America Is The Longest Argument In The

The Quality Of Democracy And The Quality Of Journalism Are Deeply Entwined.

There Are Honest Journalists Like There Are Honest Politicians - They Stay Bought.

In Tracking Down And Eliminating Terrorists, We Need To Change Our Metaphor From A "war On Terror" - Exactly What, Pray Tell, Is That? - To The Mind-set Of Interpol Tracking Down Master Criminals Through Intense Global Cooperation Among Nations, Or The Fbi Stalking The Mafia, Or Local Police Determined To Quell Street Gangs Without Leveling The Entire Neighborhood In The Process.

Reagan's Story Of Freedom Superficially Alludes To The Founding Fathers, But Its Substance Comes From The Gilded Age, Devised By Apologists For The Robber Barons. It Is Posed Abstractly As The Freedom Of The Individual From Government Control A Jeffersonian Ideal At The Roots Of Our Bill Of Rights, To Be Sure. But What It Meant In Politics A Century Later, And Still Means Today, Is The Freedom To Accumulate Wealth Without Social Or Democratic Responsibilities And License To Buy The Political System Right Out From Everyone Else.

We Seem To Prefer A Comfortable Lie To The Uncomfortable Truth. We Punish Those Who Point Out Reality, And Reward Those Who Provide Us With The Comfort Of Illusion. Reality Is Fearsome .. But Experience Tells Us That More Fearsome Yet Is Evading It.