For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage.

I seem to be one of the few people in journalism who never worked or wrote for the 'Boston Phoenix.' I certainly read and admired it, and feel the same general malaise at news that it is gone.

We're now in one of those periods when the reality of intense pressure on the middle class diverges from long-held assumptions of how the American bargain should work

No real-world human being brings to the U.S. presidency the range of attributes necessary for full success in the job.

Make the important interesting.

For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage.

The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan [...] Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel.