We were not alone in finding that the extravagant, massively policed, $40-million presidential inauguration parade and the chief executive’s wimpy acceptance speech, followed by the 10 expensive ballroom galas, were bad news. A headline in the New York Times Week in Review section called the Bush oration “A Speech About Nothing, Something, Everything.” In his 21-minute inaugural […]

Read more

Enron’s End Run—It’s over. Nearly three years after the collapse of Kenneth Lay’s internally robbed Texas energy company, its former chief executive officera campaign contributor to and friend of President Bush, who called him “Kenny Boy”—has finally been indicted and led into court in handcuffs. He is free on bond. He has pleaded not guilty, […]

Read more

A Broiler or a Spoiler?—The presidential candidacy of Ralph Nader as an Independent—he and the Green Party have split—raises again, as it did in the 2000 election, the question of whether his searing whacks at the Bush administration will offset the Democrats’ fear that Nader will take away enough votes in November to throw the […]

Read more

Yet Another Media Monopoly—The Comcast Corporation, already the largest cable-TV titan, with 22 million subscribers, is planning to tighten its hammerlock on what news and entertainment Americans can receive. It is trying to buy the Walt Disney Company, which includes the ABC radio and television network, and Disney’s movie studio and theme parks, for $56 […]

Read more