Category: General

Reuters/Mike Segar As David Frum has said, if the Republican Party is an oligarchy, Mitt Romney will head the GOP ticket.  If it is a democracy, anyone but Romney will.

Today at 12:15 pm EST, I’ll be chairing a session with former Former National Intelligence Officer and current Harvard professor Ezra Vogel on his new book, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Join us in DC at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in person — or watch live here at The Washington Note….

I am embarrassed not to have previously known the work of MIT historian Pauline Maier, winner of the 2011 George Washington Book Prize for her gripping account of the state by state drama over ratifying the US Constitution.

Joshua Roberts/Reuters This article first appeared at The Atlantic. Senator Jon Kyl made news this week by telegraphing in advance the tantrums he would throw — including resignation from his responsibilities as a member of the so-called “supercommittee” –  if the Congressional group pushes for more defense cuts.

Word broke today that Barack Obama’s funniest speechwriter Jon Lovett — performing above at the Washington Improv (giving an impeccable impersonation of Arianna Huffington) and who along with lead Obama wordsmith, Jon Favreau, was the genius this year behind President Obama’s Trump-stirring White House Correspondent’s Dinner speech — will be leaving DC to write funny…

Bleak views of the US economy abound.  Real unemployment for August — which according to a monthly newsletter report prepared by Leo Hindery includes discouraged workers (3.9 M), part time of necessity workers (8.8 M), and marginally attached workers (2.6 M) those on the unemployment roles — is up to 29.3 million workers, or 18.

(photo credit: Minh Le) My friend Minh Le who has been doing a lot of work in Mongolia lately took this shot from the air while flying over Japan. He sent it in response to a note I posted on Facebook noting that Mt. Rainier is like Seattle’s Mt. Fuji.

Most Americans know former First Lady Laura Bush as a strong supporter of education — and she puts her time and travel into this cause.  What is less known about Bush is how committed she was to international bridge-building and encouraging Americans to connect abroad.

Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters In September 2008, then US Senator Lincoln Chafee did what many other smart, sensible Republicans should do today.  He distanced himself from the pugnacious, anti-informed, increasingly deluded and violence-hugging wing of his GOP party.

The fact that the GOP is now experiencing the kind of outrageous character assaults against Muslims that many Dems, like US House Representative Keith Ellison, have endured only means that the push back has come much later than it should have.