May
17
Chris Cillizza, writer of the habit-forming column – The Fix – for the Washington Post, has presented his “first detailed analysis” of the general election in a new battleground map today, which shows that the race between President Obama and Mitt Romney is closer than other political handicappers have been so far willing to say. Most significant …
May
16
“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter,” said the great British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. The no-doubt “tongue in cheek” comment has unexpectedly found its fullest expression in present day Greece. Elections on May 6th decimated the two parties that have mostly run Greek affairs since military rule ended in …
May
13
America, we are at the arc of fading prominence. And it wasn’t like we didn’t know this time would come. Like so many of America’s problems, this was out there, clear as day to see, but we chose to go on with our days, blissfully ignorant until there was no choice but to come face to face …
May
12
This is not how it was supposed to be. According to the Democratic “wish plan,” Mitt Romney would be staggering through the final primaries about now, tarred and feathered by movement conservatives at every turn, forced to take even more “extreme” positions in a desperate attempt to cobble together a majority of delegates at Tampa, …
May
09
I first ran into Dick Lugar – almost literally – on the 14th Street bridge, which connects northern Virginia with Washington, DC. It was rush hour and I was late for work. As I switched lanes impatiently, looking for an opening, I settled in behind a very modest car that was driving at a deliberate …
May
07
What a difference a day makes. Today, Europe woke up to a new and potentially destabilizing political reality, as Nicholas Sarkozy – Angela Merkel’s co-pilot in European austerity – went down in defeat, just as the two major parties in the Greek Parliament suffered the worst thrashings in more than 30 years, giving rise to extremist parties …
May
05
Recent polling, showing President Obama ahead in most of the swing states for 2012, despite the closeness of the race nationally, has been the cause for GOP hand- wringing and a certain guarded triumphalism among Obama-supporting media. Don’t believe it. Two insights – one historical and the other analytical – point to much different fundamentals as we …
May
04
The US withdrawal from Iraq, and our advancing disengagement from Afghanistan, crossed the one year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death this week. And while there has been abundant and justified praise for our men and women in uniform, the lack of WWII-esque victories in South Asia over a very long decade, has obscured how well …
May
02
One year ago, Barack Obama made one of the most fateful and consequential decisions of his presidency. With intelligence reports indicating that Osama bin Laden had been located in a safe-house in Pakistan, President Obama had to decide how to act on the intelligence. In the end, he chose the riskiest strategy on the table- …
Apr
30
Europe as we know it is disintegrating. Despite more than two years of summits, pronouncements and agreements, the European Union has been unable to do much more than delay the economic consequences of the sovereign debt crisis. Worse, EU economic diktats preaching strict austerity as the path to growth and prosperity have thus far only deepened recessions …