Scribbling, scribbling, scribbling on the Internet.
Well . . . maybe, if certain noises from the Obama administration are to be believed. But Benjamin Wittes is rightly skeptical: Let me be blunt about this: I will believe this the day it happens, and not a moment before. If Obama were serious about using the power of his office to close Guantanamo, …
Continue reading "Are We Finally Going to Close Guantanamo?"
Last night's State of the Union address was replete with platitudes, buzzwords, lame rhetorical tricks, and the same old same old. There was nothing, new, path-breaking or consequential that came out of it. Given former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's admission that President Obama "stopped trying to change Washington years ago," I suppose that none of …
Continue reading "The State of Speechmaking about the State of the Union"
It is a fundamental tenet of realist theory (and I identify as a classical realist, though I have a healthy and pronounced respect for the notion that international anarchy also causes nation-states to place interests over ideological considerations) that while domestic considerations--such as a change in the nature of a nation-state's government, or a change …
Gene Healy on the president who is never there:"Hey, don't look at me -- I'm just the president!" That's the common thread in President Obama's response to his recent scandal eruptions, from IRS harassment of Tea Partiers to his Justice Department's spying on AP reporters. Like everybody else, Obama learns about these things via cable …
Continue reading "Accountability Has Become Such an Antiquated Concept"
