Last week two Harvard Law School professors had a fascinating debate over the Iraq war and American power. One professor was Duncan Kennedy, a pioneer in critical legal studies–i.e., a leftwinger. The other was a prof barely half his age,…
My friend Michael Massing has a wonderful piece of reporting in the latest New York Review of Books on who is the volunteer army. It is not a statistical hodgepodge, no, he went to Fort Drum in Watertown, N.Y., to…
Values: –Eliot Spitzer grew up on Park Avenue, I gather, the son of a real estate guy. Maybe we’re in a recession, but he could drop $5000 on regular assignations, allegedly. –William Kristol’s column yesterday included the statement, “the bad…
I read the New York magazine profile of Chelsea Clinton hungering for any evidence of something idealistic she believes in. No, she seems insipid, a pale copy of her parents, with a New York lifestyle. She’s on the board of…
The meritocracy hates Ralph Nader. He’s getting trashed all over Huffington today. That’s because Ralph is a true revolutionary. He changed the auto industry, despises capitalism, has always worked outside the system, is Lebanese and understands the plight of the…
Did you see the Times article about the staggering fees commanded by Hillary’s genius strategists as the campaign lost its way? The three are pollster Mark Penn, whose team collected over $10 million in January, ad maven Mandy Grunwald, who…
I was in college when the last social order went out, the WASP establishment, labelled “the Episcopacy” by one of my Harvard classmates. The bluebloods had screwed up bigtime with Vietnam, and had a series of scandals, from the assassinations…
There are more and more Jews serving in high positions in Ohio government than ever, per the Cleveland Jewish News. “I cannot ever remember this many Jews serving at this high a level” in state government, notes Joyce Garver Keller,…
Another thing historian Ilan Pappe said is that the “elites” of the world have made a mess of Israel/Palestine. He meant the American elite too, the political establishment, the Israel lobby. I went for a walk today and got thinking…