In my previous post, I talked about the essay as a form, as a showcase both of thinking and for thinking, for exploring a subject in all of its contradictory…
From The Hill: Former Representative Bob Ney (R., Ohio) said Wednesday that the lobbying bill passed in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal that sent him to prison probably…
Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania has long been one of the biggest porkbarrelers in Congress, and as the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee he is also one of…
From a complaint filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, against Congressman Vern Buchanan (R., Fl.): Rep. Buchanan owns several car dealerships in Florida. In September 2005,…
James Hawes had a brilliant start to his career as a novelist with A White Merc with Fins, and he’s gone on to have one of his works filmed and…
After more than a week of fighting and one failed cease-fire, Russia and Georgia signed a revised cease-fire agreement, but Russian troops remained within 25 miles of the Georgian capital,…
Ever since Beijing was awarded the right to host the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee has been talking about the beneficial impact this would have on human rights in…
Is there a more boring organization in America than the corporate-sponsored Bipartisan Policy Center, which is hosting big ticket events to both the Democratic and Republican conventions? The Center was…
As the crisis in the Caucasus grows, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili enjoys a snack. This does not inspire a great deal of confidence in the Georgian leader’s ability to hold…
Behold a light far brighter than the Sun! The Sun’s a shadow if you them compare, Or grosse Cimmerian mist; the fairest Noon Exceeds not the meridian night so far…
The proceedings in the Guantánamo military commissions continue, and the professional participants continue to grapple with the poorly disguised efforts of the Bush Administration to fix the outcome. JAG attorneys…
Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of…
In these pages, in 1947, Jacques Barzun reviewed Malcolm Lowry’s novel, Under the Volcano. Barzun’s review, a terse paragraph in a long essay that bundled many books together with the…
From today’s Washington Post: It’s been nearly a decade since Greenspan’s stock hit its all-time high with the now-famous Time magazine cover during the Asian financial crisis — the one…
In 1988, the decisive moment in the presidential campaign may have come when CNN’s Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis this question, opening one of the Bush-Dukakis debates: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis…
From the Sunlight Foundation: Mark Warner, who’s running for Virginia’s open seat to the U.S. Senate and will serve as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in Denver,…
From Doug Frantz at the Washington Independent: Al Qaeda and the Taliban are executing suspected U.S. informants in Pakistan in a campaign to terrorize potential spies and reinforce the authority…
Finally, John Edwards gives a candid interview about his extramarital affair.
From Mark Ames in The Nation: Up until now, this war was framed as a simple tale of Good Helpless Democratic Guy Georgia versus Bad Savage Fascist Guy Russia. In…
David Broder answered questions from Washington Post readers today during an online chat, and was asked about his acceptance of speaking fees from private groups, a topic I first raised…
I have been spending some time lately with the Michael A. Lofaro Edition of James Agee’s novel A Death in the Family. The Lofaro was published earlier this year by…
From the Washington Post: Political protests? Not on this channel; no sir. Beijing’s fearful pollution? Maybe, but only if a marathoner coughs up a lung or it spoils a beauty…
Prior to his confirmation, Michael Mukasey fessed up, in a written response to Senator Dick Durbin, to a meeting the White House arranged with a group of movement conservatives. The…
Claiming that South Ossetian separatists had attacked its villages, U.S. ally Georgia sent troops to capture the city of Tskhinvali. Russia retaliated by sending ground troops into Tskhinvali, then into…
Here’s a sentence that stopped me this weekend: For a moment he seemed to be in control of the whirlpool that had seized hold of him; then a thick black…
Note from a reader: Where on earth did Putin get the idea that he could just manufacture a non-existent crisis, invade a sovereign nation and overthrow its government just because…
Today America’s media continues its love affair with a political star who has already faded from the stage, and fills out the balance of its airtime with stories from the…
Once upon a time John Edwards wanted to be president. “Poverty,” he said back then, “is the great moral issue of our century,” he told a group of students at…
On heav’nly ground they stood, and from the shore They view’d the vast immeasurable Abyss Outrageous as a Sea, dark, wasteful, wilde, Up from the bottom turn’d by furious windes…