Review" section of the New York Times carried an Op-Ed piece on the Bernie Madoff saga by frequent Times contributor Daphne Merkin, carrying the somewhat opaque title "If Looks Could Steal."

The rather bizarre thrust of Ms. Merkin's musings about the Madoff...

Jake DeSantis's "Dear A.I.G., I Quit!", the lead Op-Ed in yesterday's New York Times, seemed, on first reading, to be so risibly self-serving that I was certain that Mr. DeSantis had succeeded only in exposing himself to near universal ridicule.

However, as the day wore on, my in-box...

Sarah Palin--The Next "Great McGinty"?

By Roger Smith

Like most of America, I awoke this morning to read/hear the usual voices of the commentariat holding forth on last night's debate. No surprises there. But I was struck by an email I received from an...

We liberals are frequently accused by the right of only listening to views we find congenial. (This accusation is usually made by people who watch Bill O'Reilly, listen to Rush AND read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal...oh, never mind.)

Well, good liberal that I...

Today's Meet the Press provided yet another vivid reminder of how the "even-handedness" of the American media--electronic and print--plays into the hands of the Bush administration, indeed into ideologues of nearly every stripe. Tim Russert presented a colloquium on how the US should best proceed in Iraq with four carefully...

The never-say-die hypocrisy of the Bush apologists remains nearly as amusing as it is infuriating. When it comes from double-digit IQ apparatchiks like nearly anyone on Fox News, then we can all have a laugh. But when those like David Brooks, with both the imprimatur of the New York Times...