I’ve been a bit reluctant to jump into the mini-controversy over the pending appointment of Christopher Hill as Ambassador to Iraq. My son was Hill’s personal assistant during part of his tenure as Assistant Secretary of State. But I’ve been admirer of Hill’s since I first met him back in the 1990s, when he was [...]

Jeff Goldberg on Avigdor Lieberman. I second the motion–and add this: I suspect that President Obama is going to have to say something about Israel’s selection of a politician who has frequently made racist noises as its Foreign Minister. He should be very clear that this severely compromises Israel’s moral standing in the world. Unlike [...]

There have been some interesting developments in the countries just east of the Middle East, namely Iran and Pakistan–signs of the horse-trading that is an essential, if uncelebrated, part of democracy.  In Iran, the former reformer Mohammed Khatami has dropped out of the presidential race. This is good news for those–and our numbers are legion–who [...]

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Way back on A14 of the NYT is this scoop by Nick Lewis giving us the name of President Obama’s first appeals court appointment: David F. Hamilton of Indiana, whom Lewis describes as highly regarded and moderate. Also significant is the fact that Obama intends to announce his appointments one at a time, rather than [...]

Well, Michael, either Chuck Grassley missed the heads-up on AIG or he’s been sharpening his outrage since January: “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward [AIG executives] is if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow [...]

The Treasury Department found out last week that there would be another bonus payment to the traders in AIG’s financial products division, according to the White House. But the existence of the contracts that led to those bonuses should not have caught the Treasury, the White House or the American public by surprise. Back in [...]

While so much of what’s happening in DC has been focused on Lincoln. There is a new play that opens tonight at the Shakespeare Theater called Ion, by Euripidis. I went to see a preview of it Saturday as a friend is directing it and I was particularly struck by the parallels with current day [...]

He slipped away from us early Sunday morning. He was my closest friend. There is so much to say–and yet, I find myself speechless. We argued about politics and, especially, foreign policy, all the time. Over the last two years, as he struggled with this obscene disease, which devoured him at the end like a [...]