Well, this certainly doesn’t look good. Israeli commandos attack a flotilla of peace activists and supporters of the Palestinian cause–including a Nobel peace laureate, a holocaust survivor and the mystery writer Henning Mankell–in the waters just off Gaza. Ten are killed; several Israeli commandos are shot, apparently by activists who seized their pistols. I have [...]
Given the current frustration in Afghanistan, Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The Young British Soldier, seems an apt tribute to the insane difficulties of fighting and dying far away, especially the famous last stanza: When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle [...]
Time’s Massimo Calabresi has a fine piece on the thorny relationship between Bibi Netanyahu and Barack Obama, in which he clears the air about what happened at their March 23 meeting in the White House–a meeting that has become the subject of viral rumor-mongering among neoconservatives and assorted Israeli-firsters. Here, for example, is John Podhoretz’s [...]
Standing in the sun surrounded by state and local officials, President Obama sought to send a message of resolve to Gulf Coast residents and the American public. “You will not be abandoned. You will not be left behind,” he said, clearly trying to draw a distinction between the BP oil spill and the federal response [...]
President Obama, touring the Gulf region today, was due to speak publicly at 1:30 p.m. He’s running late, no doubt still crafting his comments and conferring with local officials. While we wait, here are some questions on the political implications of this disaster we’re sure to come back to in the weeks and months ahead. [...]
In a statement, Joe Sestak recounts pretty much the same story the White House is giving about its efforts to persuade him to stay out of the Senate race in Pennsylvania. Via Dave Weigel, here’s what Sestak says happened: Last summer, I received a phone call from President Clinton. During the course of the conversation, [...]
Is here. In the memo, White House chief counsel Bob Bauer says that Sestak was approached (via Bill Clinton) in June and July 2009 about an unpaid position in the Obama Administration, “which would avoid a divisive Senate primary.” (Arlen Specter switched from the Republican to Democratic parties in April 2009.) The White House memo [...]
Greg Sargent has word that Rahm Emanuel asked Bill Clinton to explore, ahem, future employment possibilities with Joe Sestak as a means to keep him out of the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania. Other sources have said an “unpaid advisory position” was discussed. Hmm. Unpaid? Advisory? Does it seem logical that Sestak could be tempted [...]
