Scribbling, scribbling, scribbling on the Internet.
Q: What do toilet paper and Venezuelan currency have in common? A: Absolutely nothing, as toilet paper is more valuable than is Venezuelan currency. No, seriously. And of course, toilet paper is hard to find in Venezuela. Thank goodness that the Venezuelan government is taking the responsible approach to this economic mess. Just kidding! It actually …
Continue reading "In which Venezuela Achieves a Dubious Milestone"
I remember when Rachel Maddow of MSNBC wrote this opinion piece, informing us that the administration of George W. Bush did nothing to cultivate a deep bench of Republican leadership prospects. As far as Maddow was concerned . . . well . . . let's let her words speak for themselves: In the eight years …
Continue reading "On Subjects Rachel Maddow Won’t Touch with a Ten-Foot Pole"
Mr Krugman thus implied that the British government—deliberately or mistakenly—had engineered measly growth at the beginning of its term, thus making it easier for the economy to roar back as the election approached. That would seem to ascribe to the coalition an unrealistic level of strategic wizardry and general deviousness, beyond even that possessed by …
Richard Holbrooke was always one of my favorite Democrats--brilliant, dynamic, a fascinating personality, and a diplomat with actual, substantive accomplishments to his name (unlike a certain former secretary of state who is currently trying to convince us that she should be the next president of the United States). If life were fair, Holbrooke would have …
Continue reading "There Was Never Any “Team of Rivals” in the Obama Administration"
American foreign policy is--to put matters bluntly--in free-fall. The United States is significantly less able to influence events around the world, it is not trusted or respected by allies, and it has undermined its negotiating position with Iran in the nuclear talks by making it abundantly clear that it is desperate for a deal. If …
Continue reading "The Decline and Fall of American Foreign Policy"
Why don't we talk about the chaos in Libya as much as we talk about the chaos in Iraq? This time it was the guards from an Austrian-run gas facility in Libya’s Saharan southwest. They were shown beheaded in a series of images posted to social media on March 8. A few weeks earlier it …
There has been a lot of debate about the letter sent by 47 Republican senators to the Iranian regime regarding the negotiations over nuclear energy use--likely for weapons--by Iran. I happen to think that sending the letter was a bad idea; foreign policy has been found to be the province of the executive branch, with …
Continue reading "Social Media: Not the Place to Go for Sober-Headed Legal Analysis"
The former secretary of state and putative next president of the United States held a press conference today to explain that thing about her e-mails. It . . . um . . . didn't go well. Clinton now admits that yeah, maybe it would have been a good idea to use two e-mail accounts; one for …
Continue reading "Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Know the First Rule of Holes"
The recent revelation that Hillary Clinton used a homebrew e-mail address to avoid disclosure requirements regarding e-mails--a home-brew e-mail address that was not secure and likely exposed communications to surveillance by foreign espionage agencies, mind you--should absolutely disqualify her from any consideration for the presidency. Clinton sought to evade transparency requirements, and she put the national …
Continue reading "Hillary Clinton Should Not Be President of the United States"
Andrew Sullivan was one of two big-time bloggers--the other being, of course, Glenn Reynolds--to have helped put me on the blogospheric map. For that, I shall always be grateful. He was also--as Ross Douthat pointed out--extraordinarily influential in advancing the cause of same-sex marriage. Anyone who is the least bit concerned with fundamental human rights …
Continue reading "A Long Overdue Goodbye to Andrew Sullivan"
