Category: General

In December, I did some research into how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each used legislative machinery at their disposal in the Senate to get some sense of their “executive abilities”.

I’m in Israel and Palestine through Saturday — and am finding some interesting stuff on the internet as I fight jet lag. First of all, Slate has a fascinating Delegate Counter that allows one to go through all of the states left in the Democratic primary process and plug in assumptions about performance.

Just saw this interesting news. Co-Architect of Bush detainee policies leaving government: Architect of Bush’s Detainee Policies to Step Down A principal architect of the Bush administration’s detainee policies is stepping down, just as military officials gear up for the Guantanamo Bay trial of alleged planners of the Sept. 11, 2001, conspiracy.

Hillary Clinton gave a major foreign policy address yesterday that has some great strengths. I disagree with her take on Cuba and find it unfortunate that she can’t move to roughly the same position of managed cooperation and conflict with Cuba that she advocates with China.

I more than anyone else I’ve read have spoken out strongly against the Obama campaign’s promulgation of “identity and mystique politics” — that he by his unique upbringing and exposure to different cultures and the like would bring a radically different decision-making calculus to modern American statecraft.

I’m way behind in my movies this year. Been too busy blogging! But I have special interest this year in two films — one directed by Charles Ferguson called No End in Sight — Alex Gibney is one of the executive producers. An incredible documentary on the horrific management of the Iraq occupation.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) Blogs are strange beasts on occasion. By noting that I thought that Barack Obama’s “Harry and Louise II” ads were despicable and calling for him to apologize — predictably, I got a number of emails accusing me of bias towards Hillary Clinton.

To the degree that Hillary Clinton is still really pursuing an upset in Texas and Ohio and not in fact negotiating for other positions in Obamaland, this polling data from the Des Moines Register is going to be hard to shake off.

A friend, John McAuliff, has a letter in the New York Times today in response to a very good editorial the Tims ran last week titled “Twilight of the Dictators: And a Chance for Cuba — and the U.S.

Monday evening, I’m taking off for Tel Aviv and will be spending the balance of the week in Ramallah, Jerusalem and perhaps Jericho. I’ll be reporting back on what folks see as the real state of play on the Annapolis Summit Israel/Palestine peace effort.