This is an excellent piece in the NY Times today about the tensions between the Sunni tribes recently recruited into the Iraqi police force and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Army. And it raises the central moral question of the war: Does anyone doubt that these Sunnis and Shiites would be battling each other full-tilt if we [...]
I’m just back from North Carolina, where my good friend Doug Marlette was buried on Saturday in a country churchyard near Hillsborough. Some of you may have seen this appreciation, which I wrote for the print magazine: A Southern-Fried Rebel “Y’all oughta come to Renaissance Weekend,” the anarcho-cartoonist Doug Marlette once told me. “It’s the [...]
This one from the LA Times’ Ned Parker out of Baghdad: Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military [...]
Some serious tension between Sens. Jim Webb and Lindsey Graham in a debate over Iraq. A highlight here: But the whole thing is well worth watching. The first half is basically civil (Webb tries to interrupt when Graham insists that al Qaeda is the “number one” enemy) but at about 15 minutes in, it gets [...]
Sen. Jim DeMint of S.C., on David Vitter’s “serious sin”: “I think all of us have to look at it and say, ‘We can be next. … This can be a very lonely and isolating place.’ I’m fairly surprised at how little it does happen.” Or, uhm, how little what does happen gets reported, maybe? [...]
Just about, I’d say. I’m all for underdog would-be presidents getting exposure, but there are simply too many candidates right now – in both parties – for the debates and forums that include all of them to yield much of anything of value to voters. So I’m sympathetic to the whispered co-conspiring between Senators Edwards [...]
Anonymous commenter to the latest McCain post, please consider my hat doffed: Karen Don’t mean to hijack this thread, but I’ve heard there have been some rumblings in the McCain camp and wonder if one of the writer/bloggers on this site could give us an update. thxkaibye Can I assume the reaction of Swamplanders to [...]
“It’s quite over there.”
Stengel interviews Clinton at the Aspen Ideas Festival. And, yes, Bill does put to rest one burning issue: “My Scottish friends suggest I should be called ‘First Laddie.’”
I’m in New Hampshire for his Iraq speech and his effort to get back on the campaign bicycle. In an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio this morning, McCain took personal responsibility for the disaster that his campaign has become. But much of the problem stems from the fact that the campaign never fit the [...]
