Charles Peters

If you’re comforted by stories showing that, in some respects at least, the good old days are still with us, then you’ll appreciate the latest news out of West Virginia. A 2012 candidate for sheriff in Lincoln County has, according to the Charleston Gazette, only recently emerged from prison after pleading guilty to vote-buying charges […]

In another story from my hometown paper, the Gazette reports that a SWAT team from the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office has been found innocent of wrongdoing after its members managed to fire seven bullets into a hostage taker—even though he had released his hostages, they had only negotiated for two hours, and, by the way, […]

If you’re a Democrat, worry about Marco Rubio. He seems destined to be the Republican vice presidential candidate, and he has the potential to change the political equation in the Republicans’ favor, as Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama did for the Democrats in 1976 and 2008. In 1976, Carter actually carried the majority of southern […]

In defense of my home state, I should explain that not every election can be bought. Electoral hanky-panky flourishes when voters are indifferent, not when they care. And even the most well-heeled candidate does not always win. Consider that when Jay Rockefeller, who was not exactly underfunded, first ran for governor he was soundly defeated […]

When Michelle Obama recently seemed to perceive Jodi Kantor’s new book The Obamas as another portrayal of her as an “angry black woman,” media observers were practically unanimous in defending Kantor and saying that the book did not so characterize the first lady. Yet, I could not help but notice that after David Brooks had […]

The counterattack led by Diane Ravitch on the movement to improve teacher quality has gained considerable steam, yet it is based on a totally false premise that because the overall efficacy of education is dependent on many factors, including the students’ family life and environment, teacher quality alone isn’t worth all the fuss reformers have […]

It turns out that the terrible train collision in China last year was caused by a failed signal mechanism. It had not been properly tested because the leader of the responsible agency had focused on the “speed of the railway project construction” at the expense of safety, according to the Wall Street Journal’s report on […]

I continue to worry that the wrong cuts will be made in the Pentagon’s budget—that too many of the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan will be lost just as those of Vietnam were. Pentagon generals like to think big and emphasize preparation for major wars with all the big-ticket items loved by military contractors and […]

Speaking of constants, see “The Amoral City Government,” the headline of a recent column by Colbert King in the Washington Post. Sadly, it could have appeared on a great majority of days in the thirty-three years since Marion Barry took over as mayor in January 1979. When are the people of Washington going to wake […]

Like the vote buyer who is running for sheriff in West Virginia, Gerard E. Evans, the Washington Post reports, has regained his top spot among Maryland lobbyists after serving a prison term for fraudulent practices.