Michael Smerconish

Michael Smerconish hosts the morning drive-time talk show daily on WPHT-AM (1210). A Philadelphia lawyer turned political commentator, Smerconish is a fill-in host for Bill O'Reilly on the Radio Factor, and a guest host for Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's Scarborough Country. He has often appeared on the Today Show, It's Your World with Neil Cavuto and Hardball with Chris Matthews. He writes an opinion column in the Inquirer's Sunday Currents section.

Before she bowed out: Candidates in New York´s race (from left) Democrat Bill Owens, Republican Dede Scozzafava, and Conservative Doug Hoffman.

Head Strong: Here's a hard truth for the hard right

By Michael Smerconish

Posted 11/08/2009

Who is Dede Scozzafava? If you believe Rush Limbaugh, she's a "liberal woman." Columnist Michelle Malkin called her a "radical leftist." There's "nothing Republican" about her, according to the New York Post editorial board.

Fans leaving last year´s stadium celebration crowd into a northbound train. Both the regional rail and Broad Street subway lines carried more than twice their typical weekday haul last year.

Head Strong: Parade is a sure thing; first, a few tweaks

By Michael Smerconish

Posted 11/01/2009

Jinx, schminx. The Phils are going to win this thing, and the city needs to get ready. Don't take it from me. Take it from the Tugger, who said it best at John F. Kennedy Stadium in the midst of the celebration of his Phillies' 1980 World Series victory:

Head Strong: GOP needs new primary process, and fast - 10/25/2009: By Michael Smerconish

The Republican presidential-primary process begins in 27 months. That sounds far removed, but the time for action is now if the GOP wants to nominate an electable candidate instead of one suitable for nomination but not a general-election victory.
Head Strong: Passing on Limbaugh a business decision - 10/18/2009: The NFL's rejection of the controversial talk show host was based on what owners thought was best for their enterprise.

By Michael Smerconish

The NFL's rejecting Rush Limbaugh was a bit like the members of the Merion Cricket Club blackballing Thurston Howell III. The owners' objection to Limbaugh wasn't based on his politics - they overwhelmingly share his views. They refused to allow him to join their club in the name of good business.
Head Strong: - 10/11/2009: By Michael Smerconish

Michael Smerconish's column, "Head Strong," does not appear today.
Head Strong: It's time to get smarter on extended school day - 10/04/2009: By Michael Smerconish

On Tuesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and odd couple Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich were in Philadelphia to promote President Obama's education overhaul. Their first stop was Mastery Charter School's Shoemaker campus. Students there attend class until 4 p.m. - more than an hour past the typical public school dismissal - and on Saturdays.
Head Strong: Swim club's president exonerated - 09/27/2009: How the commission's report shows he was, in no way, motivated by racism.

By Michael Smerconish

Sorting out what happened at the Valley swim club is as difficult as determining who peed in your backyard pool.
Head Strong: Dangerous times again, as hatred flows - 09/20/2009: By Michael Smerconish

A first-of-his-kind president is suspected by some of conspiring with anti-Christians. He is treated inhospitably in classrooms and associated with communism on posters. He is accused of awarding government jobs to radicals.
Head Strong: The truth about health care and illegal immigrants - 09/13/2009: By Michael Smerconish

I doubt that Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) would have disgraced himself by shouting at Ronald Reagan as he did during Barack Obama's address Wednesday night. And yet, his beef might be more with the former than the latter.
Head Strong: Fantasy concerts preserving time we knew - 09/06/2009: Let's hear the greats of rock perform their classic albums, in their original sequence.

By Michael Smerconish

With Labor Day weekend comes the end of the summer concert season. Appropriately, the final show I caught this year took me back to the first music I ever purchased, long before the age of iPods.
Head Strong: Eulogizing flawed public figures - 08/30/2009: How should obituaries treat complexities, failings of deceased icons?

By Michael Smerconish

Forty years after the Summer of Love, the summer of mourning is coming to a close. Ed McMahon. Farrah Fawcett. Walter Cronkite. Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Dominick Dunne. It's hard to believe they've all passed in a matter of weeks. None, however, has proved more complex in death than Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy.
Head Strong: 'So, Mr. President, ... seen any good movies?' - 08/23/2009: By Michael Smerconish

I hadn't prepared to make small talk with the president of the United States. But he arrived early. It's the stuff of cocktail parties and holiday gatherings - the conversation you make with people you haven't seen since last New Year's Eve. Most people expect me to be adept at this sort of thing, given that I host two talk radio programs each day.