present: 30 years as a Washington Post journalist (retired); prior 50 + years as a banker, public official, US military officer and HBCU graduate.
Joined August 2011
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Colbert I. King retweeted
Happy birthday to my incomparable wife Michele Norris. You are as beautiful today as you were those decades ago. The love of my life and the soul of our family.
My previous post "Laura Loomer is the sympton" was incorrectly attributed to me, instead of former Post colleague Ruth Marcus. The error, which I just discovered and deeply regret, is all mine.
Laura Loomer is the symptom. The real problem is Donald Trump. wapo.st/4iJOQhM
Prior to my recent Substack column, I posted this about Loomer months ago.
Freedom of the Press, America’s 250th Anniversary in the era of Donald Trump open.substack.com/pub/ciking…
Pres. Trump called D.C. mayoral nominee Janeese George a "communist." My response.
"How dare President Donald Trump smear D.C. Councilmember and Democratic mayoral primary winner Janeese Lewis George as a "Communist.” If such a spurious claim has any basis in fact, where is the verifiable evidence? The clock’s ticking.
Trump’s real intent? That may be another matter.
In slurring Lewis George as “a Communist adherent” in his lengthy Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump set her up to be viewed nationwide as a radical who will forcibly overthrow good order and run our Nation’s Capital into the ground should she be elected D.C. Mayor in November. It is Trump, however, who is being subversive by using his high office to stigmatize a duly elected public official as a menace, when in fact, he’s the one undermining the democratic process that has elevated Lewis George to the mayor’s doorstep. His fear mongering calls into question the judgement of thousands of qualified District voters who cast ballots in her favor on Primary Day.
Trump owes Lewis George and D.C. voters an apology, but I won’t hold
my breath.
While I’m at it, however, let’s clean up one blatant lie Trump told in his effort to make the public believe Lewis George would betray this city. Lewis George, he wrote, “has stated that she wants to empty the prisons.” She has said no such thing. As the Washington Post has reported, before joining the Council in 2012, candidate Lewis George had advocating diverting funds from the police for other crime prevention purposes. But throwing open the jail gates has never been her position.
Neither is it, as far as I know, Lewis George’s position that private property should be abolished in D.C. Or that the D.C. Government should own and control all aspects of economic production and commerce in the city. Those positions are the bedrock economic philosophy of communism, with perhaps the added feature of violent revolution being an integral part of achieving those goals.
I can’t claim to know Lewis-George all that well. The King family has lived in Washington for five generations and in Ward Four, which she represents on the D.C. Council, for decades before she was born in 1988. Our personal encounters have been brief, mainly with me wearing my Washington Post journalist’s cap observing her on the council’s dais or in a few community gatherings.
Janesse Lewis George is a self-pronounced Democratic Socialist for sure. So too are Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Make of that what you wish.
I keep my own counsel on how and for whom I cast my ballots.
It does go a long way with me, however, to know that when called upon, Lewis George, a lawyer and city legislator, has solemnly sworn to execute the laws of the United States, and to the best of her ability, has acted to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.
Hardly vows of a “Communist.”
Shame on Donald Trump.
On the eve of the 2016 presidential election, I wrote in a September 30 Washington Post column that newly minted Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “…is, without question, an ignorant, undisciplined, ranting bully who exaggerates and lies without shame. He wears a tough-guy masculinity but is actually a coward who picks on women, demeans minorities and is thoroughly lacking in human decency.”[ washingtonpost.com/opinions/…”.
And I added, “Repulsive though he is, nominee Trump’s character defects aren’t what make him a threat. What does sicken and alarm, and what ought to concentrate African American minds, is the thought of Trump with the powers of the presidency in his hands. Therein lies the danger.”
Trump’s classless and racially tinged actions during his first term, and now 18 months of trashy, vindictive, and irrational behavior during his second term only confirm the accuracy of my ten-year-old warning and prediction.
It therefore should have come as no surprise that Trump would use the South Lawn of the White House as he did on Sunday night to stage an eight-sided cage match for a bloody UFC brawl in honor of his 80th birthday. Just as it was also in character for Trump to feature his favorite UFC fighter, Josh Hokit, and winner of his heavyweight bout, who proceeded to use his victory platform to make a vile remark about former First Lady Michelle Obama, the embodiment of class, intelligence, taste and beauty far beyond Hokit’s reach, aspiration or imagination.
The presence of disgusting and vulgar mixed-martial artist Hokit on White House grounds only added to the national disgrace that Trump inflicted on America Sunday night. Which also happen to have been Flag Day.
Election Day November 3 can’t come soon enough.
Colbert I. King retweeted
Had to have local help.
Happy New Year.
I should have mentioned that my 30+ year old email address-“[email protected]” ceased to exist after publication of my final Washington Post column- “Take care of our city, our country-and one another”-on September 26, 2025.
This slightly worn octogenarian, however, is still around, putting finishing touches on a soon to be published book, and taking in the stunning wonders that have unfolded globally, regionally, and in D.C., since striking my Post tent a few months ago.
A word of advice: store up supplies and tighten the old chin strap. 2026 has all the makings of a year for the ages.
About which more may be said, written, and linked to my new email address. Drop a line, if so inclined: [email protected]
After 35 years as a Post journalist, it’s time for a change wapo.st/446ivc8
The D.C. Council has work to do on the Commanders stadium deal washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
The D.C. Council pulls the shades on sunshine in government washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
It’s not the U.S. attorney’s police department washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
The case against Ed Martin as U.S. attorney for D.C. gets even worse washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
Bowser has a stadium plan. Let the debate begin. washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
D.C. deserves better than a political operative as its U.S. attorney washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
‘A roster change for the ages’: 8 writers on the Washington Commanders washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
D.C.’s sports betting no-bid venture was a rotten idea from the start wapo.st/4gjjg5X
