No Comment

At the core of the complex of scandals swirling around the Department of Justice now is a process of Gleichschaltung, namely a careful review of career staff to purge all…

Read more

Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko, Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB (Free Press, $27.00) The murder of Alexander Litvinenko stole headlines…

Read more

To the Editor, Harper’s Magazine I request your attention to Harper’s Internet “No Comment” piece by Mr Scott Horton, published June 7, 2007. It was well below accepted journalistic standards,…

Read more

I believe that the base of the heavenly ladder, upon which we seek to ascend into higher regions, has to be fastened to our life, so that everyone may be…

Read more

Heavy security, large-scale architecture, and riverfront real estate–these hallmarks of diplomatic compounds are evident in such locations as the UN Headquarters in New York. But imagine that the UN took…

Read more

An academic reader writes quoting from “Cultivating Our Garden”: ”Johnson, whose attitudes towards slavery proved a prickly embarrassment to his biographers”? The guy who shocked the table at Oxford by…

Read more

Andrew Sullivan points to an important interview this morning in the (London) Times with General Petraeus which includes, among other things, a discussion about the time tables. Your mission sounds…

Read more

Sidney Blumenthal writes about the implosion of the Bush Administration’s state-of-exception legal regime. In private, Bush Administration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental in formulating and sustaining the legal “war…

Read more

A dangerous game of chicken is being played out today in Iran and Iraq. It involves political figures whose behavior pattern comes closer to that of elementary school children than…

Read more

The Judiciary Committee wants your help in investigating Justice Department misconduct. Yesterday, I appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in connection with legislation proposed to extend the scope of the…

Read more

Who are James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen? Evidently the Senate Armed Service Committee is very eager to learn more about Mitchell and Jessen and the role they played in the…

Read more

The dean of the Pentagon press corps, Joe Galloway, says that in light of the disclosures this week of Secretary Rumsfeld’s lies about the Abu Ghraib investigation and how it…

Read more

That charity is best of which the consequences are most extensive: the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection; to soften the acrimony of adverse…

Read more

Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759) Voltaire, Candide, ou l’optimisme (1759) Samuel Johnson “Great minds think alike” goes the cliché. But indeed, history is full of…

Read more

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. That is one…

Read more

Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Forbes, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about this important subject. My name is Scott Horton. I…

Read more

The first nation to extend formal diplomatic recognition to the fledgling young United States was not France, or Prussia or any other Christian power of Europe. It was the Muslim…

Read more

Sy Hersh published a must-read story in the New Yorker over the weekend about the experience of Major General Antonio Taguba. The story prompts many questions, and in particular it…

Read more

In the Framers’ Constitution, after Congress passes a law and sends it to the President for signature, the president has the right either to sign the bill into law, or…

Read more

The White House’s claims concerning the email-habits of Karl Rove and his key associates just get curiouser and curiouser. First we learned that Rove and Company used a large volume…

Read more

As the climate in Washington, D.C. descends into the torrid, who can blame Nino Scalia for accepting an invitation that involves travel far to the North? It seems the nation’s…

Read more

I’m puzzled sometimes about how the vacuous chattering class of commentators form their political views. Do they come prepackaged and delivered by K Street lobbyists? A good example might be…

Read more

The first U.S. proconsul in Iraq was, of course, not Jerry Bremer, but General Jay Garner. Today’s Guardian has an account of testimony and an interview he gave over the…

Read more

The big news down in South America for the last month has been the testimony of paramilitary leaders in Colombia. The country has been plagued for more than a decade…

Read more

The Los Angeles Times reports that in the wake of disclosures of the political manipulation of prosecutions around the country that underlies the U.S. attorneys scandal, defendants in many cases…

Read more

Fifty-three senators have expressed no confidence in his ability to direct the Department of Justice. But the man has a mission. And that is to insure that the Department of…

Read more

I agree with you in my sentiments of the state of our Nation since this change; I find myself just in the same situation of mind you describe as your…

Read more

There is a case south of the Mason-Dixon line that resembles the Thompson case in some respects, except that the prosecutorial misconduct appears if anything more serious and more pervasive.…

Read more