Improving D.C. schools is a test for us all

So it seems there's this new couple coming to town (the husband just got a job with the government). Now they are scouting schools for their children, and people are wondering whether they're going to go public or private.

GAY RIGHTS

Some blacks forgot sting of discrimination

Sometimes, progress carries an asterisk. That's as good a summary as any of a sad irony from last week's historic election. You will recall one of the major storylines of that day was the fact that, in helping make Barack Obama the nation's first black president, African Americans struck a blow against a history that has taught us all too well how it feels to be demeaned and denied. Unfortunately, while they were striking that blow, some black folks chose to demean and deny someone else.

Newspapers still needed, but going fast

Maybe I should revise my estimate. Lately, many people have asked me about the fate of the American newspaper in an era when circulation, advertising and staff size are all sharply down. I've told them what editors have told me: The next 18 to 24 months may well see the first major U.S. city without a daily paper.

Leonard Pitts: 'We' are finally part of `We the People'

''For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.'' -- Michelle Obama, Feb. 18, 2008

LEONARD PITTS JR. | COLUMNIST

Unity, hope must conquer division, hate

The killers would have worn top hats. Having already murdered 102 African Americans, 14 by beheading, they would have driven at top speed toward Barack Obama, leaning from the windows of their vehicle, dressed in top hats and white tuxedoes, firing guns.

LEONARD PITTS JR. | COLUMNIST

The McCain fan who wasn't mugged

It smelled worse than rotting garbage in triple digit heat, but I'm not surprised some folks swallowed it anyway. Meaning the story that was a mini-sensation for about 15 minutes last week: the McCain campaign worker supposedly mugged by a black man in Pittsburgh.

Capital punishment is wrong, unfair

This is a rewrite. In the column originally prepared for this space, I said that Troy Davis was scheduled to die Monday -- to be killed, actually, by an executioner for the state of George.

GOP RHETORIC

Sorry, but 'fake Americans' aren't the real threat

Excuse me while I say a few words on behalf of us Fake Americans. Not that I really think of myself as such. I mean, here in Fake America, life proceeds much as it does in Real America. We are raising our kids and paying our taxes, trying to keep up with the dishes in the sink, going to the movies now and then. In fact, if you didn't know better, you'd never realize our America was Fake.

Fear has profoundly changed us

Meanwhile, back at the War on Terror . . . You remember the War on Terror, don't you? It was in all the papers. Back before presidential politics sucked the air from the room and your 401(k) shrank till it was worth maybe dinner and a movie, it was considered quite the important news story. Abu Ghraib? Extraordinary renditions? Fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here? Surely you recall.

DISCOURSE

McCain fosters offensive attacks

My 401(k) is down $21,000 since the end of September. And John McCain thinks I should be worried about William Ayers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are strange days. And it's difficult not to empathize with the Arizona senator, who has spent these last weeks flailing like a man trying to hit a fastball in the dark.

LEONARD PITTS JR. | OPINION

Sarah Six-Pack is getting a bit stale

There is an ugliness here. It is disguised as decency, disguised as politics, but it is only ugliness, mean and raw and given license by the desperation of a man who used to be honorable and a woman who said she was just like us.

LANGUAGE

N-word has no place in society

Dear Chris Rock: I apologize in advance for the language that will shortly follow. And yes, there is a certain irony there, given that you are one of the most profane men on the planet.

Compassion, certainly, but justice, too

The first time, Troy Davis came within 24 hours of death. The second time, he came within two. Last year, it was a Georgia clemency board that stepped in to block his execution. Last month, it was the Supreme Court. Davis, the 39-year-old convicted killer of Mark MacPhail, a Savannah, Ga., police officer, was granted a stay to allow the court to consider whether to hear his appeal for a new trial. A decision is expected on Monday.

CREATION

For some, faith is about caring for others

In a moment, I will say something you've probably never read in an opinion column. Last week, you see, I wrote about Sarah Palin's attempt to ban books when she was a small town mayor. In the process, I noted that ''we all have questions'' for Palin. Among them: ``Does she really take the parable of Adam and Eve as literal truth?''

Lost credibility leads to lost leadership

Memo to the next president: There's an old fable I'm sure you know. It's usually credited to Aesop, and the version I found online at storyarts.org, goes like this:

OBAMA

The meaning of black

black \'blak\ adjective 1: of the color black; 2: of or relating to the African-American people; 3: dirty, soiled; 4: thoroughly sinister or evil;

Do yourself a favor -- read a book

Of course, we all have questions for Sarah Palin: Does she actually think living across the Bering Strait from Russia constitutes foreign policy expertise? Does she really take the parable of Adam and Eve as literal truth? How, exactly, does one field dress a moose? And why would one want to?

LEONARD PITTS JR. | COLUMNIST

There is no truth to the rumor . . .

``Be careful what you do, 'cause the lie becomes the truth.'' -- Michael Jackson For the record: Sarah Palin did not call dinosaurs ''lizards of Satan.'' Barack Obama is not a Muslim. That list of books that Palin supposedly wants to ban is a fake. Obama doesn't refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance. The picture of Palin wearing a flag bikini and hefting a gun is a fraud. Obama is, too, a U.S. citizen. Palin doesn't want Alaska to secede.

Wake-up time for `real conservatives'

So it seems George W. Bush is not really conservative. Nor are Mitt Romney, John McCain and, indeed, the vast majority of the Republican Party. Or so I'm told by a number of readers who took exception to a recent column lambasting Romney for his speech at the GOP convention. In it, Romney declared that the way to fix Washington is to turn it over to conservatives. If you didn't know any better, said I, you'd think conservatives had not been in charge most of the last decade. This kind of babblespeak...