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The announcement that no one will be prosecuted for the deaths of two prisoners in U.S. custody abroad officially closed the book on the nation’s regrettable embrace of torture in the war with terrorists.

It’s an unsatisfying end to a dark chapter in the nation’s history. But President Barack Obama got the most important things right: On his first full day in office in 2009 he banned the enhanced...

It might surprise people who were watching the Republican National Convention at home Thursday night to hear this, but when Clint Eastwood addressed the eager, even enraptured audience at the convention center, he made their day.

The experience of watching this type of event in person is totally different than catching it on your television or computer screen, and so are the impressions you...

Twitter lit up last night after Clint Eastwood's deeply weird monologue with an empty chair on the prime-time stage of the Republican National Convention.

Today, the White House weighed in with this Facebook post. Looks like the president can take a joke -- or at least go with the flow. In the middle of all the one-liners, the photo is a stark reminder to Mitt Romney and the rest of us of...

The only real surprise of the GOP convention's last night was special guest Clint Eastwood reminding the Republican Party why they're such fans of tight scripts, in a very vivid way.

Eastwood first talked about the emotions of the nation when President Obama was elected, then launched into a diatribe against the president that featured a faux conversation with an empty chair.

Eastwood...

So, after three days and nights the Republican National Convention, what did we learn?

Marco Rubio is a very good speaker, with a huge future. Chris Christie is also a rising star, with a very old-fashioned message of self-sacrifice unusual in today's climate. Ann Romney is the new Republican sweetheart, and Condoleezza Rice is, if anything, more respected and beloved in the party then when...

The courts gave Texas Republicans a richly deserved smackdown on voting rights this week.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel in Washington blocked implementation of the state's voter ID law Thursday, ruling that officials failed to show it wouldn’t violate the voting rights of blacks and Hispanics.

Earlier this week a separate three-judge panel, also in D.C., threw out the state’s...

TAMPA — So far, the award for “Best explanation of why there are so few protesters here” goes to Walt Handelsman, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist and my roommate for the next two weeks on the road (he also deserves a prize for that): “Maybe the economy is so bad they can’t afford cardboard and magic markers.”

One of the easiest options for a journalist at an event like...

TAMPA -- You run into people at political conventions you don’t expect to see. For me this week at the Republican National Convention, the biggest surprise was encountering former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

Sanford, a Republican, was once famed for his eight-year run (2003-2011) as one of the nation’s most fiscally conservative leaders. He’s now (much better) known mainly for the extramarital...

All in all, a very mediocre (at times even painful) night, with only Ryan and Rice standing out. Neither are great speakers, but both struck a real chord with this crowd.

To be honest, the response still was not the frenzied tumult a real political star gets, even for those two, but it was pretty good.

After two nights it's clear this is a quiet convention, and the participants are drawn...

Lane Filler has been live blogging from the RNC all night. The evening got off to a slow start, but picked up as Condoleezza Rice delivered her remarks. Follow the rest of his live blogging here.

10:16 p.m. - The former Secretary of State tells the story of growing up black in segregated Alabama, then rising to the cabinet, to a standing ovation. Chants of "Condi, Condi."

She...