BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  FEB 11

“I think the thing that makes the story suspect is he violated one of the rules of old soldier’s war stories. That is you tell war stories about the adventures of others that you observe. Many of his war stories are about him. He became a part of the story. “

Lt. Gen Russell Honore’, former commander of restoration after Hurricane Katrina, commenting for the CNN show Reliable Sources February 8, 2015 on NBC News anchor Brian Williams reporting from New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm.

Good journalism is enhanced by good story telling, my spouse, a former broadcast anchor often reminds me, but good story telling is not necessarily good journalism. Continue reading →

BY B. JAY COOPER
FEB 8 | Reprinted from The Screaming Moderate (bjaycooper.com)

NBC News anchor Brian Williams is on the hot seat for his memory lapses or, better put, his memory enhancements, when it comes to his recollections of his coverage of wars and disasters. Mockery has begun! And that, my friends, is worse.

Brian says a military helicopter he was flying on was shot down. But it wasn’t. That was the chopper a half hour in front of his helicopter, which did not take fire. And, Brian, while in New Orleans covering Katrina said he saw a dead body float by his room in the Ritz Carlton, but the floods were blocks away from the hotel. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JAN 29 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Last week, when the first cattle call of GOP candidates for President were paraded on stage in Des Moines, one man, not a candidate nor a potential (as far as I know) candidate, gave what was probably the most important speech of the weekend.

Newt Gingrich talked about, warned about, radical Islam.

Because Newt is not a candidate, his speech was not well covered. In one cut-away shot back to the stand where the seven video cameras were located, only one – probably the C-SPAN camera, had someone behind it. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JAN 28 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Eight centuries ago, Thomas Aquinas was born.

I am not an Aquinas scholar, as I suspect most of you are not. But we all owe a debt to this brilliant thinker who changed the course of human history.

Aquinas wasn’t the first Catholic theologian to study the Greek philosophers and apply their lessons to Christianity. Plenty of Irish monks had kept Aristotle, Plato and Socrates alive amid the darkest moments of the Dark Ages. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JAN 21 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Overall: This was not Barack Obama’s best speech. It was modest in its scope and scale; it was almost desultory in its delivery; it was as if the President wanted to take a victory lap just two months, two weeks, and two days after getting blitzed in the mid-term elections on November 4.

About ten minutes in, I was thinking “If everything is so hunky-dory why did the Democrats get hammered so badly at every level, from U.S. Senate to State Representative?” Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JAN 21 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in the Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank

I’m with Carlos Curbelo.

He gave the Spanish language version of the Republican response and in it he said, “We should work through the appropriate channels to create permanent solutions to our immigration system, modernize legal immigration, and strengthen our economy.”

That phrase was left out of Joni Ernst’s response, which went to a broader, non-Spanish speaking audience. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JAN 19 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Not content with overseeing the largest – in terms of both numbers and scope – seat losses by any President in American history during his term, Barack Obama has set his sights on causing potential nominees for his office to have to run against his schemes in 2016.

President Obama’s annual State of the Union address (SOTU to Washington, DC based Tweeters, saving 14 characters) is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow night in a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JAN 15 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

While most of the Beltway potelligencia is quacking about (a) whether the Obama Administration should have sent a cabinet-level official to Paris for the big March (they should have) and (b) how long the White House can go without using the word “Islamic” next to – or at least nearby – the word “terrorism” an analysis of what this Administration has meant to the rest of the nation.

Because most of the national political reporters are based in, and work from Washington, DC, they tend to focus on elections for Federal offices: President, Senate and House. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
JAN 12 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

More than 3.7 million people marched in France Sunday to show solidarity against terrorism in the wake of the horrific events in Paris late last week.

According to CNN.com: World leaders joined French President Francois Hollande, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. The day also brought together an unlikely duo at the rally: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Who wasn’t there? Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JAN 11

“Freedom to publish and freedom to speak are absolute…because there is no democracy without journalism. The strength of a nation depends on the quality of its information.”
— CBS News Anchor Scott Pelley on 1/9/15 editorializing about terrorist attacks in France.

“While these sources had been reliable in our previous reporting, the intel they passed along to us last night turned out not to be correct.”
— NBC News anchor Brian Williams on 1/9/15 apologizing for the erroneous information on the previous night’s broadcast regarding terrorist attacks in France.

We need to have a national discussion about the media. These quotations reflect serious problems in the way Americans get their news and information and it is having a deleterious effect on how we live our lives, how we are governed, and how we make decisions as a society. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JAN 7 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

It’s really not that complicated.

I don’t mean to sound like Peter Morini, but when it comes to the vote for Speaker of the House, it really isn’t that complicated.

You are either shirts or skins. Red or blue. Republican or Democrat.

It’s a binary choice. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
JAN 6 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in The Hill

From 1910 to 1943, it was fairly common for some members of the Republican Party to vote for somebody for Speaker of the House other than the choice of the conference.

Progressive Republicans initially joined with Democrats in rebellion against the autocratic Joe Cannon, and the habit stuck. And in every Speaker’s election during that time, up to 11 members would cast their votes for a person other than the two candidates put forward by the two major parties. Continue reading →

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  DEC 24

When the curtain finally dropped on the tragic comedy that was the 113th Congress of the United States, the only applause came from those who were glad it was over.

Some in the media were probably sorry to see the troupe leave town. For them, it was good theater, and good box office.

But for the masses, the 113th Congress was one of the worst in history and there’s no spinning the facts or passing off lame excuses as explanations for what didn’t happen or why. There’s no sense pointing the finger of blame. We don’t have enough fingers. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
DEC 22 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

Two New York City cops, Wenjian Liu (38) and Rafael Ramos (40), were murdered Saturday afternoon sitting in their marked car parked near what in New York is known as “a project” – typically a high-rise, low cost housing structure – where they were attempting, by virtue of their visibility, to protect the residents.

That very visibility led to their deaths as a gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, walked up to the passenger side of the car, fired, and killed them both before running down into a subway entrance and shooting himself on the platform. Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
DEC 18 | Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

“I have seen the future and it is now,” the famous Soviet apologist Lincoln Steffens once wrote about the Russian revolution.

He turned out to be wrong, but I betcha most Americans don’t even know who Lincoln Steffens was, let alone what he was talking about.

Communism used to be number one thing that concerned the American people. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
DEC 15 | Reprinted from Mullings.com  

A hundred years ago, I think during the Walkman era, Sony’s slogan was: Sony. No Baloney. My how times have changed.

You know that Sony Pictures Entertainment has been hacked big time. By big time I mean the hackers took everything: Payroll, scripts, finished movies and, to the delight of one and all, emails. Continue reading →

BY BILL GREENER III
DEC 12 | Reprinted from Inside Sources

On any given day, you can read criticism of the Speaker of the House, John Boehner. From the left, he is guilty of not leading as a result of being captive of the Tea Party contingency. From the right, the Speaker is a Republican In Name Only (RINO), ready to compromise with Democrats at the drop of a hat. From where I sit, however, John Boehner is exactly the right man for the job.

Let there be no confusion. John Boehner is a principled conservative who believes in meeting the responsibilities of governing. Sometimes that does involve compromise, but not abandoning your basic beliefs. That is not what I want to write about today. Instead, I want to spend some time on the personal qualities of John Boehner that lead me to hold him in such considerable esteem. Continue reading →

BY RICH GALEN
DEC 11 | Reprinted from Mullings.com

The closest I have ever come to being involved with torture was during my stint in Baghdad when I made occasional visits to the infamous prison: Abu Ghraib.

I was never near any prisoners, and I had no idea what was going on in the enhanced interrogation section.

I only bring that up because when the activities there came, literally, to light my thought was: “They were trying to kill me and, if successful, they were going to come and try to kill you.” Continue reading →

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Originally published in The Hill

It’s the easiest story to write for the mostly younger journalists on Capitol Hill: the conservative uprising against the Republican leadership.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz hosted a press conference last week on the House side, calling for a government shutdown unless the president accepts a provision in the “cromnibus” appropriations bill that would reverse his executive order on immigration. Continue reading →