Year of the Immigrant—On the final weekend of the year both the New York Times and National Public Radio focused on the illegal immigrant as the bête noire of Republican presidential-primary politics. On the same weekend the Dallas Morning News declared “The Illegal Immigrant” its person of the year. The award has a considerable shelf life; it’s already evident that the […]

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On May 13, 1999, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, changed his position on global warming. “The last time, I wasn’t certain of the science,” Bush said. “I’ve had some briefings recently, and I’m becoming more convinced that the science proves there’s global warming.” Bush was the front-runner in the campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination—although he wouldn’t officially declare his candidacy until the legislative session ended a month later. He was responding to a question I asked him at a press conference in Austin, where I was working on a book about his candidacy. Neither Bush nor his press secretary, Karen Hughes, explained when “the last time” was. Nor would either elaborate on what briefings about what science had led him to depart so radically from the position he’d held since he was elected governor five years earlier. Up to this point he’d said there was no proof that the earth was warming.

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You’ve Got Mail—On Friday, August 31, the FOIA Handbook page of the White House website included the following information: “This handbook is intended to assist you in making a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Office of Administration (OA). . . .” The page directed FOIA applicants to a compliance officer and listed […]

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IN 2004, IN A RURAL ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL CAFETERIA decorated with murals of dancing milk cartons, members of Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School Board shocked local constituents and the national scientific community with a small but significant change in its biology curriculum, requiring students to be made aware of “intelligent design.” At the time, I was a reporter […]

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IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO WATCH the November 14 meeting of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform without feeling some sympathy for the State Department’s Inspector General, Howard “Cookie” Krongard. A report prepared by the committee staff was the playbill for a Capitol Hill drama that would unfold in three acts, with intermissions for […]

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