When I was thinking about launching a civil society battle over John Bolton’s nomination to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations and planned to do what I could to block his Senate confirmation, I talked to a few Senators about it — on both sides of the aisle.
Just got back to Washington from the Middle East, or what I called the Middle West when I lived in Japan. I’m tuckered out — but may be back on later. For those in Arkansas, I’ll be down in Little Rock on Tuesday speaking at noon for the Arkansas Committee on Foreign Relations.
This is a guest post by Richard Vague, a Republican business person concerned about the economic consequences of the Iraq War. Richard Vague is Chairman of “American Respect” and authored Terrorism: A Brief for Americans.
Arab American Institute President James Zogby just included me tonight on the distribution of his 14 April 2008 Washington Watch report titled “The Disconnect: How Arabs and Americans See 2008“.
I hear that there are about 500 of them here, and many Saudi officials — from advisers to the King to Members of the Shura Council — say that blogs are undermining official media and breaking up cartels of media control.
James Pethokoukis of US News & World Report has just published an interesting article titled, “The Return of Big Government.
I’m still in Saudi Arabia and haven’t had the time to absorb everything that has been churning this last week with the Petraeus/Crocker hearings and other Senator Foreign Relations Committee meetings focused on Iraq that Senators Joe Biden and Richard Lugar have called.
Ben Smith of Politico points out that Barack Obama has “drawn a line” regarding which of the world’s problematic bad guys should be met by Presidents like himself — and Jimmy Carter. He thinks Carter should not meet any Hamas leaders.
Laura Rozen has penned a fascinating piece on the bumpy ride that hyper-conservative “Freedom’s Watch” has had thus far in its emergence as a conservative challenger to MoveOn.org.
Hillary Clinton is making a wrong-headed play in her call to President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games. After the collision of an American EP-3 spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter in April 2001, neoconservative high priest Richard Perle advocated preempting China’s bid to host the 2008 Olympics.