James Clay Fuller

Now and then, there is a news story so revealing that it should be shouted for days from every yammering television station and printed and prominently analyzed by every newspaper. Why, there's one now that may be more important than a hot yarn about a pathetic 23-year-old no-talent pop singer getting drunk and vomiting on Greta Garbo's star on Hollywood Boulevard. Generally speaking, however, most of the people who pass themselves off as news reporters and analysts these days miss the significance of such stories entirely. MORE »

The phony flap over MoveOn's “General Betray Us” ad demonstrates clearly how desperately this poor country needs a second major political party – if it isn't already too late. MORE »

Have we ever before seen a major news event disappear from public view so completely and so quickly? Or a story with such potential significance so widely ignored and minimized? And what do we make of that? I'm talking about the supposedly mistaken transport of either five or six missiles carrying nuclear warheads from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana on Aug. 30. The Air Force said the warheads were being shipped for “decommissioning.” MORE »

If you wonder how we've come to the sorry state we're in, there's a news story in the Star Tribune (Aug. 16, page B6) that answers the question, though that certainly is not the intent of the reporter nor of the pollsters whose new results he passes on. A poll by SurveyUSA over the previous weekend shows that in the wake of the Hwy. I35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's approval rating is at an all-time high, the Strib reported. The poll says 59 percent of Minnesotans now approve of “the job Pawlenty is doing.” MORE »