America’s favorite Senatorial song and dance team are back together on the Washington Post op-ed page today, using a sledgehammer to clobber a straw man–the idea of taking a “minimalist” strategy in Iraq, whatever that means. They seem to think “minimalism” means a return to the Iraq war strategy that didn’t work–the one prior to [...]

Dear Geniuses at Citibank: I realize that doing renovation when you are strapped can be a challenge, but those of us who are more experienced at this might be able to give you a hand. Premium millwork is so 2007. You might try looking instead here. As for those little designer touches, you’ll find a [...]

Last Friday, the Citibank branch nearest the White House (14th and G) bought out a street corner hot dog stand for a few hours, and gave anyone who passed by free hot dogs. As a regular purchaser of hot dogs at this particular hot dog stand–cost $1.50, condiments included–I considered writing a funny blog post [...]

There’s something about this scandal that feels spun. I don’t know if it’s being driven by the cable nets or political paranoia about how this could affect public opinion – and therefore the Democratic mandate — down the road, but public outrage is strangely… lacking. During past Washington tempests, such as TARP1 or the stimulus [...]

This very cool one, brought to us by the Washington Post, tracks “the timing, demographics and connections of President Obama’s senior political appointments.”

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner last night in letters to both chambers of Congress says he plans to recoup the $165 million in bonuses from the $30 billion in TARP funds the Treasury pledged to AIG two weeks ago – bringing the U.S. government’s total investment in AIG to more than $170 billion. Still, Congress is [...]

More safe than bold. More cautious than visionary. The POTUS NCAA bracket is here. The President puts three #1 teams, and one #2 in the Final Four. UPDATE: Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com finds that POTUS is even more pragmatic than I had imagined. A statistical analysis shows that the president was “more inclined to select [...]

It’s not news that people occasionally get married for reasons other than love. But this still has to be a little unusual. The story is that Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani woman who was gang-raped a few years ago by order of her village council, has gotten married. After her attack, Mukhtar refused to remain silent, [...]

People often talk dismissively of “process stories” and the media’s obsession with “inside baseball” in Washington. But sometimes, these stories give us a real window on how decision-making really works. I’ve written here before about how much I admire the work that the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn has done in explaining this nation’s health care [...]