Editor’s note: Along with their helpful nitpicks, readers of the Washington Spectator have been filling our in-box with thoughtful pieces on what our founding editor, the late Tristram Coffin, chose 30 years ago as this publication’s main output: “untold stories.” He meant information neglected or buried in the mainstream media. One of those convoluted sagas is what […]

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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 […]

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Editor’s note: Last month’s Gallup Poll gave President Bush his first-ever approval rating of less than 50 percent—49 to be exact, an 11 point drop from his early-January standing. Bush also trailed, according to Gallup, in a head-on match with the now-almost-certain Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts—46 percent to 53 percent for […]

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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 […]

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Clean Them Up—The first state-by-state ranking of corruption in local and state governments rates Mississippi as the worst and Nebraska as the best. The Corporate Crime Reporter, a vigorous investigative newsletter, dug into each state’s number of public corruption convictions from 1993 to 2002. In addition to Mississippi, the nine other states on the “10 […]

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