We come at journalism from different traditions. I’ve spent a life working at newspapers that put a premium on aggressive but impartial reporting, that expect reporters and editors to keep their opinions to themselves unless they relocate (as I have done) to the pages clearly identified as the home of opinion. You come from a more activist tradition — first as a lawyer, then as a blogger and columnist, and soon as part of a new, independent journalistic venture financed by the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Your writing proceeds from a clearly stated point of view.

"We believe the United States should pay attention to the international community's concerns and demands and give the international community the necessary explanation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily briefing.

The president should announce that he has told the Justice Department to appoint an independent investigator with bulldog instincts and bipartisan credibility. The list of candidates could start with Kenneth Starr, who chased down the scandals, real and imagined, of the Clinton presidency. It might include Patrick Fitzgerald, who was special counsel in the Valerie Plame affair, winning the conviction of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, and who has successfully prosecuted two corrupt...]]> Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500 THE first time I talked to Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at U.C.L.A., was in 2002, and he explained why legalization of marijuana was a bad idea. Sure, he said, the government should remove penalties for possession, use and cultivation of small amounts. He did not favor making outlaws of people for enjoying a drug that is less injurious than alcohol or tobacco. But he worried that a robust commercial marketplace would inevitably lead to much more consumption. You don’t have to be a prohibitionist to recognize that pot, especially in adolescents and very heavy users, can seriously mess with your brain.

 

Borling’s poems were tapped out in code, letter by letter, on the walls of a wretched cell in Hanoi during his six and a half years as a prisoner of war. Borling and his fellow captives committed the verses to memory and, 40 years after his release, they have been compiled in a book. 

Yes, the business of the church is saving souls, but it is nevertheless a business: a closely held conglomerate with a work force of more than a million, 1.2 billion more-or-less regular customers, 10 times as many outlets as Starbucks, more real estate than Donald Trump dreams of and lobbying clout to rival that of any secular industry. Now its C.E.O., physically and mentally...]]> Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0600 Let’s assume that President Obama and the Democrats sincerely want an immigration bill, that this is not a trick to trap Republicans into an anti-immigrant vote that will alienate Hispanic voters and secure Democratic advantage for a generation. 

The Senate seems to be hospitable territory. Four Republicans — including the ascendant Marco Rubio — have joined four Democrats in embracing the politically difficult principles at the heart of the matter. Some advocates of immigration reform talk confidently of mustering 70 Senate votes, which would represent an astonishing reversal of fortunes for an issue that has long been mired in demagogy. 

• Police records of arrests for drunken driving;

• The personal details of all the employees of local clinics that perform abortions;

• The subscriber list of a survivalist magazine with pronounced racist overtones;

• The names and addresses of food stamp recipients in your community;

• The donors to a group that promotes L.G.B.T. rights;

• The names of husbands accused of infidelity in divorce suits, along with the identities of the alleged lovers;

• Addresses of homes where pit...]]> Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500 Back in January I proposed that President Obama do a switcheroo, sending Joe Biden to the State Department and making Hillary Clinton his running mate. I acknowledged the reasons that this was probably a fantasy, but contended the arguments in favor were as simple as one-two-three:

    One: it does more to guarantee Obama’s re-election than anything else the Democrats can do. Two: it improves the chances that, come next January, he will not be a lame duck with a gridlocked Congress but a rejuvenated president with a mandate and a Congress that may be a little less forbidding. Three: it makes Hillary the party’s heir apparent in 2016.

Bill Keller

Exhibit A, of course, is the hapless quest for a grand budget bargain. Talk to any credible economist, wire any serious politician to a polygraph, and you will hear at least 80 percent agreement on what is to be done: investment to goose the lackluster recovery and rebuild...]]> Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500 ON the subject of the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, to reclaim the name critics have made into a slur — a number of fallacies seem to be congealing into accepted wisdom. Much of this is the result of unrelenting Republican propaganda and right-wing punditry, but it has gone largely unchallenged by gun-shy Democrats. The result is that voters are confronted with slogans and side issues — “It’s a tax!” “No, it’s a penalty!” — rather than a reality-based discussion. Let’s unpack a few of the most persistent myths.

OBAMACARE IS A JOB-KILLER. The House Republican majority was at it again last week, staging the 33rd theatrical vote to roll back the Affordable...]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500 THE one thing everyone knows about North Korea is that we know very little about North Korea, except that it is miserable, totalitarian, nuclear and erratic. It is the hermit kingdom, the dark side of the moon.

But thanks to many thousands of refugees who have reached freedom by way of a long underground railroad through China, we know a lot more now about the grim reality. We understand better how the government sustains its dreadful power, and where that power could be faltering.

Our pre-emptive strike, designated Operation Yes We Can, will entail bombing the yellowcake-conversion plant at Isfahan, the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo, the heavy-water reactor at Arak, and various centrifuge-manufacturing sites near Natanz and Tehran.

The place on the river was called a youth living complex, the product of a classically harebrained Young Communist League scheme to ease a housing shortage. Young professionals at important state enterprises — in this case mainly scientists from a nuclear research institute and...]]> Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500 Bored by the soggy sleep-ins and warmed-over anarchism of Occupy Wall Street? Fed up (Fed Up!) with the presidential Race to the Bottom? Depressed by the warning signs of the next Depression?

I bring relief. Like Nurse Jackie scavenging in the medicine chest for stray painkillers, I have assembled some capsules of hope from places you probably haven’t noticed lately, because the dominant news is so disheartening you can’t bear to proceed beyond the front page.

Then, for much of this year, they dominated the auditions for a presidential challenger.

That is not — or not entirely — for the reasons Palin thinks: that journalists are liberal elitists, that they find the Tea Party fringe ridiculous or alarming or that they are infatuated with the cerebral black liberal in the White House. There’s a grain of truth and a loaf of myth in each of those. But I think it’s more visceral than that. It has to do with a profound and...]]> Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600 This past June, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, phoned me and asked, mysteriously, whether I had any idea how to arrange a secure communication. Not really, I confessed. The Times doesn’t have encrypted phone lines, or a Cone of Silence. Well then, he said, he would try to speak circumspectly. In a roundabout way, he laid out an unusual proposition: an organization called WikiLeaks, a secretive cadre of antisecrecy vigilantes, had come into possession of a substantial amount of classified United States government communications.