Jacob Heilbrunn’s book on neocons teased the public with boldfaced back-cover suggestions of a neocon cabal and then Heilbrunn soberly denied he meant any such thing when he was at forums. I feel I’ve been taken in by the same…
My wife threw out my April Commentary–too long in the bathroom, I think–and so I can’t quote from R.R. Reno’s wonderful piece about working on oil-drilling crews in Wyoming (it’s only abstracted here). A nice contribution to the literature of…
When I was a kid, we didn’t drink Welch’s Grape Juice, didn’t eat Welch’s grape jelly. Any Welch product. That’s because Robert Welch was one of the founders of the John Birch Society, which my family saw as anti-semitic. Probably…
JTA reports a generational shift among Jews: Younger Jews are for Obama, older ones for Hillary, who reportedly has been circulating Rev. Wright’s scary statements about Israel/Palestine to superdelegates, many of whom are Jewish, to try and win their support….
Tonight on “Hardball,” Chris Matthews asked Obama how it feels to be the son of a white mother, and Obama said, “We’re a melting pot.” He went on to talk about all the mixed race individuals in his family, including…
I’ve been having my semi-annual argument with a Jewish friend over, Whether the neocons were Jewish or not. I generally find these arguments pointless because there is an element of fear in them: my friends are nervous that Jews will…
The flip side of John Mearsheimer’s blacklisting at the New York Times is the Sacrifice of Steve Walt. What do I mean by that? As I’ve said on this blog, Walt is a very different character from Mearsheimer. Mearsheimer is…
Jim Haygood read Alice Walker’s oblation to Obama in the Guardian more closely than I did and pointed out her important comment re Israel/Palestine: I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and…
Call me biased, I don’t think the Rev. Wright story is going to be that damaging. Wright represents a mainstream black church, and blacks are getting mainstreamed in this campaign. As I’ve argued before, even his extreme statements are in…