Framed on a wall in my office is a copy of my first opinion column, published by The Dallas Morning News on Oct. 11, 1987. Until then, I had been a wire-service reporter and editor in Washington, D.C., and, before that, a sports writer in Boston, but had never written opinion. When given the chance by the Morning News, I jumped on a subject that had piqued my curiosity: A senator for Delaware running for president had brazenly stolen a speech by a Welsh Labour Party leader in the United Kingdom and, when caught, paid the price by humiliatingly dropping...