This blog has been the brainchild and vision of one person: Deputy Managing Editor Josh Tyrangiel. It was Josh who first invited me to try blogging back in January, 2007. And then, when I refused, it was Josh who ordered me to. He insisted from the start that if this was going to work, we [...]
We spent yesterday going back and forth about this–coming to a near-agreement, eventually–and Jeff has posted our conversation on his blog. Last night, reading The Hawk and the Dove, an excellent book about George Kennan and Paul Nitze, I came across this quote from Kennan, which seems relevant now: “It sometimes seems to me that [...]
There must be some Swampland followers in the Senate leadership. And it appears that, at last, they have heard our heartfelt pleas. Roll Call tells us this: Harkin said Democrats expect Republicans will try to stall the debate by asking for the entire bill to be read on the Senate floor. If that happens, Harkin [...]
The nation’s Catholic bishops are in Baltimore this week for their annual meeting, a gathering that should have its fair share of victory laps (health care! no abortion funding!) and skirmishes (how to deal with the Obama administration, the Kennedys, marriage, and a new translation of the prayerbook). It’s no secret that tensions have been [...]
When Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded to Democratic Bill Owens on election night, even I thought it was a little too soon. Hoffman, who had been polling ahead of Owens in the race to represent New York’s 23rd congressional district, declared the race over just after midnight when he was down in the count by around [...]
I happened to have an interview scheduled today with the White House Chief of Staff, and caught him at a moment when he was feeling pretty amused by a report in this morning’s Washington Post. That, of course, would be the one suggesting that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would pay $50,000 to a “respected [...]
Any rumor about Democrats started by Bill Kristol should been as disinformation or sabotage. The two-month-old Hillary Clinton running for governor rumor was his, spread by his blogging Iago. She dismissed it yet again on This Week yesterday…but it works to Republican advantage–mildly, at most–to make it seem as if there is vast discontent in [...]
Here’s my Time.com story on how the biggest obstacle to passing health reform turned out to be not the tea party protests or August town halls or Michelle Bachmann Super Bowl of Freedom, but a culture war within the Democratic party.
I’m a big fan of former Ambassador Jim Dobbins, who has served in Afghanistan and knows an awful lot about how to conduct development programs in counterinsurgency situations, but I don’t think he’s being very fair in criticizing Ambassador Karl Eikenberry here. For one thing, Eikenberry’s cables, which favored the witholding of additional U.S. troops until [...]
