Six months ago, looking out at the world of politics, I knew a few things for sure: 1. The Republicans had a mess on their hands. No viable leader for the social conservative movement was stepping up to the plate… Continue Reading
A seventeen-year-old girl in Basra, Iraq developed a crush on a young (presumably handsome) British soldier. Undoubtedly giggling like a schoolgirl about the boy, she confessed her crush to her friend, and word somehow got back to her dad. Who… Continue Reading
A little bit less than 1,900 people died as a result of Hurricane Katrina, all but two of them in the New Orleans and southern Mississippi region. Yet the landfall of a cyclone in Yangon, Myanmar, which has killed over… Continue Reading
No bell-bottom sightings at this time, but I’m starting to see more similarities than differences. Consider: The dollar is weak. Monopoly-money weak. We’re in a lingering, indecisive, expensive, and still-dangerous tail end of a protracted foreign war, in which the… Continue Reading
Italy’s famous instability in government has been caused, in no small part, by the multiplicity of political parties competing for seats in the Parliament, as well as a Constitution that by design gives parties proportional representation based on their votes.… Continue Reading
What is it with Presidents named Bush? They like to leave messy foreign policy entanglements for their successors to deal with. The first President Bush left Somalia and Bosnia, and his successor could no more find a clean, politically satisfactory… Continue Reading
To the right is a portrait of a religious fanatic and a terrorist. Sure, he looks like a pilgrim ready to make nice with the Indians over some turkey and cranberries, but this was not a nice man. 402 years… Continue Reading
My heart goes out to the journalist who died, but I have to agree with the Italian court here — it has no jurisdiction to try a U.S. soldier for a killing in Baghdad. The journalist was shot by the… Continue Reading
A lot of Republicans were upset about MoveOn.org’s “General Betray Us” advertisement. Indeed, a lot of sensible Democrats thought it was a bonehead play. But instead of being another right-wing whiner, Rudy Giuliani did something about it. He asked for,… Continue Reading
What if we were able to send the bright men and women at MoveOn.org back in time to 1942? I bet we’d have seen an ad a lot like this in the New York Times. E-e-e-e-ediots!