Guns are as charged a topic as ever. But when the President takes up the issue in the near future, as aides have indicated he’ll do, there are a multitude of measures he can endorse without endangering himself politically. Here’s my story on Time.com.
Through luck or skill or a combination of the two, the Obama administration has seen things go its way over the last week in Egypt. With limited influence, a huge amount at stake and a variety of potential outcomes that ranged from bad to disastrous, the White House and State department have watched as events [...]
In late 2009, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, President Obama argued that the the choice between foreign policy realism and foreign policy idealism was a false one, calling it “a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.” [...]
The ouster of Ben Ali went comparatively smoothly back in mid-January, but things have taken a turn for the worse. Violence broke out over the weekend, the coalition government’s interior ministry froze the activities of Ben Ali’s political party, and the White House is keeping a wary eye on developments. Which raises again the question [...]
Conservative blogs and the British press are agog over a report in London’s Daily Telegraph that the U.S. provided certain information about the United Kingdom’s submarine-based nuclear missile stockpile to Russia as part of recent arms negotiations. Matt Drudge nearly blew a siren on the “Secret Deal” report, which includes no quotes from either U.S. [...]
The most interesting sideshow during Egypt’s convulsion has been among American conservatives, who are slicing themselves into interesting subgroups over whether to support the demonstrators. As I’ve written here previously, a great many neoconservatives are sticking to their intellectual guns, supporting democracy in Egypt even at the possible expense of Israel’s security. Others, like John [...]
President Obama spent the morning at his daughter Sasha’s basketball game. As he cheered on his child’s team, his aides were cheering on apparent progress in Egypt. In Munich, Hillary Clinton seemed to throw her weight behind a transition process led by current Vice President Omar Suleiman, who only days ago took to the Egyptian [...]
