There's a telling moment in Barack Obama's first book, Dreams From My Father, in which the future presidential candidate heads back to his father's homeland in Kenya, only to find a huge number of relatives jockeying to know him because they hope he can give them something.

He eventually finds...

This is a column I originally wrote for the St. Petersburg Times a few days ago, about what I called the fist pound explained 'round the world.

When Barack Obama exchanged a playful touching of fists with wife Michelle before going on to announce his historic ascension as the...

It's tough to look at the cavalcade of sexist comments assembled by the Women's Media Center of pundits mouthing off during the Democratic primary race, and not conclude that media-fed sexism played some role in Hillary Clinton's electoral troubles.

That said, this media critic doesn't think sexism was her...

This is how the Clintons could pull the Democratic Party down to general election defeat alongside their fading presidential hopes: a pointless fight over gender politics.

That's the thought I had watching Geraldine Ferraro on the Today Show Tuesday morning press a point echoed by both Bill and Hillary Clinton...

For new school black politicians, it is an essential question: How do you recognize the righteous anger of those frustrated by racial inequality without looking like just another Angry Black Man?

Those of us who write often about black folks and politics knew there would come a moment when...

I spent much of Wednesday night watching American Idol and old TiVo'd shows -- hey, i'm a TV critic, It's my job! -- so I didn't see the original telecast of the big Democratic debate on ABC News, the 21st collision between these two candidates on TV.

(Much of...

When a master at manipulating race-based tension calls you out, you must be doing something right.

Exhibit A: Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, a guy who I've called on the carpet many times for his use of coded words and phrases to pass along stereotypical, insulting ideas. He's gleefully pointed...

I didn't realize it until I was in the final stages of researching my media story today about the one-year anniversary of shock jock Don Imus' "nappy-headed hos" comments about Rutgers University's women's basketball team. But today also marks the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination...

As I've been watching coverage of Hillary Clinton's attempt to explain why she characterized a visit to Bosnia years ago as much more dangerous than it actually was, I've been struck by network reporters' attempts to insert themselves into the story.

Both CBS's Sharyl Attkisson and NBC's...

When Obama started doing well in the Presidential primaries, I was actually embarassed.

That feeling came because I remembered two middle-aged white guy friends of mine who had told me months ago they supported Obama, drawn by the promise of a young, smart leader with good ideas who seemed poised...

I just got a call from Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz so I guess this is a real issue.

Media blogs are buzzing a bit over some folks implication that Samantha Power, a well-known foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, wound up resigning today over a...

I hope that legions of voters in Ohio and Texas caught the last two SNL skits featuring a Clinton-loving media and decided to teach us a lesson.

Because the alternative scenario -- that Clinton's fear mongering and negativity helped her pull out another close win in big states --...

Time magazine senior political analyst Mark Halperin joined a small, yet growing club this week, when he issued an apology for saying former Presidential candidate John Edwards considered Barack Obama "kind of a pussy" on a satellite radio talk show.

Halperin's words: "In a live radio interview this week,...

Who knew the next blond starlet in crisis would be a man?

As I write this, actor Heath Ledger's death hasn't been attributed to Hollywood excess -- though police have said his room was filled with sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication.

But when I heard the 28-year-old actor had been...

It's become a familiar semantic game, particularly in the wake of controversy over Hillary Clinton's comments seeming to minimize Martin Luther King Jr.'s importance in achieving civil rights gains in the 1960s.

Still, as we all head to breakfasts and parades today celebrating the birth of the nation's greatest civil...

Looks like Howard Kurtz hasn't yet learned his lesson, inviting me to participate on his CNN show Reliable Sources at 10 a.m. Sunday. I'm looking forward to talking about the media coverage of this week's primaries in New Hampshire, which found a lot of gasbags wiping egg off their face...

One thing I've noticed about the impact so far of the Hollywood writer's strike: many of the things it's eliminating are institutions the big TV producers wanted to see gone, anyway.

Networks often complained about the winter TV press tour, the smaller January version of the big summer gathering...

From the moment FCC chair Kevin Martin's plan to relax media ownership rules first leaked to the public, I've wondered what sort of substance the new chairman might be smoking.

After all, news about his proposed changes, including relaxing the rule barring companies from owning a major newspaper and...

When the blogs began circulating harpy pundit Ann Coulter's awful comments about Jewish people on CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, I was almost amused.

Coulter told Deutsch that America should be a Christian nation, Jews should convert and that Christians "just want Jews to be perfected, as...

The worst thing about trying to talk honestly and incisively about race in America is dealing with the demagogues.

And there are few folks in modern media -- besides, perhaps fellow red state pundit Rush Limbaugh -- who push buttons on race more effectively from the conservative side than Fox...