Kremlinology may be anachronistic, but observing and interpreting Bush-world has taken its place as one of my extra-curricular activities. I can hardly believe that George Bush 41 throttled his son so harshly in a speech he gave last night at the home of the German Ambassador to the U.S.
Congressman Mark Foley once commented that he was dismayed and disheartened by the tainting of the Presidency by Bill Clinton’s “sexual addiction problem.” What comes around. . . I have not commented much on the blog about this growing scandal about who knew what when in the Mark Foley/Congressional page imbroglio.
A lot of pro-John Bolton pundits and followers as well as many in the network of people and institutions opposed to Bolton’s confirmation are in a tizzy about a small gossip item that ran on an on-line conservative weekly magazine, Human Events.
My colleague and friend Nir Rosen has been working his way through some of the more interesting sites and scenes in Lebanon — and trailing along with many Nasrallah groupies to get a fix on the Hezbollah leader’s rise and on the evolving shape of Lebanese politics and identity.
(photo credit: Matthew Winters) For all of the TWN supporters who have sent notes to help assuage the pain I am still in from some seriously deep dental work, thanks much. I’m in Chestertown, Maryland — trying to get over jaw shock.
North Korea has announced that it will conduct a nuclear test, and few doubt its resolve to do so. To some degree, the escalating temper-tantrum that North Korea is engaged in has to do with its irritation that the United States is not talking to the failed communist state.
This strikes me as an effort that could just as easily swing towards the brave — or the reckless. Verizon has launched a new policy blog called PoliBlog.
A friend sent me this picture which captures the concern of many Bush 41 administration realists with the decisions and driving of the country by Bush 43.
Some are critiquing Senator Bill Frist’s comments that “people who call themselves Taliban” should be brought into the Afghan government. If Frist actually made these comments, the rationale is exactly the same that many have argued about Hamas and Hezbollah.
I have written previously about the important lesson my briliant, humanistic Japanese politics professor Hans Baerwald taught me: one just can’t really know the norms of a political system, or any system, unless observing that system under stress.
