Monday, March 1, 2010
The Lies and Reconciliation Commission
By Marty Kaplan
If Democrats decide to use the procedural move that Congress calls “reconciliation” to pass health care reform, get ready for a war of words. It . . .
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Side Effects Include Denial
By Marty Kaplan
Why would Pfizer spend $100 million on two-minute TV ads that use a minute of that time admitting that their drug Chantix can cause “changes in . . .
Monday, January 18, 2010
Thank You, Norman Lear
By Marty Kaplan
It's just about perfect that the week that LA Gang Tours launches is also the tenth anniversary of the start of the Norman Lear Center. . . .
Monday, January 4, 2010
Mercury Is Poison
JTA
Now that we’re about to entrust health reform to the tender mercies of the insurance industry, it’s sobering to see the skullduggery that one of . . .
Monday, December 14, 2009
Barack Obama Is a Traitor
By Marty Kaplan
Barack Obama is a traitor.
That’s what Dick Cheney said. Too bad Tiger Woods stepped on the . . .
Monday, November 30, 2009
Lord of the Gingers
Now that our nation has observed “Kick a Ginger Day” and “Kick a Jew Day,” can “Kick a Liberal Day” be far . . .
Monday, November 16, 2009
Bra Helps Fight Breast Cancer
By Marty Kaplan
Now that CNN has put Lou Dobbs out to pasture, you'd think that The Most Trusted Name in News would make the reporting of facts - you know, the . . .
Monday, November 2, 2009
If You Liked Health Care, You’ll Love Afghanistan
By Marty Kaplan
If you’re depressed by the way the national debate about health care has been playing out, just wait until the rubber hits the road on Afghanistan, . . .
Monday, October 19, 2009
Balloon Dad to Pose for Playgirl
By Marty Kaplan
It’s my own fault, I know, for watching “Showbiz Tonight” over the weekend, but I couldn’t find the news on any other channel, and I’d . . .
Monday, October 5, 2009
How Would the Right Know It’s Wrong?
By Marty Kaplan
While the left despairs of Barack Obama’s capitulation to K Street and Wall Street, the right continues to insist that he’s a Marxist, socialist, . . .
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
I Want to Know What Happens Next
By Marty Kaplan
Something’s going to happen next week, or next year, that will completely change the . . .
Monday, September 14, 2009
The 60 Questions of Our Life
By Marty Kaplan
“Curiosity: The Questions of Our Life” is the name of a new 60-episode five-year “landmark” series just announced with much fanfare by the . . .
Monday, August 24, 2009
Kumbaya, Not Kevorkian, Will Kill Granny
By Marty Kaplan
I don’t know which is more dispiriting: the New York Times’ failure to call Betsy McCaughey a liar, or Barack Obama’s failure to call Chuck . . .
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Marty Show
By Marty Kaplan
I keep hoping that the health care “debate” we’re having this summer will turn out to be just a plot point in the 2009 version of “The Truman . . .
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Best Speech I Ever Wrote
By Marty Kaplan
Elie Wiesel wagged a bony finger at me. "History will be watching you, young man," he warned. We were on the tarmac at Geneva International . . .
Monday, July 27, 2009
My Daughter, the Best-Selling Novelist
By Marty Kaplan
By the way, have I mentioned that my 19-year-old daughter’s novel is a bestseller? . . .
Monday, July 13, 2009
Cheney Meant Well
By Marty Kaplan
. . .
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Importance of Being Michael
By Marty Kaplan
“Why aren’t you talking about Michael Jackson more?” . . .
Monday, June 8, 2009
Health Care Scare
By Marty Kaplan
We’re about to find out whether Americans are as suspicious of the right’s anti-health care reform propaganda as Iraqis are dismissive of . . .
Monday, May 18, 2009
It’s Tough Love Time for Obama
By Marty Kaplan
First I worried that Obama was foolhardy to put Goldman Sachs alumni and other Wall Street geniuses in charge of fixing the mess that they’d made . . .
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Food Fight Online
By Marty Kaplan
If there's a metaphor for the way that Americans do politics online that's less apt than “a national conversation,” I can't think of one, except . . .
Monday, April 20, 2009
Bye Bye Bybee
By Marty Kaplan
It will be the playwrights and screenwriters, not the journalists and historians, who will someday get the torture story right. It will be the poets . . .
Sunday, April 5, 2009
The Virtue of Hate
By Marty Kaplan
“If he didn’t hear from her at night, he’d go frantic.” This is Carmen Bachan, speaking through tears about her husband James and her . . .
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Upside of Outrage
By Marty Kaplan
A big reason that the Iraq war never ignited nationwide outrage on the scale of Vietnam protests was the absence of conscription. As long as the . . .