I have taken a good bit of criticism from both my left and right whenever I write a supportive post about our President. Many here ask me to remain in “the world of ideas” and drop out of the world of partisan politics. I think this is an impossible request. Bismarck said “politics is the [...]
One of the prices we pay for our vast network of military bases around the world is that geography often dictates that we suck up to unsavory regimes in order to use their territory for logistical support to our wars. Exhibit A may be Kyrgyzstan, where our tin pot dictator of choice was Kurmanbek S. [...]
Mullah Omar must be wondering if anyone will show up for the next scheduled meeting of the Quetta Shura–the ruling council of the Taliban. Yesterday the Pakistani army captured yet another of his chief military aides, Mullah Abdul Kabir. Coming right on the heels of the arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the top military [...]
According to the Wall Street Journal President Obama’s Stimulus Bill is only just now kicking into gear. Proponents of the stimulus program focused attention on infrastructure projects during the fight to win approval for it last year. But the bulk of the money proposed for projects like new rail lines and water projects—about $180 billion [...]
A couple of months ago, I went out on a limb and predicted that a 2010 Republican election victory was a mirage. The New York Times/CBS News Poll this morning reinforces my confidence that President Obama and the Democrats can keep their majorities in November. Americans blame former President George W. Bush, Wall Street and Congress [...]
Someone in the White House (my guess is David Axelrod), has figured out that Larry Summers and Tim Geithner are politically clueless and that sucking up to their former employers in the Big Banks was exactly the wrong strategy for 2009. The possibility of a loss on Tuesday in the Massachusetts Senate race has focused [...]
It’s not Obama. About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt. Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of [...]
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s boast yesterday that he forced Condi Rice to abstain from the U.N. resolution on Gaza she wrote, once again raises the issue of whether U.S. policy is being made in Washington or Jerusalem. “I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone,’ ” Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern [...]
Researchers at UC Berkeley have shown for the first time that the brains of poor kids function differently than those of well off kids. In a study recently accepted for publication by the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists at UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the School of Public Health report that normal 9- and [...]
Harold Pinter died yesterday. He was our greatest contemporary playwright, but he also understood that the artist has another role to play in society. He must tell the emperor he is naked. In 2002 when many artists were parsing their words about the War about to be started in Iraq, Pinter did not hold back. [...]