Henry Kissinger was just talking about soccer on the (rebroadcast of last night’s) Charlie Rose. Why isn’t American soccer good? “There are not enough minorities.” The players tend to be “middle class, suburban children.” A similar point was made here….
The biggest amazement so far in the World Cup has not been Ghana’s getting through to the next round, but Ghana player John Paintsil’s spontaneous waving of an Israeli flag after the victory five days ago, out of loyalty to…
Garrett Eisler, at Playgoer, led the New York theater community in its uprising a few months back over the cancellation of the play “My Name Is Rachel Corrie.” Today he offers a sharp interpretation of the news that the play…
Ghana are in orange, the U.S. is in discreet blue and white. Soccer uniforms are not supposed to be sober; There are six people in Times Square watching seven Jumbotrons. The entire country of Ghana has a half day off;…
I’m feeling the need to rationalize the fact that I’m pulling for Ghana this morning. It’s not anything I decided, I just want Ghana to win. Got to admit it. Feels a little unpatriotic. Especially when chinpullers on the left…
Scott McConnell, editor of The American Conservative (and the former editorial page editor of the New York Post who abandoned neoconservatism in part because of the neocon disdain for “people of color”), is recently returned from a trip to the…
Right now, the first line of Condoleezza Rice’s resume is that as national security adviser, she drank the neocon Kool-Aid and spouted bad intelligence leading to the Iraq war. Interviewed by PBS’s Frontline for the on-line documentation of its “Dark…
PBS’s “Frontline” aired a documentary last night called The Dark Side about the manipulation of intelligence by the vice president’s office in the runup to the Iraq war. This is now an old story, but it was well-told. Frontline assembled…
Few would disagree that George Bush is the worst president sinceÂat leastÂHerbert Hoover. Bill Clinton will have a roll of historical toilet paper trailing off his heel wherever he goes, thanks to his bad judgment in the Paula Jones case,…