No, not the Washington Post after Woodstein, but a much lower-profile newspaper that has quietly impacted the lives of countless individuals around the world through its determination to avoid the pack.

It turns out the robber was a real slacker.

Speaking in two languages can come in very useful if you’re in politics: MANCHESTER – Wondering if Bill Richardson is running for president? It depends on which language you speak. “I want to be very clear about this presidential stuff,” Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico, said at yesterday’s New Hampshire Latino Summit. “No, I will not run for president.” Then, switching to Spanish, he told the heavily Hispanic crowd, “Segura que...

A new report says the FBI repeatedly missed chances to find the 911 hijackers — and that it wasn’t happenstance but some deeply ingrained systemic problems. The Washington Post reports: The inability to detect the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking plot amounts to a “significant failure” by the FBI and was caused in large part by “widespread and longstanding deficiencies” in the way the agency handled terrorism and intelligence cases, according to a report released yesterday. In...

I’ll bet you the left side of John Bolton’s moustache and half of his nose hairs that if you go back and read the original stories about Harry Reid’s ascension to Minority Leader you’ll be struck by one thing: Reid has been a big surprise. When Reid took over from the voter-banished Tom Daschle, the conventional wisdom seemed to be “Here’s this nice, boring, behind the scenes politician who isn’t media savvy and can be no match for the Republicans or White...

The compromise piece together by Senate moderates seems to be working with long-delayed nominations sailing through as the Democrats keep their promise — but the next step will be to see how Republicans treat Democrats when they exercise their part of the agreement. Still, that’s down the road and yesterday was a day for Republican celebration: The GOP-controlled Senate on Thursday approved former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor and Michigan nominees David McKeague and Richard...

TMV will be doing a full day program at a school in Glendora, CA in his other incarnation today. This means we MAY be able to post during the day but, more likely, you may see some posts from one or more of our Guest Bloggers. If not, our posts will resume towards the end of the day. If the Michael Jackson verdict breaks when we can’t post, we will make up for it with a post as soon as we can plus an additional post a bit later as well.

Links are from sites with varying viewpoints. Opinions expressed do not necessarily express the views of TMV or its co-bloggers. More On What Is A Moderate: Our co-blogger Jack Grant sparked quite a discussion here and on his blog by exploring that subject. Here are some additional thoughts via The Classless Society (which we bet Jack will discuss at a future date in some detail). PS: Anyone who has read this blog by now has a teeney weenie idea that we have some strong convictions — and throughout...

What more of a sign do you need that weblogs are a feisty new medium that has become disturbing to The Powers The Be in governments everywhere than what’s now going on in China — a crackdown on blogs: The Chinese government has announced plans to police web forums, chat rooms and blogs alongside other websites. Websites in China have long been required to be officially registered. The authorities are now determined that blogs should also be brought under state control. Press advocacy...

The arrest of a fifth person in connection with an FBI investigation into people who are possibly linked to and suspected of cooperating with Al Qaeda has started shoving terrorism’s threat to the U.S. homeland back into the national consciousness in this post-color-code world. The terrorism color codes that had been so prevalent largely vanished shortly after the elections (many Democrats don’t feel that’s coincidental). But these latest cases seemingly serve as a jarring reminders...

Pssst, guys. The campaign is over. I’m sure you heard that he lost. So isn’t it time to stop beating a dead donkey? And, hey you: has anyone told you yet that the primaries are over? Isn’t it time to win friends and influence people — particularly friends and people who might not agree with you but could accept your arguments if they did not generalize and were less fiery? Sounds like you’re stuck back in New Hampshire…

Lest we forget about the drug war raging in Mexico and the number of lives it costs, consider this: MONTERREY, Mexico — For weeks, no one came forward to apply for the Nuevo Laredo police chief job because many saw it as a death sentence. But Alejandro Dominguez proudly took office Wednesday, saying he was not afraid of anything. Nine hours later, he was ambushed and killed by gunmen who fired three dozen times. Officials were conducting an autopsy today. They don’t waste any time, do...

It looks like the White House is getting ready to throw down the political gauntlet AGAIN — this time by proposing someone who used to be a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee to be in charge of the agency that funds Public Broadcasting: A former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee is the leading candidate to take over the agency that funds public broadcasting, sparking new concerns among broadcasters about conservative influence over National Public Radio and...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was on Jon Stewart’s popular The Daily Show. And, as expected, he did well, touched on some issues and largely defended the administration. TMV missed it since he was on the road — but leave it to Crooks And Liars to offer us this great video of the appearance.

I recently attempted to answer the question “What is a moderate?” at my personal weblog Random Fate. My answer prompted a gratifying amount of discussion on other weblogs, but unfortunately, much of that discussion made no differentiation between “moderate” and “centrist”. In response, I offer a short addendum to my original discussion, with the promise of more on this topic later.

The World Naked Bike Ride is this Saturday! Not that I’m planning to participate, and not just because I doubt my roommate would want me sitting on his bike in the buff (mine is 3,000 miles away). Sadly none of the rides are happening in the DC area, so I won’t be able to document the festivities as I did last year in Seattle. You’re mostly out of luck if you live between the upper Northeast and the Florida panhandle, but check here to see if your city has its own ride. Oddly,...

People who weren’t around during the Watergate days may look with dismay on former Nixon administration officials refighting Watergate with such bitterness but that’s because you had to be around then to realize how it permeated the then-primative news cycle — and life in the United States — in the early 70s. People can usually remember exactly where they were when they heard the news about JFK’s assassination (had just finished my speech in an unsuccessful bid for...

Almost every time an environmental story like this comes out one thing becomes clear: if someone does a study of Presidential administrations starting with Teddy Roosevelt’s this administration is going to be ranked as having one of the worst environmental records: A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according...

For many years the concept of a stowaway has been a romatic one: someone who hid aboard a boat or a bus. The Marx Brothers even played stowaways in their classic comedy Monkey Business. But now we’re in the era of air travel. And it’s not romatic any longer. In fact, it’s downright dumb: A man’s leg and part of his spine came crashing onto the roof of a woman’s home in Nassau County near Kennedy International Airport yesterday morning, and a short while later the man...

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests President George Bush, a little more than 6 months after his re-election, is skating on thin political ice — so thin that it could quickly shatter if several things go wrong. There is very little good news in this poll for GWB and the Republicans. In fact, it indicates the majority of voters don’t like the President and Congress’ choices of issues — and that voters are beginning to blame Bush and the GOP instead of the Demcrats....

Attention Democratic Party powerbrokers: call CostCo FAST and order a big box of duct tape and use all of it on Howard Dean’s mouth: Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, unapologetic in the face of recent criticism that he has been too tough on his political opposition, said in San Francisco this week that Republicans are “a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It’s pretty much a white Christian party.” “The Republicans...

If you think the John Kerry-George Bush campaign was over, think again. The 2004 Presidential campaign is still being fought by partisans of both sides — and the latest revelation is not…ahem…complimentary to John Kerry since it shows that he was just as unserious a college student as George Bush. The Boston Globe reports this: WASHINGTON — During last year’s presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George...

I have been privileged for several months to guest-post here at The Moderate Voice. When Joe Gandelman, the proprietor of this site, first asked me to guest-post he mentioned it was because he felt that I did not take ideological stances but instead thought each issue through. Recently, I’ve been reading many different weblogs who accuse moderates of being “mushy” or always “splitting the difference and sacrificing principles”. I suspect these accusations are merely...

You would think the governor of Texas, the state that produced our most recent two-term president, would have access to the best and brightest political minds in the country. They surely want to get taken along with him for any rides higher on the political ladder. But Rick Perry made a monumentally bad decision when he signed a parental-consent bill for minors seeking abortion in a religious private school. I explore the significance of symbolic actions in politics, and especially divisive cultural...

Big changes at CNN where heads are being added and rolled in what actually is typical staff juggling in the broadcast biz. It can be hyped up as more than that but it’s not unusual for new network managers to come in and put in a new team and change the schedule around. And that’s what the latest news about news network CNN is as it tries to shore itself up in its battle against the ascendent Fox News. The Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes reports: Rick Squarejaw is heading to the...