Category: General

I don’t have time to write much now about the weird ups and downs of the DC scene — and no doubt if I do, I’ll trigger a tsunami from my tough love TWN readership.

Joe Wilson has penned an interesting essay at Huffington Post defending Hillary Clinton’s complex stand on Iran and challenging Obama with some soft gloves.

I’m moderating a four part Senate Colloquy series at the 1782 founded liberal arts college in Chestertown, Maryland on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay — Washington College. All four meetings feature former Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN) who is a Senior Fellow at the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience….

Fred Thompson chose the Enlightenment over the Dark Ages in an interview today with Tim Russert. I heard that the entire interview was excellent — including the section on Iran which I don’t have yet. But on social conservative taboos like gay marriage and the Terry Schiavo case, Thompson sounded ideal.

Everyone I know who knew Adlai Stevenson loved him — but also said that he wasn’t savage enough to win the presidency — or even if he did, to “be” president. As things look now, Barack Obama is running an Adlai Stevenson campaign. He’s smart. He’s fresh. He’s inspiring to many, including me.

Tomorrow, China will have bragging rights to the world’s largest firm in terms of market capitalization. PetroChina is going public on the Shanghai Exchange, and analysts believe that the surge in stock value predicted in tomorrow’s trading will clock the firm ahead of Exxon Mobile.

(John Bolton inspired Halloween attire) On Halloween, John Bolton had a sprawling screed in the Wall Street Journal on all the reasons the Bush administration should start a few new wars, scrap diplomacy with North Korea on its nukes, further isolate Syria, and the like.

Don’t blame Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf for all of the problems in Pakistan. The fact is that governance in a region that is ambivalent about America, Europe and the West in general is becoming more complicated everywhere in the Middle East and South Asia.

(Colin Powell sings YMCA during 2004 ASEAN summit in Indonesia) Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Cleveland on Friday. And in his remarks, he struck a tone about as opposite from Vice President Cheney as one can imagine.

In all of the noise about Iraq, Iran, Mukasey, FISA, and the upcoming Annapolis Peace Summit on Israel/Palestine, I neglected to mention that a vote was taken in the UN General Assembly condeming America’s embargo against Cuba. The vote was 184-4. The four were the United States, Israel, Marshall Islands, and Palau.