Charles Peters

The New York Times is, without doubt, the nation’s best newspaper. Sometimes, however, its need to cater to its more affluent readers, the targets of much of the paper’s advertising, can have embarrassing consequences. A recent example is a “What I Wore” column by Muffie Potter Aston, who the Times describes as a “mainstay of […]

I really enjoyed reading Chris Matthews’s Jack Kennedy, Elusive Hero. Chris’s understanding, unique among the commentariat, of working-class voters, especially the Irish Catholic subset, helps explain the ardent and crucial support they gave Kennedy in the 1960 election. Matthews is also at his best in showing how Kennedy came through in the clutch during the […]

The book, however, does not mention what I think is the worst thing Kennedy ever did. After he saved the world from a nuclear catastrophe, he then kept secret his most dovish act: the commitment to remove our missiles from Turkey. And in his own version of Soviet-style disinformation, Kennedy leaked to his friend, the […]

In the years immediately before World War II, the Democrats gained the reputation of being the strongest party on national security. But postwar accusations that the Democrats had let Russia steal our nuclear secrets, that the Democrats “lost China” to the communists, and that Kennedy had proved spineless during the Bay of Pigs, all combined […]

God bless D. Booth Goodwin II. He’s the U.S. attorney who, at long last, really stuck it to a coal company. After years of token penalties that have been far too small to motivate the companies to make their mines safe, the $209 million he got from Alpha Coal—the successor to Massey Energy, the company […]

Honoring the U.S. attorney in West Virginia reminds me of other recent heroes deserving of praise. Among them is Carolyn Lerner, who is doing such an outstanding job as head of the Office of Special Counsel, and who recently brought about the reinstatement of security clearance and the removal of the threat of suspension without […]

The recent PBS series on prohibition was at once frightening and reassuring: scary when it revealed that a really bad constitutional amendment could get passed by thirty- six state legislatures in little more than one year; comforting in that the repeal got through thirty-six legislatures in less than a year. The point that resonated the […]

I have mostly been an admirer of Leon Panetta during his long career of public service, but I worry about his recent statement that budget cuts could “hollow out” the military. Anyone who takes over a government agency has a natural desire to win the loyalty of his subordinates. Unfortunately, at the Pentagon saying yes […]

Do you know how much water is required by the drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”? The answer, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Russel Gold and Ana Campoy, is that each well requires “about six million gallons.” This technique, which the EPA recently found had polluted the water of one Wyoming community, is […]

A recent study of the Washington area’s Metro system of subways and buses identified a serious problem of worker fatigue. Surprisingly, it turns out that pensions are a contributing factor. Employees can boost their pensions by concentrating their overtime in their final three years of service, which is what determines the amount of their pension. […]