On the surface no one would confuse Amanda Knox, the young Seattle woman released yesterday in Italy after spending four years in prison...

Elections and the Court When the Obama Justice Department announced last week that it had asked the United States Supreme Court for an...

The sport page headline in the Boston Herald this morning: “The Choke’s on Us.” Herald columnist John Tomase captured the full agony of...

At pivotal moments in American history it has often been the case that the right leader somehow emerged from the chaos of the moment and...

Loyal readers at this spot know that I occasionally rage against the dying of the light of local journalism. The days of independent,...

Taylor Branch is a serious historian, a man who has made his considerable reputation as perhaps the most important historian of the civil...

When Idaho’s “citizen” reapportionment panel deadlocked recently everyone in the state looked to the Big Man on the second floor of the...

Amid the tenth anniversary reflections over the terror attacks on New York and Washington there is much to ponder, remember and regret,...

When Its Lost Can it be Found Again? I’ve had a good deal of fun over the last few weeks teaching a college-level political science...

I don’t normally pay a great deal of attention to the political opinions of Hollywood personalities. So I confess I missed the initial...

I’d argue that ever modern American presidential election comes down to one fundamental question: do we change or do we continue? In...

I’d argue that ever modern American presidential election comes down to one fundamental question: do we change or do we continue? In...

Thomas and Fortas, Separated Only By Time In a completely fascinating piece in the current New Yorker, Supreme Court watcher Jeffrey...

Thomas and Fortas, Separated Only By Time In a completely fascinating piece in the current New Yorker, Supreme Court watcher Jeffrey...

There were times while reading Paula McLain’s novel about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson, and their life in that...

The following letter appeared recently in the New York Times… To the Editor: Only a Yankee fan ensconced in that new shopping mall in the...

Let the Ordeal Begin Britain has plenty of problems, as the recent and shocking riots in London, Manchester and elsewhere painfully...

On Wall Street and the NCAA The nation’s political chattering classes have had plenty to chatter about over the last couple of weeks –...

Not Likely to See His Kind Again I’ve always thought of Mark Hatfield, the Oregon Republican who died on Sunday, as looking and acting...

It is not really true, as is often said, that history repeats. No historical analogy is ever 100 percent correct. What history does...