John Byrne Cooke, a graduate of Harvard College and son of legendary journalist Alistair Cooke, is the author of a number of historical novels, articles and other media. His latest book is Reporting the War: Freedom of the Press from the American Revolution to the War on Terrorism. Reporting the War was described by former Cox Newspapers war correspondent Joseph Albright as “a definitive and compelling account of the evolving struggle between a free press and censorious officialdom,” and documents the issue of press freedom and press performance over wars ranging from the American Revolution to the “War on Terror”....

Your talking dog has had a tough week workwise, which has led to reticence here on the blog. But the affairs of state now allow me to resume… regular… blogging. The Grey Lady treats us to this account of Sen. Barack Obama (then known as Barry) and his two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles (1979-1981)… the Grey Lady seems to be implying that Obama may have overstated his youthful drug use! The Times, of course, fails to note your talking dog’s three years at New York’s Columbia College (1980-1983), even though the last two of them were, interestingly,...

Hi everybody! I’m back– and hijacking my Daddy’s blog again! My Daddy says he doesn’t mind too much, as long as I suggest you check out his American Street post this week, “I’m ‘thtill relevant, and thocial programth are thtill dethpicable!“. Also, my Daddy told me that since its “blogroll amnesty day“, you can e-mail him (thetalkingdog@thetalkingdog.com) and he’ll happily trade links with you– btw, Daddy says he always did that, unless you advocated human sacrifice or stuff like that or were selling condominiums or something. Just wanted to say “hi” again, and say I’m really excited because my Mommy...

The groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, predicts six more weeks of winter. Of course, for those of us who don’t believe that the Attorney General of the United States– the highest law enforcement officer in the country– should ever say that the ends justify the means and that somehow torture is permissible if the torturer decides “it will save lives”… there’s around 11 1/2 more months of winter.

Candace again vouchsafes that her client, Abdul al-Ghizzawi, of Libyan nationality, Kabul, Afghanistan domicile and Camp 6, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba apparently permanent residence, has, in addition to contracting tuberculosis, now contracted AIDS there. Chief Justice Roberts, in a surprise to no one, denied Candace’s motion seeking immediate medical treatment for her client, who contracted both TB and AIDS while in American custody. She will now have to seek that relief in other fora. As Candace sometimes lets me review drafts of her court submissions (including her historic original habeas corpus petition now pending in the United States Supreme Court), I...

Fresh from victories in the Florida and South Carolina primaries, with the vanquished Rudy Giuliani handing him his endorsement and apparently Ahnold doing the same, and all the momentum in the world going into Super Tuesday from which he is all but certain to emerge as the Republican nominee, it seems things couldn’t get any better for John McCain… until they just did. That’s right: Ralph Nader wants to ensure that no matter who the Democrats nominate, John McCain will be elected President, as Nader announced his own presidential exploratory committee. Let’s just say that while the perfect is the...

We’ll start with Christopher Hitchens wall-to-wall Hill-Bill-bashfest, this time taking on the latest Clintonian race-card play. Frankly, at the end of the day, other than the Clintons’ willingness to destroy a fellow Democrat to win (and let’s face it, this is an endemic problem among most Democrats, who’d rather crucify or burn internal apostates than even argue with Republicans, let alone stand up to them), the policy and even stylistic differences between Sens. Clinton and Obama are at best superficial. Sure, Obama has a better speaking voice and seems more inspiring to many, but to be fair… I think we...

[Ed. note: this is an exceedingly rare “guest post”.] Hi there. If you think I’m the real blogger here, you are mistaken. Although I am thinking about starting my own blog, I really don’t know anything about politics, other than what I hear from my Daddy (who my Mommy tells me is very, very bitter.) I guess I could write my blog about what goes on in my world– a world in which my Daddy wouldn’t last 5 minutes. For one thing, I’d like to see him keep his tamagachi alive for more than an hour. For another, my Daddy...

CNN is projecting that Barack Obama has won the South Carolina primary, and won it big. Stay tuned to see how the bigger Barack’s margin of victory is, the more certain that it will still be spun as a major win for Hillary Clinton, despite her likely distant second place or possibly even third place finish. Our old friend Dick Morris kind of hints at just how this might happen. I’m not calling February 5 “Superfund Tuesday” for no reason, boys and girls: “It’s the Clintons, stupid.”

Words not often associated with Bill or Hillary Clinton… indeed, “restoring honor and integrity to the White House” was the rallying cry of George W. Bush in his campaign against boy scout and demigod, the sainted Al Gore, only to replace the Clinton Administration with not only one of the most incompetent Administration in our lifetimes, but probably the single most cynical and morally debauched in American history, and one that will leave so much perhaps irremediable damage in its wake. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes… Bill and Hill are at it again, trying to pull the ultimate switcheroo...