I’m a longstanding admirer of James Fallows, whose varied and always substantive and incisive blogging at the Atlantic is worthy of your attention, but even he today succumbs to the meme of the moment (and the last and the next) on torture. Congratulations to Sen. John McCain for his brave op-ed in the Washington Post […]
The Arab Revolution: a Case for Realism
If the oldest profession is prostitution, the second oldest pastime (the very oldest being left to the imagination) is heckling. There is, too, no more timeless heckle of the cautious leader than “Why don’t you do something!” Obama Seeks a Course of Pragmatism in the Middle East In the Middle East crisis, as on other […]
David Brooks on Joe Lieberman: Muddled Moderation
Image via Wikipedia There is more than a superficial appeal to the calming voice. While it sounds reasonable, and it appears to spy a path from lost to found – “if you can keep your head when all around you” and all that – it also reassures. Often it is the still center that saves […]
DADT: American Conservatism, Still Riding the Backwash of History
Saturday, of course, with the Senate’s vote to overturn Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, was a great day in American history, and in the human progress toward a fully humane identity. We need to recall it, along with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, when we feel overwhelmed, as is often so, by the […]