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WASHINGTON (AP) - Daniel Schorr, whose journalism career over more than six decades landed him in the dark corners of Europe during the Cold War and the shadows of President Richard Nixon's notorious "enemies list" in the 1970s, has died. He was 93. Schorr died Friday at Washington's Georgetown University Hospital after a brief illness, said his son, Jonathan Schorr. Daniel Schorr's path through the news business began in print, then led to almost three decades in television with CBS News and the fledgling cable network CNN.

He is 91 and still cranks out his National Public Radio commentaries on an IBM typewriter. He eschews the Internet, openly disdains some bloggers and dismisses the whole "citizen journalism" idea. But don't accuse Daniel Schorr, a disciple of Edward R. Murrow and dean of NPR pundits, of being hopelessly out of touch. If anything, Schorr has been prescient when it comes to news analysis. His new book, "Come to Think of It" ($24.95, Viking, 382 pages), a collection of Schorr's radio commentaries from the past 17 years, shows that he often has been ahead of the cultural and political...

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20060725/d_mediamix25.art.htm

I am still trying to understand how a squad of U.S. Marines could kill up to 24 civilians, including women and children, and then claim they were following normal rules of military engagement. One wonders what kind of rules of engagement cover house-to-house shooting and hand grenades ...

WASHINGTON – Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into that war. In 2002 President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was casting about for a casus belli. The weapons of mass destruction theme was not yielding very much until a dubious Italian intelligence report, based partly on forged documents (it later turned out), provided reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying to buy so-called yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger. It did not seem to matter that the...

Commentary > Daniel Schorr from the March 04, 2005 edition The Iraq effect? Bush may have had it right By Daniel Schorr WASHINGTON – Something remarkable is happening in the Middle East - a grass-roots movement against autocracy without any significant "Great Satan" anti-American component. In Beirut, the crowds that massed in the streets and forced the resignation of the Syrian-controlled government were demonstrating for kifaya (change) and freedom from the Syrian military that has occupied their country for more than a quarter of a century. The passionate protest had apparently been triggered by the assassination of the popular former...

WASHINGTON – Something remarkable is happening in the Middle East - a grass-roots movement against autocracy without any significant "Great Satan" anti-American component. In Beirut, the crowds that massed in the streets and forced the resignation of the Syrian-controlled government were demonstrating for kifaya (change) and freedom from the Syrian military that has occupied their country for more than a quarter of a century. The passionate protest had apparently been triggered by the assassination of the popular former prime minister, Rafik Hariri - an assassination that the Lebanese assume was engineered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In Egypt, too, the...

WASHINGTON – Will the new year give us a new Supreme Court justice? Or two, maybe three? Statistically, that should happen. The current court has not changed for 10 years, and that hasn't happened for 180 years.The likeliest to create a vacancy is Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He has indicated no intention of retiring - on the contrary. But doctors say that an 80-year-old undergoing chemotherapy for thyroid cancer cannot expect to remain active for very long.And so, though no one wishes Justice Rehnquist ill, there is much discussion about whom President Bush is likely to nominate. He has said...

WASHINGTON – Bill Burkett of Baird, Texas, will have a prominent place in the annals of political trickery. He'll be remembered as the one who aimed at President Bush and felled the mighty Dan Rather and "60 Minutes." Who could've contrived this hoax? Suspicions settled on Mr. Burkett, himself a former Guard officer with a lively hatred of President Bush. With a sinking feeling, Rather and staff, who'd worked long and hard at developing the "scoop," realized they'd been had. Rather flew to Texas and strong-armed Burkett into an interview confessing all - almost all. He said he'd worked in...

WASHINGTON – A Texas Democratic fundraiser, speaking not for attribution, told me about the lunch he recently had at the home of former President Clinton in the New York suburbs. Clinton recounted his last meeting with President Bush over coffee, just before the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2001. The outgoing president counseled his successor that he would face five challenges in the international arena - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Al Qaeda terrorist threat, a nuclear-armed North Korea, the India-Pakistan confrontation, and the Saddam Hussein dictatorship in Iraq.Clinton was surprised at Bush's response. He said he disagreed with Clinton's order -...

The presidentially appointed independent commission is a time-tested tool for taking the heat off the CIA and the administration. It hasn't always worked. In 1975, President Ford named Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to head a prestigious commission to investigate domestic surveillance of antiwar activists by the CIA, which had been uncovered by Seymour Hersh of The New York Times. That inquiry was superseded by Senate and House investigations that uncovered a litany of larger CIA improprieties from drug experiments on unwitting subjects to assassination conspiracies targeting Fidel Castro and others. In 1986, President Reagan named former Sen. John Tower to...

WASHINGTON – The idea that Libya's Col. Muammar Qaddafi last March saw American forces invading Iraq and decided "the jig was up" for Libya is attractive in its simplicity. But the events that led to the surprise declaration on Dec. 19 that Libya would scrap its own weapons programs are more complicated and stretch out over a longer period. Libya and the United States have been in an unannounced state of conflict since 1981, when American jets shot down two Libyan planes over disputed waters. Qaddafi retaliated with terrorist attacks in Rome and Vienna. The US embargoed Libyan commerce. In...