Some of My Best

What a difference four years makes. An early take on the slow start to the 2012 presidential election compared with the battle for the open Oval Office of the White House in 2008. Campaign 2011: A Decline in contributions

The news that a Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden in a daring raid in Pakistan quickly spread, offering many relief and prompting others to celebrate. I was sitting at home late Sunday night when I got word that President Barack Obama was about to make an unscheduled announcement shortly before midnight. Here is the story I pounded out in a handful of minutes, just in time to make Newsday’s final deadline. U.S. KILLS BIN LADEN

Here is my first story after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that identifies Osama bin Ladan as the terrorist most likely responsible for the deadly suicide mission on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon but, thanks to brave passengers, not the White House or Congress. TERRORIST ATTACKS: ‘Acts of War’

When former Mayor Rudy Giuliani ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2007 and 2008, his socially liberal positions put him in an awkward spot with the GOP’s socially conservative base. As he crisscrossed Iowa, I wrote about Giuliani actually having a better record on gay rights than the Democratic presidential hopefuls. Gung-ho on gay rights

Republicans complain constantly about too much government regulation resulting from the policies of President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. When Republicans held the White House and Congress in the mid-2000s, they appointed industry insiders to top jobs in government regulation. And here’s a story on what that meant. Erasing The RULES

After Sept. 11, 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush put into effect a profound and far-reaching paradigm shift in the government, from prosecuting terrorism as a crime to preventing it as an act of war. Here is my analysis of its effect. TAKING LIBERTIES

Why are so relatively few white criminals subjected to the federal death penalty, when whites make up the majority on states’ death rows? The FBI and federal prosecutors didn’t use the death penalty against the Italian mob. It’s a story that came to me as a pondered the racial disparity – the mob was the dog that didn’t bark. The Two Faces Of Death Penalty

In 1998, Washington state voters went to the polls to approve I200 — a measure that banned the use of race, gender and ethnicity in the affirmative action programs that aimed to boost employment, college admission and public contracts for minorities and women. The Seattle Times assigned me to follow the story for more than a year. After digging into dusty old records and interviewing scores of people, I discovered it is much more complicated than most people think – and the most appropriate question was: Are We There Yet? Here are four major stories of my year-long coverage that placed as a Pulitzer finalist for explanatory reporting.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN REAL LIFE Claude Harris became the first black firefighter, and later fire chief, in Seattle. All he wanted was a job, he said.

I-200 WOULDN’T TOUCH JOB AID FOR SOME VETERANS Vietnam veterans – nearly 80 percent of whom are white men – still benefit from affirmative action.

STATE ASKS JOB APPLICANTS: CAN YOU PROVE YOU’RE A MINORITY? One of the trickier aspects of affirmative action.

MINORITY STATUS NOT SO SIMPLE Why public agencies class some groups as minorities, and not others – and the groups that fall in between.