I caught a story on NPR this morning about the success of the surge in reducing violence in Iraq.
I’ve been reluctant to call it a success, since the whole point was to give the various parties the breathing room (lebensraum?) necessary to reach a political settlement. That hasn’t happened, and isn’t any more likely than […]

Fred Thompson was making sense on MTP this morning, pointing out in answer to a question about overthrowing the government of Pakistan that:
Well, when you say we allow the head of a country to stay the head of a country, you know, that�s, that�s, that�s kind of a mouthful. I don�t think we ought to […]

Even if Chuck Schumer is right when he says that Mukasey’s “integrity and independence” are unimpeachable, and even if it’s true that rejecting his nomination might tempt Bush into circumventing the Senate and appointing an acting attorney general (*) who would be worse, voting No still seems like the only chivalrous course of action, given […]

Good for Senator Dodd:
Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd has vowed to put a hold on a Senate bill that reportedly would grant retroactive legal protection to any phone or internet company that helped with the president’s secret, warrantless wiretapping program, Dodd announced via email and on his presidential campaign website Thursday.
The larger problem, of course, […]

John McCain, after arguing in favor of an unlimited commitment to Iraq, wants to win hearts and minds in the Arab world:
As president, I will employ every economic, diplomatic, political, legal, and ideological tool at our disposal to aid moderate Muslims — women’s rights campaigners, labor leaders, lawyers, journalists, teachers, tolerant imams, and many others […]

An op-ed in the Post by Ivo Daalder and Robert Kagan argues that, because the UN Security Council sometimes descends into farce, and because it’s insufficiently subservient to American interests, we should try to replace it with a “Concert of Democracies”, which would magically have the same sort of legitimacy as the United Nations. […]

Via Open Left, the red state/blue state map based on support for withdrawal from Iraq. And also the map by congressional district. If each representative voted with their district’s plurality opinion, the House would vote 422-12 in favor of getting out of Iraq. In the Senate, the vote would be 98-2. It seems that George […]

The general in charge of investigating torture at Abu Ghraib, on his experience in dealing with the Bush Administration:
“I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,“ Taguba said. “I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I […]

Harry Truman was one of the near-great presidents. He isn’t among that handful who are universally acknowledged as great, either because they are carved on Mount Rushmore, or because they are named Franklin Roosevelt. But he’s certainly in the next echelon.
And yet that doesn’t really explain the enduring rhetorical appeal of “consider Harry Truman”, […]

For those of you who have been following a discussion going on in the comments of an earlier post, about how the Democrats are doomed to a “McGovernite defeat” (apparently a Rush Limbaugh talking point), here’s a campaign commercial aired by Richard Nixon in 1968:

I’m not sure when the collective wisdom decided that politicians couldn’t […]

I don’t know how I feel about the “compromise” bill yet, and I hope to have more to say on it later.
On the one hand, I obviously agree with Feingold’s stand against a funding bill without deadlines, and not with the leadership’s decision to give into the president.
On the other hand, while I think […]

Is there anything meaningful to be learned from the revelation, in an article in today’s Washington Post, that September will be a “decisive deadline” for the Bush Administration, and that the GOP lines are breaking?
Since nobody thinks that the “surge” is working, or has any chance of ever working, can we really expect Congressional […]

Andrew Sullivan quotes a reader’s email:
In his speech yesterday Rudy Giuliani got one thing right: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”
Every one of my moderately liberal Democrat friends dismiss the Islamist war on the West. To them it’s “not really a war” at all, just […]

Congratulations to Harry Reid and the Democrats, who defeated a Republican effort to remove the deadline for withdrawal from the Senate’s appropriations bill.
Senators still must vote on the overall legislation this week, and then their bill must be reconciled with a House measure passed Friday. The House voted 218 to 212 for a binding […]

Jonah Goldberg makes a point about positive portrayals of torture in our culture:
I agree with Klein that the cavalier use of torture on 24 is getting to be a bit disturbing. But I think Peter’s right that this isn’t nearly as new a trend as Ezra Klein is making it out to be. [ed - […]