Jackson Diehl, the deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, has an op-ed today in which he asserts that the lack of political progress in Iraq is an argument for staying there indefinitely. It’s another version of the now familiar If-Things-Are-Getting-Worse-We-Must-Stay-In-Iraq-And-On-The-Other-Hand-If-Things-Are-Getting-Better-Then-We-Must-Stay-In-Iraq argument that, whatever its deficiencies might be, is at least admirably consistent.
But I’m […]

Rudy Giuliani is as mendaciously corrupt as a politician can get these days, which is to say, absolutely. With authoritarian tendencies bordering on the fascist, a hyper-inflated ego and a raging sense of entitlement, there’s just not much to like about him as a person or as a politician.
Except this: he knows how to dress […]

Condi did it.
No, U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice didn’t pull the trigger or build the bomb or hire the assassin, but it was the U.S. effort to force Pakistan’s dictator, Pervex Musharraf, into a power-sharing arrangement with Bhutto that led directly to her death.
Steve Clemons, proprietor of the Washington Note and an up-and-coming member […]

Claudine in School, by Colette
Sandbag Shuffle, by Kevin Marc Fournier
Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
Two months ago, I hosted a game of Diplomacy. I am sure I wasn’t the ideal moderator in a lot of respects (especially for letting the whole game lapse when players disappeared), but I tried to provide […]

Someone may ultimately get convicted of something in connection with the destruction of CIA videos showing the torture of two terrorism suspects, but if so it will be along the lines of lying to Congress or criminal contempt, not anything having to do with torture.
That’s because the Military Commissions Act of 2006 amended the War […]

Michael O’Hanlon, the Brookings Institution wonk who once famously posed as a harsh critic of the adventure in Iraq in order to highlight his devotion to The Surge, has another (but mercifully more brief) op-ed on the subject in the New York Times.
In this one, he says that “the greatest American military comeback late […]

So, Mitt Romney never saw his father march with Martin Luther King, something Romney says is simply a matter of how one defines “saw”, “march”, “with”, and “Martin Luther King.” Most people take the words to mean what they seem to mean, while Romney argues that they are figurative, and easily deconstructed. Neither did Romney […]

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he’ll sue to overturn a Bush administration ban on tough California greenhouse gas emission standards. The EPA decision, which was made against EPA staff recommendations and appears to have been dictated to EPA chief Stephen Johnson by vice president Dick Cheney, would prevent California from imposing tougher standards than […]

Dean Barnett in the Weekly Standard continues the intellectual irreligious right’s jihad against Mike Huckabee today, following in the foosteps of his editor, Rich Lowry, and Ann Coulter at the malappropriately named Human Events.
For my money, Barnett is the clear winner in this kneecapping derby, with an entry aimed at Huckabee’s essay in Foreign Affairs, […]

Someone has to win the GOP presidential primaries, but it’s really tough to imagine who. My ongoing encounter with Ron Paul’s supporters tempts me to think that it might be him but I can’t, really; the numbers just aren’t there. Giuliani is tanking; McCain’s support is still limited to the press—now more enamored than ever […]