The Washington Post today has an amazing cable from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to the State Department reporting on conditions in the capital. Based on the accounts of Iraqi staff, the cable shows that Iraq is dissolving into civil…
Back when I was a kid, we used to denounce people who used code words for Jews. Rootless cosmopolitans was the classic. The modern variants were “pushy,” “aggressive,” and “New Yorkish.” It was antisemitism cloaked in euphemism. Lately I’ve noticed…
“How It Happens” Striking, contemplative, remorseless, and amused, this painting, by Eric Erickson, whose work is widely collected (and who’s a friend of mine) is featured in a show at the ADD Gallery in Hudson, up through July 16.
Donald Winter This is the new secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter, sworn in a few months ago. He opened up the Naval War College’s conference on strategy that I attended Tuesday in Rhode Island, and when I heard…
A few more reasons not to pull for the U.S. against Italy tomorrow: 10. The players reportedly don’t know what their roles are, why should the fans? 11. Soccer moms: The game still has an entitled, suburban feel here, and…
The Forward (in a fine piece of reporting on a conference on the future of the Jewish people arranged by a leading Jerusalem thinktank, to which no women were invited) quotes feminist leader Shifra Bronznick, and on third reference to…
The item I did on John Mearsheimer’s talk at the Naval War College in which he likened Iraq to The Plague has generated a great deal of comment, all favorable. Frankly, I’m honored to have gotten his words out to…
One thing the Observer left out of its soccer piece yesterday was internationalism. Soccer doesn’t just license Anglophilia; if you’re a lefty, it’s a giant third world bath. You get to pull for Africans. Thus the Cinderella of the 2006…
The AP reports that Bill Clinton made $7.5 million last year in speeches. I’ve touched on Clinton’s post-presidential career before. Here is a related criticism, coming from neocon David Frum, in his book The Right Man, in the context of…