May 31, 2008
Grassy Knob Mountain
Union Grove, N.C.

Circling the old house, mired down in a carpet of grasses,

Or poking around the red barn, and the outlying fruit trees;

From the cracks of sheds, I cut long limbs of red roses...

Stalks...

"Good times never seem so good. Oh, I've been inclined to believe it never would."

Across Main street from the silence of the college church sanctuary,

On Good Friday, there was a buzz in the Soda Shop, legendary.

Adorning the walls are photos of varsity stars over the...

"Sweet Caroline"

Across Main Street from the silence of the college church sanctuary,
On Good Friday, there was a buzz in the Soda Shoppe, legendary.
Adorning the walls are photos of varsity stars over the generations;
If there is a Davidson myth that lives,...

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs ... that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, Laughing!

(from Carl Sandburg's "Chicago")

After Super Tuesday, watching the returns from the primary "Chesapeake,"
On Lincoln's birthday--no less--we...

"What are we supposed to tell them and their families? To wait another year until a new administration and a new Congress starts listening to the American people and brings this tragedy to a close?" -- Sen. Russ Feingold

The newspaper headlines of December 19 tell the story: "Senate Adds...

"I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning" -- President William Jefferson Clinton in Iowa on November 27

The American public, very tired of the war and American occupation of Iraq, longs for a leader who will tell the truth about the quagmire in that country;...

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." ~~George Orwell

Chairman John Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee* are holding hearings today on the commutation of the jail sentence of former chief of staff...

For several years, in my discussions with Representatives and Senators, it has not been unusual to hear Vice President Dick Cheney referred to as President George Bush's "insurance policy." That is, against the beginning of impeachment proceedings in the House. The prevailing assumption has been that it would be necessary...

When Joe Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate in 2006, as an "Independent Democrat," he chose to sit with the Democratic caucus in the Senate, resulting in Harry Reid (D-NV) being elected, counting the vote of Bernie Sanders (I-VT), as Democratic Majority Leader. Alas, in a 51-49 split institution, the...

As reported by Editor&Publisher, America's oldest journal covering the newspaper industry,
the Los Angeles Times on June 1 published an editorial entitled "After the Surge," which took a dim view of a long-term active U.S. presence in Iraq. The paper had previously backed a timetable for...

May 28, 2007
Sunset Beach, North Carolina

Almost motionless, then ever so gently,

The stars and stripes furl and straighten.

As the evening breeze displays her, slowly...

To the west, the setting sun does not hasten.

The bay is at high tide, the green marshes...

The latest national poll indicates that public opposition to the Iraq war is at an all time high. Yet, it was reported in The New York Times that "On War Funds, Democrats Saw No Option but to Concede Ground to Bush." (May 24) The political winds have been at...

"The idea that legislators should get out ahead of public opinion, that they should try to shape that opinion (as did former Arkansas Democratic Sen. William Fulbright on the Vietnam War), sometimes risking their political careers for doing so, is essentially passé in American politics." (Elizabeth Drew, "The War in...

"To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, the acronym for 'absent without leave.' He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge."

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In an unprecedented decision, Speaker Nancy Pelosi designated a retired three-star general, William E. Odom, to respond...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: "For the first time, the president will have to face up, will have to be accountable for this war in Iraq. And he doesn't want to face that reality."

The House and the Senate are forcing a showdown on the war in Iraq, and...

President Bush should "calm down with the threats; there's a new Congress in town. This war without end has gone on far too long, and we are here to end it."
-- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

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When serving as chief legislative assistant to the...

"President Bush should "calm down with the threats; there's a new Congress in town. This war without end has gone on far too long, and we are here to end it."
-- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

As I often observed when serving as chief legislative assistant to...

"It's a chilling record, because you have two main themes of the Iraq war present in Robert Gates' career at CIA: the arrogance and bullying of a Rumsfeld and the intelligence cherry-picking of a Cheney."
Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive

Amidst all the legerdemain and high...

Following the final two-hour second installment shown on Monday night, further examination is in order of the highly-colored prism through which the producers peered in making a "docudrama" that notably strayed from history as it happened. The whole issue of bias has assumed such importance because the made-for-television film was...

Watching the three-hour "docudrama" on ABC, I was surprised that the news network of Jennings and Koppel would endorse the subliminal political agenda that threads through it. At the beginning, the producers stated that they meant to address not the "why" but the "how" of the tragedy. On balance, they...