Free Republic

FERGUSON, Mo. — Dorian Johnson had just moved from his mother’s house in St. Louis to a two-bedroom spot in the Canfield Green Apartments that he was sharing with his then-pregnant girlfriend and another roommate. Sometime in March, a buddy stopped by with a stranger. “Wow,” Johnson said, “that’s a big dude.” The dude, Michael Brown, was 6-foot-4, and he had brushed past Johnson with barely a hello as he headed to the video-game console and began to play. “I asked, ‘Why he don’t speak?’ ” Johnson recalled in a 90-minute interview with The Washington Post last week — his first...

The Bush administration more than doubled its financial commitment yesterday to provide relief to nations suffering from the Indian Ocean tsunami, amid complaints that the vacationing President Bush has been insensitive to a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. As the death toll surpassed 50,000 with no sign of abating, the U.S. Agency for International Development added $20 million to an earlier pledge of $15 million to provide relief, and the Pentagon dispatched an aircraft carrier and other military assets to the region. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in morning television appearances, chafed at a top U.N. aid official's comment...

A Small Success at the Washington Post! Last week the Washington Post ran a three-part series on Maternal Homicide and Domestic Violence that was an example of writing (it didn’t qualify as “journalism”) that appealed more to the emotions than the intellect. But this time around, we were ready. Thanks to a cooperative effort among several groups, we hit a home run! On Saturday, the Post ran two excellent letters to the editor – see below. And then on Sunday, the WP Ombudsman Michael Getler devoted one-third of his weekly column to a critique of the series – again, see...