Opinion

On Friday, Dec. 3, another of President George W. Bush’s foot soldiers for faux freedom announced his departure: Tommy Thompson was quitting. The secretary of health and human services, who’d called himself the director of “America’s Department of Compassion,” had waged the good fight for four years. Thompson was tapped by Bush four years ago […]

There’s only one thing I know for sure about this health department debate: it makes my stomach churn and my head hurt. If promises, predictions or statistics could provide an answer, I’d be cured. Both sides offer plenty of all that. But it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s placebo when everything comes packaged […]

What is it about ultra-right conservatives who build careers as tongue-clucking scolds? They constantly preach about the moral failings of the rest of us — yet they keep getting caught with their own pants down, morally speaking. I don’t merely mean the Falwells, Swaggarts, and other publicly compromised televangelists — I’m also talking about the […]

My four months of struggle with Springfield’s public-transportation system makes me sure that people who don’t have cars here are victims of discrimination. Like most residents of my native Kazakhstan, I have never driven in my life. When I came here, I was sure that public transit would be better than it was at home. […]

Talk about bitter irony. George W. Bush wrapped himself in the flag and campaigned under a political theme of “support our troops,” yet, even as he campaigned, troops in Iraq continued to die precisely because he failed them. Propaganda won’t stop roadside bombs and other blasts. For the deadly reality of war, our troops need […]

The next time you get discouraged about Illinois politics, take a look at Kansas. Or South Dakota, where U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin spent the week before Election Day campaigning for the doomed Tom Daschle. “South Dakota was the most incredible political scene I have ever witnessed,” Durbin recalled as we sat in his Springfield office […]