CORONATION OR INAUGURATION? I REALLY WANT TO KNOW….

-

27

I am at Dulles Airport right now, leaving for Miami in a few minutes. I will be down there with France’s Trade Minister and the French Ambassador to the U.S. and a few hundred others interested in French-American economic and political affairs.

QUESTION TO <em>TWN</em> READERS: THOUGHTS ON BUILDING A MOVEMENT

-

63

I am writing an article today, so regrettably don’t have time to post much. However, I have been inundated with emails and bits of advice and encouragement about something I noted in one of my comments regarding building a credible and compelling alternative to neoconservative foreign policy thinking.

AMERICA’S “GOOD VS. EVIL” PROBLEM

-

96

I am supposed to be cranking on a review of Anatol Lieven’s America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, and actually I am. However, I couldn’t resist picking up a galley copy of Eric Liu‘s new book, Guiding Lights: The People Who Lead Us Toward Purpose in Life.

. . .IN THE ERA OF DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL: A GAY SEX BOMB

-

52

This notion of a “sex bomb” was conceived of by a U.S. military that apparently thought that gays in the military was so horrific that compelling gay behavior among the enemy might be a war-winning idea. The Clinton administration apparently canned the idea, and I don’t think it has come back during the Bush administration….

DUDES, WE DON’T WANT NO METRICS

-

18

Sidney Blumenthal, who not only attended last Thursday’s luncheon with Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski but helped give it a bit of zest with this article on Scowcroft being shoved outside the door of Bush administration insiders just days before the meeting, wrote this in today’s Guardian.

MORT KONDRACKE KNOWS HOW TO RESPONSIBLY DEBATE THE ISSUES

-

97

At the event I hosted a week ago today, Mort Kondracke was among the approximately 45 guests. Mort is an open-minded ‘radical centrist/moderate independent’ columnist who thinks, like I do, that blind faith by many to anachronistic perspectives as well as ‘inertia’ explain government policy better than most any other set of drivers.

FRUM REACHES FOR THE PADDLE

-

87

David Frum responds to yesterday’s post on Brent Scowcroft and a possible Iraqi civil war with a supercilious and I think incorrect commentary on the fine differences between the words ‘incipient’ and ‘imminent’. I’ll let the linguists out there be the judge of who has the better part of that lexical exercise.

IRAQ ELECTIONS BEING DEBATED IN CONSERVATIVE CIRCLES

-

27

George Gedda of the Associated Press has written this interesting article today that refers to the comments made by Brent Scowcroft at last Thursday’s New America Foundation lunch meeting. A bit of an excerpt: At age 79, Brent Scowcroft doesn’t have much to lose if he speaks his mind.