<em>Deja Vu</em>: Bad Intel Data on Iranian Arms

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According to a New York Times article out today by Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, a high-level panel is going to report to President Bush that our intelligence on Iran’s arms is inadequate. This hasn’t stopped the grind towards an Iran confrontation though.

Jack Oliver & Steve Elmendorf: Odd Bedfellows Tie Up

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Tom DeLay will be upset. Another liberal pol got a job in Washington — and is even co-opting a well-placed conservative. My friend Steve Elmendorf who ran Dick Gephardt’s world for more than a decade has tied up in a lobbying enterprise with Jack Oliver, “former money man for President George W.

Japan’s Imperial Problem: Are the Emperor and His Son Really Feuding Over Masako? Japan’s Crown Princess Remembered on <a href="http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womday97.htm">International Women’s Day</a>

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Unless you are a Japan watcher, this post probably won’t interest you — unless you are into royals. And most Japan watchers for that matter aren’t interested in the imperial family and the goings-on within Japan’s secretive aristocracy. But I am going to write about this Tokyo soap opera anyway.

Over the Top in Dubai?

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Gavin Sheridan does a great job challenging a post of mine on an ‘over the top’ tennis match on top of an exotic building in Dubai. He rightly accuses me of over-reacting to a tennis match and over-reaching by using this as a metaphor of some of the problems in the Middle East.

Individual Freedom, Liberty, Due Process, Equal Protection Under the Law, Freedom of Speech: Are These American Values Even Under Stress?

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This USA Today editorial makes a point that I have been trying to emphasize in Washington circles: freedom, liberty and equal protection are only real if they are observed during times of high social stress. During World War II, American society interned innocent Japanese-Americans because of the fear that this U.S.

Bush Expresses Regret to Italians Over Collateral Damage: Nicola Calipari Dead, Giuliana Sgrena Wounded

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Some Italians tonight are asking if America is their friend, who needs enemies? What are these soldiers at check-points thinking? Shoot first and ask questions later? If Iraq is indeed tilting the way of democracy, then these kind of incidents are certainly going to disrupt progress.