Washington Babylon

I just received an interesting email from a reader of this blog, who prefers to remain anonymous, and who writes: Yesterday’s New York Times ran an article about John McCain…

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Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post has faithfully parroted the talking points of the two lobbying firms I embarrassed in this month’s Harper’s, but APCO and Cassidy & Associates have…

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Seth Hettena spent nine years with the Associated Press, where he broke stories about a terrorist suspect who was tortured to death by the CIA, revealed photos of Navy SEALs…

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Dorrance Smith, a former ABC News producer, has been close to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld since the Ford Administration. Which probably explains why the Bush administration picked him to…

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Guess which Eastern European country will soon have the third largest military force in Iraq? That same country is strongly pro-NATO and has on retainer a Washington lobbyist who was…

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A majority of people in the Republic of Congo get by on less than $1 a day, but money is no object for Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso, the 24-year-old son of…

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This Sunday, Reliable Sources, the CNN show hosted by the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, will be discussing my story on lobbying for dictators that appeared in the July issue of…

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Joost Hiltermann, is deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, based in Amman. Prior to that he was director of the Arms…

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I knew that there was a fair amount of hostility towards the high-end Washington press corps, but until Saturday, when the Los Angeles Times ran my op-ed, I had no…

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I’ve received a large number of tips in response to my story about Washington lobbyists and their plans to sell the Stalinist regime of Turkmenistan, which appears in the July…

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Earlier this year, when I was working with my editors to plan out a story about lobbyists willing to work for the Stalinist regime in Turkmenistan, I predicted that after…

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My story in the July issue of the magazine details how two beltway lobby shops I approached, on the pretense that I represented a shady London-based energy firm with a…

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I’ll be appearing on Bill Moyers Journal tonight, Friday, June 22, to discuss lobbying in general and “Their Men in Washington”, my article in the July Harper’s, in particular. You…

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David Ignatius is a columnist for the Washington Post and co-hosts, PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues at washingtonpost.com. He is the author of six novels, including Agents of…

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Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 19, 2007 at 3PM EST, I will appear on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to talk about the “dictator lobby” with a representative of the D.C. lobbying…

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Mark Perry is a military, intelligence and foreign affairs analyst and the co-director of Conflicts Forum, a private group that calls for increased dialogue between Western countries and Islamic movements…

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It appears there’s some confusion about yesterday’s story, so let me clear things up: I don’t think that the CIA is bribing Iraqi parliamentarians to vote the U.S. out of…

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As the news goes from bad to worse in Iraq, some in Congress are looking for new ways to bring an end to the American occupation. I’ve learned today that…

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I reported last month on how Washington insiders at a firm called GlobalOptions were working on behalf of Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov and subject of an…

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For those looking for a good summer read I highly recommend yesterday’s indictment of Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana. It’s a genre-busting saga with something for everyone: mystery lovers will…

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Rosa Parks. Martin Luther King. Nelson Mandela. Now it’s time to add another name to the pantheon of civil rights heroes: liberal columnist Eric Alterman, who was arrested in New…

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In mid April, I reported on the case of Gregory Nickerson, the former top staffer at the House Ways and Means Committee who in 2004 helped shepherd through Congress a…

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Egyptian bloggers have received a fair mount of press attention lately for their calls for greater democracy under Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for the past quarter-century and…

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I recently obtained financial records that showed that in late 2000 David Frum, the former speechwriter for President Bush, received monthly payments of $16,667 from Conrad Black’s Hollinger International. Black,…

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Marcus Stern and his colleagues Jerry Kammer, Dean Calbreath, and George E. Condon Jr. are the authors of the newly released book, The Wrong Stuff: The Extraordinary Saga of Randy…

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Marc Lynch is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University and the Elliott School of International Affairs. He is the author of Voices of…

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Senator John McCain raised a paltry, humiliating $13 million during the first quarter of this year—placing him far behind Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani in the race to buy the…

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On its website, GlobalOptions, a Washington-based corporate security and investigations firm, describes itself as a “private CIA, Defense Department, Justice Department, and FBI, all rolled into one,” and says it…

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