Barack Obama and Chris Wallace in happier days, before one became president and the other got snubbed.

Oscar Wilde once described fox hunting as “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the inedible.” What would he have said about Fox hunting? Perhaps…

Maureen Dowd | New York Times

Maureen Dowd, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, was accused of plagiarism yesterday in her Sunday column.

Dowd, who wrote the book “Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide” (Putnam, 2005),  is accused of lifting, almost verbatim,…

The LA Times has a look at tomorrow night’s episode of CBS’s “60 Minutes” featuring an interview with President Barack Obama taped Friday.

In the interview, Obama says the Bush adminsitration’s approach to fighting terrorism, was wrong. He takes specific aim at Dick Cheney’s philosophy.

The…

Walter Williams

“I believe in the profession of journalism … I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a…

AP Photo

So reports the Washington Post.

When I was a kid, it was comic books.

A few years before I was born, a Senate subcommittee investigated “comic books and juvenile delinquency.” It reported:

“The so-called crime and horror comic books of concern to…

Well, this has been a tough campaign. It’s been a very tough campaign. And I know from my experience in many campaigns that, if Sen. Obama had asked . . . responded to my urgent request to sit down and…

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin round-up:

Mitt Romney says let her speak. Yep. The same Romney thought to be on the VP short list.

Biden beware.

Conservative columnists are not getting in line. Or rather, they are getting out of line.

But when you knock her…

Most everyone, no doubt, has read stories about Chinese authorities intimidating journalists, restricting Internet access at Olympic media centers, and other various reports of violations of Beijing’s supposed promise to allow freedom for the international press during the Games. You’ve…

It seems that no matter how many times “the race issue” seems to fade to the background of this campaign, it doesn’t stay there for long. Recurring controversies about race are keeping the issue front and center in the contest…

With the start of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games only 9 days away, I’ve compiled a roundup of stories that give some indication of what to watch for as the games begin:

Air pollution: This is undoubtedly the biggest concern leading…

Forbes magazine looked at cities all over the country to find the best places to buy a home. Houston, San Francisco, Atlanta and St. Louis all made the top 10.

Yes. St. Louis.

I love St. Louis. I don’t mind the summers,…

Gerard Baker, writing in the London Times, offers this satirical account of Barack Obama’s world tour:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the…

Barack Obama will be speaking in Berlin, Germany tomorrow, in an outdoor address open to the German public. Obama is extremely popular in Europe — a recent Pew Research poll showed him leading McCain by a whopping 50 percent in countries like France…

The debate over bias in the media has raged for decades, and it’s not likely to be resolved anytime soon. Even among the comments on this blog, one can find accusations that the “liberal” media is “in the bag” for…

I have previously translated Arabic al-Jazeera articles (and comments) in order to give readers of The Platform some idea of how the election is being followed around the world. Despite some alarming stories about what’s happened to other bloggers who have…

USA Today’s website has a “Candidate Match Game” which allows you to determine which presidential candidate most shares your views via a neat interactive tool.

There are twelve “statements,” in four separate categories, and for each you can use a slide rule…

The UK blog Harry’s Place is being sued by Hamas — or at least Hamas’ British sister organization, the British Muslim Initiative — for translating into English a story on al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language website.

Considering I myself recently translated a story from al-Jazeera and…

The Post-Dispatch ran a story today about the ongoing battle at Saint Louis University between communications professor Avis Meyer and the university administrators.

At issue is Meyer’s involvement in the student newspaper — The University News — where he was once the paper’s…

Obama seeks support from Hillary Clinton’s donors, gets the cold shoulder (via TPM media).

And  he takes heat from the netroots about his support of telecom immunity (via Huffington Post).

It doesn’t get much funnier: Karl Rove is spearheading an effort to label Obama…

The New York Times describes an appearance by CBS News’ top foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show where she talked about how hard it is to get news about Iraq printed these days. According to Ms. Logan, it takes a pretty…