It’s clear that the world is absorbing a set of incredibly devastating natural disasters — the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the massive earthquake in December 2004 and December 2003 in Iran, the recent mudslides in Guatemala, the hurricanes in the Gulf (which pale in terms of lives lost but are on scale with general infrastructure…
I have no idea how this Valerie Plame leak investigation is going to come out. No one has inside information that is credible — because Fitzgerald does not leak. But he’s the sort who inspires all of us to understand that independent investigations mean independent. It’s fascinating to watch him operate.
Mohamed ElBaradei has just won the Nobel Peace Prize for his and his agency’s efforts trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. John Bolton must have a headache over this as ElBaradei was one of his targets when Bolton was Under Secretary of State.
Michael Moore has nothing to do with the following bit of news. Bush has been telling foreign leaders that God is talking to him and told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, God also told Bush to get the Palestinians their state. Seriously. More later.
As one of the follow-on meetings from the recent mega-forum on America’s “Next Phase” response to terrorism, I will be moderating an event with Yosri Fouda on Monday at the New America Foundation. We will be posting a link to a digital recording of the session shortly after the meeting.
It’s remarkable to see how Republicans are dividing over Harriet Miers. By my count, these are the Republicans in the U.S. Senate who are considering running for President: John McCain, Bill Frist, Sam Brownback, George Allen, and Chuck Hagel. Let’s see what they have to say about Miers.
For German speakers, this piece on Jeffrey Gedmin appeared in today’s Financial Times Deutschland — quoting The Washington Note on the rumors that Gedmin will soon find himself in John Bolton’s shop at the United Nations: Gedmin fuer neuen Posten im Gespraech Hubert Wetzel, Financial Times Deutschland, 4 October 2005 Der Direktor des Aspen Institute…
Judy Miller seems to be engaged either in some kind of perverse self-deception, or she is simply brilliant at manipulating the rest of us. As has been widely reported, she seems to have unnecessarily gone off to jail as she was protecting a source who never wanted protection. . .
Via Julian Sanchez, I was directed both to Randy Barnett’s interesting anti-Miers piece today in the Wall Street Journal and to Federalist Papers No. 76. I think Hamilton, Barnett, and Sanchez stake out a very different kind of opposition to Miers than the fundamentalist right.
There is an odd connection between Harriet Miers and John Bolton. The President stuck with Bolton despite mountains of testimony and evidence that compellingly demonstrated that John Bolton’s collective dossier was something that most Americans could not be inspired by or of which they could be proud.
