Why Has Obama Become Boring TV?

Decades ago, when Pat Buchanan was working as an adviser to President Richard Nixon, he looked forward to the administration’s televised press conferences, which were held infrequently and with caution. At the time, Mr. Nixon’s relationship with the Washington press corps was fraught with tension. For Mr. Buchanan, the high potential for acrimony turned every Read More

CNN Tries Hard to Focus on the Issues, Fails

Right after wrapping up the CNN/YouTube Republican debate last night, Anderson Cooper proudly told viewers that CNN’s post-game analysis was "not going to focus on the horse race. Instead, tonight, we’re looking at the issues."

It was this relentless focus on the issues that produced comments like these from CNN’s panelists:

John King, CNN correspondent: "Another Read More

Woodward’s Belated Scoop: Bush Lied About Iraq!

Bob Woodward, in his quiet, modest way, was mad as a wet hen on NBC’s Meet the Press the other Sunday: Why do you call it State of Denial? Tim Russert was asking. Why, in so many words, did you have to be so shrill?

“That’s what the facts show,” Mr. Woodward responded. “It took Read More

My Thanks to Clinton: I’m Voting for Lazio

This is the season the French call ” la Rentrée, ” when everyone returns from their holidays rested up and pepped up and rarin’ to go for the fall season. For most people, it seems to have been a dreary, fleeting summer. I can’t recall ever hearing the words “I hate summer” drop from so Read More

The New Retrochicks Let Men Off the Hook

It’s getting to be unseemly, this spectacle of born-yesterday babes elbowing each other and their elders out of the way to grab the media spotlight and stretch their 15 minutes of fame. Wendy Shalit and Danielle Crittenden, new media sweethearts and authors respectively of the antifeminist disquisitions A Return to Modesty and What Our Mothers Read More