Cincinnati Enquirer's Rightwing Columnist: Flunks History And Geography

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- There are those who suspect that Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Peter Bronson has the intellect of a box of rocks. And there are those who would say hush, it is impolite to insult rocks. In a section titled Yankee Go Home, today's Bronson column is full of historical and biographical omissions, half-truths and errors.

Bronson says former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential candidate, was unelectable because he came from a northern state, Iowa. Wrong. Bob Dole is from Kansas. He was born in Russell, Kan., on July 22, 1923 and served that state in the Capitol for more than a generation. Bronson says President Reagan was a southerner like Lyndon Johnson, D-Tex., and Richard Nixon, R-Cal. Nixon truly was a California native, but Reagan was not. To imply otherwise is a half-truth. Reagan was born in Tampico, Ill., and lived in that state until he turned 21. As an adult -- and after working as a broadcaster in Iowa -- Reagan migrated to the movie colony around Hollywood. He was not a California native.

Bronson says the current President Bush is "all Texan." But that statement is all bull. Bush was born in New Haven, Conn in 1946, as his official White House biography shows. Bronson says New York Sen. Hillary Clinton can pretend she comes from Arkansas -- where she lived with Bill Clinton in his home state. Bronson omits that Hillary is an Illinois native who was born in Chicago and grew up in its suburbs.

Bronson's theory is that southerners win presidential elections and northerners lose. He may be right up to a point. But neither Kansas nor California are considered southern states. They are Great Plains and Pacific Coast, or midwestern and southwestern. And Reagan was from the midwestern prairie, a transplant into California. Bronson says Arizona Sen. John McCain falls into his southern theory. McCain now lives in Phoenix, but was born in the Panama Canal Zone. His father was a naval officer and he grew up on military bases all over the place. McCain has the gray hair, but he doesn't speak with a drawl like that famous southerner with a military title, Col. Harlan Sanders.

Journalist Bob Woodward At Ohio University: I Blew It On Iraq War

ATHENS, Ohio -- The Washington Post's big gun and journalism guru Bob Woodward tells a crowd at Ohio University that he originally was a supporter and promoter of the Iraq War. He seems to think that was a mistake. He also is described by the the student newspaper saying he should have personally gone to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction before the invasion.

First up, Richard Heck in The Athens Messenger, who reports:

"Early in his speech, Woodward acknowledged that journalists sometimes make mistakes. He admitted that initially, he wrote stories and opinion pieces supportive of the war in Iraq, but has since realized that his viewpoints may have been in error."

Also:

"Woodward told the OU audience that various insiders in the current administration admitted to him that the reasons for the Iraq war were doubtful. As in the Nixon presidency, which conducted various practices in secret, Woodward hinted that the current administration is doing the same. In researching his books, Woodward said, several senior-level administrators in the White House would not confirm various reasons for the current administration's reasons for going to war."

Next, in the student newspaper, The Post, Woodward says he should have gone to Iraq with a team of reporters to hunt for the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration claimed were present.

"'Stakes are high, particularly in time of war. Accountability is the issue.' Even at 64-years-old, Woodward said he's still learning. He wishes he would have been 'more aggressive' in his investigation on Iraq and in retrospect would have led a team to the Middle East before the Iraq invasion to look for weapons of mass destruction.'"

And in Ohio University's JSchool Bloggers journalism school blog Woodward says he wakes up each morning worried about government secrecy.

"When you wake up in the morning, what is the first thing you worry about? I'll tell you what I wake up worrying about: the secrecy of government. I'm concerned about the difference between what a person says he is and what he really is."

He said:

"We need to shine a light when democracy is dying in the dark."