Archives for June 2008

Does everyone know what the Straight Talk Express would bring to the White House if voters are stupid enough to elect Mr. Gasbag? You would think so. Even The Wall Street Journal knows. It would mean “The Return of Dr. No.” And what does Dr. No (a k a Phil Gramm), the Gasbag’s top economic […]

When Rupert Murdoch said The Wall Street Journal would target The New York Times in the competition for readers, he was talking about a lot more than prose style. But if you’re taking aim at The Times it helps to show that WSJ reporters know how to write, really write. Long before Murdoch took over […]

Now that The Wall Street Journal is reporting general news as never before, one of my small pleasures is to compare matching stories in The New York Times. The comparisons are not always exact, but they are revealing just the same. Here, for example, are two excerpts. Both show the so-called Straight Talker for what […]

From The Writer’s Almanac (last item): On this day in 1215, King John of England put his seal to the Magna Carta, one of the first historical documents to state that subjects have rights beyond the power of their rulers. The right to a trial by jury and the right of habeas corpus, which prevents […]

Which lede do you like? 1. Jess Bravin in The Wall Street Journal: The Supreme Court ruled that foreign prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay may challenge their detention before a federal judge, a historic decision that rebuffs the Bush administration’s years-long effort to curtail the legal rights of terrorism suspects. 2. Linda Greenhouse in The […]

Mark Morford usually gets it right. (He’s one of the savviest, funniest columnists around.) This time he flubbed it, methinks. Musta taken a happy pill when he wrote his latest. It appeared this morning: Barack Obama isn’t really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway. This is what I find myself offering up […]