Author

Jay Bookman

Jay Bookman

Jay Bookman covered Georgia and national politics for nearly 30 years for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, earning numerous national, regional and state journalism awards. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award and the Walker Stone Award for outstanding editorial writing, and is the only two-time winner of the Pulliam Fellowship granted by the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of "Caught in the Current," published by St. Martin's Press.

COMMENTARY

Bookman: Trump, ‘Cop City’ RICO cases show danger of such laws

By: - September 21, 2023

Georgia’s wide-ranging version of an anti-racketeering act, or RICO, puts a powerful weapon in the hands of prosecutors. And like any powerful weapon, it can be used for good, or for ill. The best safeguards against its abuse must be judges and juries, and both will come into play in the two major RICO-based prosecutions […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: More evidence for Tooth Fairy than Georgia 2020 election fraud

By: - September 7, 2023

According to a poll conducted last month by the University of Georgia, 63% of Georgia Republican voters still claim to believe “there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.” At this point, almost three years after the election, that’s like an adult believing in the Tooth Fairy, only worse. There’s at least some […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: The season for accountability has arrived

By: - August 2, 2023

A democracy has the right – no, the obligation — to defend itself against those who attack it and seek to destroy it. That’s what Capitol Police were forced to do on Jan. 6, as they physically fought off thousands of attackers.  It’s what special counsel Jack Smith, operating in a different role, has now […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: Kemp offers selective outrage to threats of violence as political weapon

By: - June 15, 2023

Last week, Atlanta City Council members were threatened with physical violence over their votes in support of the controversial “Cop City” proposal. That’s indefensible, and it seriously undermines whatever moral standing that project opponents may have claimed to have. Surely, whatever your stance, we can agree that such threats have no place whatsoever in public […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: Can Georgia’s brand of conservatism survive the GOP’s rush toward extremism?

By: - June 1, 2023

The future of the Republican Party is being fought out right here in Georgia; you can already see the battle lines forming. But it will be years before we know the outcome. The usual setting for that intra-party struggle would be the upcoming presidential primary season, which is when parties traditionally define themselves and establish […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: From Clayton County to Buffalo, Biden is right about white supremacist terrorism

By: - May 18, 2023

In March, a U.S. judge here in Georgia sentenced 48-year-old Larry Foxworth to 20 years in federal prison for firing multiple gunshots into two late-night convenience stores in Clayton County. Foxworth’s shooting binge wasn’t an act of random violence. It also wasn’t personal. It had a purpose, a motivation, an ideology behind it. “Foxworth told […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: Georgia GOP chair’s lack of regret over 2020 election denial dangerous

By: - May 4, 2023

Until the last few years, I did not fully comprehend our human capacity to delude ourselves, to insist on believing what we wish to believe, regardless of evidence or logic, and regardless of the damage that the delusion might do to ourselves and to others.  Having seen some things, I’m now sadder, perhaps wiser. Definitely […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: The truth is that it is Kemp, not Trump, who is the candidate of the past

By: - April 20, 2023

In a high-profile speech over the weekend in Nashville, Gov. Brian Kemp told national Republican donors that it’s time for the party to look forward, to the elections and issues of 2024, rather than backward to the debacle of 2020. “Not a single swing voter in a single swing state will vote for our nominee […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: In MTG’s grimy paws, a beautiful video becomes something sickening

By: - April 7, 2023

“I’ll say it again,” Marjorie Taylor Greene says in a new video labeled “The Predator President.” “Democrats are the party of pedophiles.” What follows in the video is a compilation of interactions between Joe Biden and various young people, attempting to make the case that the 80-year-old president sexually abuses young children.  This is what […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: Potential indictments of former president not created equal

By: - March 23, 2023

Let me ask a question, purely theoretical:  Should the justice system treat a former president of the United States just as it would treat any other American citizen?  As long as it’s just theoretical, the obvious answer is yes, of course. As Americans, we have no kings, no untouchable royalty. We are all equal before […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: Another year, another school voucher bill to funnel public money to private schools

By: - March 16, 2023

State Sen. Greg Dolezal argued on the floor of the Georgia Senate this month that his school-voucher bill offers students and parents a way out of low-performing public schools. It does not.  Furthermore, it is not intended to do so. Like most voucher proposals, it is an attempt to funnel taxpayer money out of public […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: Marjorie Taylor Greene ascends in GOP because of stupidity, not in spite of it

By: - March 2, 2023

Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot, and idiots, as a rule, aren’t interesting people. They aren’t interesting because their idiocy overshadows all other aspects of their personality. Greene is more an exemplar of that rule than an exception to it. Nonetheless, in their wisdom, the voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District have elected Greene as […]