Is there a slimier United Nations department then UNESCO? In 2006, UNESCO awarded Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov with a medal for preserving Uzbekistan’s cultural heritage. Human Rights Watch said that…
From Commentary: So let’s get this straight: Robert Gates will be the Defense Secretary, we’re ramping up U.S. forces in Afghanistan and providing a reasonable period of time for a…
Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post had a fawning story today about Bret Baier, who has just replaced Britt Hume as the head of Fox’s Washington newscast. “Hume was a…
Now, now the mirth comes, With the cake full of plums, Where Bean’s the king of the sport here; Besides we must know, The pea also Must revel, as queen,…
Israel extended its occupation of the Gaza strip, sending in ground forces and cutting the territory in two. Hamas fired 32 missiles at Israel. The Palestinian health ministry reported that…
Here’s the New York Times’s Eric Lichtblau reporting today on the trio of superlative appointments announced for the Justice Department today: David Ogden to be Deputy Attorney General, Elena Kagan…
From Marc Lynch: However this round of violence ends — and it’s hard to see any scenario in which it produces remotely positive results for anyone involved — the outcome…
Michael Hayden will not be kept on at CIA, which, according to a source I spoke to over the weekend, will come as a relief to many at the agency.…
Imaginative literature traffics in selves. The statement can be read variously. The selves can be the creatures in the writing—narrators and characters who present or appear in a novel or…
Foreign Policy has launched its newly revamped website, which has lots of great features, including two of my favorite bloggers: Laura Rozen on national security and foreign policy, and Marc…
John Yoo, still (amazingly) a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, teams up with unconfirmed Bush U.N. ambassador John Bolton (last seen advocating a pre-emptive war against…
The Bush Administration has labored to convince the American public that the imperial powers it assumed in the wake of 9/11 are consistent with historical precedent, and in so doing…
Barack Obama still hasn’t gotten around to naming his CIA director, and there’s still talk that he might retain Michael Hayden. A former senior CIA official I spoke with thinks…
It’s not pretty. From the Washington Post: A grand jury in Albuquerque is looking into whether CDR Financial Products received a contract with the New Mexico Finance Authority because of…
Here is some music for an early January afternoon. The settecento is filled with wonderful violin music, but the real gem of the epoch is Pietro Antonio Locatelli’s L’arte del…
From Augustus Richard Norton and Sara Roy: Hamas’ strategic miscalculation in rejecting an extension to a six-month truce with Israel was a gift on a “golden platter” to Israel, as…
In the last four years of the Bush administration, Karl Rove and his minions labored hard to sell Bush to Americans as a modern Lincoln, leading the country to greatness…
Man is all symmetrie, Full of proportions, one limbe to another, And all to all the world besides: Each part may call the farthest, brother: And head with foot hath…
Iraq’s former prime minister Iyad Allawi gave a wide-ranging interview to Asharq al-Awsat in which he discusses Bush and his project in Iraq. Allawi was hand-picked by Bush to head…
Beryllus lapis est lucidus, albus et transparens. Cui datur forma concava pariter et convexa, et per ipsum, videns attingit prius invisible. Intellectualibus oculis si intellectualis beryllus, qui formam habeat maximam…
In theory, our legal system affords equal access to justice. But, as George Orwell offers in Animal Farm, some of us are more equal than others, and Tom DeLay is,…
CNN reports that a Muslim family is hustled off a plane after some morons misunderstand their conversation. (For the film version of this incident, check out Harold and Kumar Escape…
With all the dark talk this week about the falsity and mediocrity of memoir, it seems only fair to celebrate three bright examples of memoir at its best. Neither of…
Colin Powell’s chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, previously claimed that there was a “secret government” inside the Bush Administration. He pointed to Dick Cheney as the man who made…
Charlie Savage reports on how you get a pardon from George W. Bush. The Justice Department’s website suggests that you fill out some paperwork and file it with the Justice…
From the New York Times: Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the…
One opera seems perfect for this New Year’s Day. It portrays a triumph over tyrannical abuse and an affirmation of the dignity and worth of human beings against a backdrop…