William Kristol, a man I love to hate—or at least ridicule—has a plaintive post up at his rag, the Weekly Standard, labeled “No Outrage”, in which the enraged Mr. Kristol gives vent to his bewilderment that no Republican—not Jeb Bush, not George Bush, not Dick Cheney—has been willing to fault Donald Trump for asserting that…
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Fred Kaplan, still not getting it—UPDATED
Several dog lifetimes ago, Bob Newhart was on the Tonight show, and he told Johnnie Carson “You know, Johnnie, truth is stranger than fiction. And even if it isn’t we’re going to pretend that it is, because if you buy the frame, you buy the bit.” The accuracy of Bob’s words of wisdom were perfectly…
Here’s a newsflash for you, NYT: Hillary Clinton is not so hot
In case you don’t feel like reading through 902 responses to the New York Times’s seriously rose-tinted endorsement of Hillary Clinton, well, here’s comment no. 903: “I would vote for Hillary over whoever the Republican nominee will be, but this "portrait” is seriously airbrushed. Hillary helped lie us into an entirely unnecessary and unsuccessful war…
Hey, Alan Vanneman! The U.S. had TWO debates on foreign policy, while you weren’t listening!
Well, indeed we did. I recently complained, rather at length, at the failure of the U.S. political system to generate a meaningful discussion of U.S. foreign policy, noting that, for the past several decades, we’ve been allowed to choose between “idealistic” hawks like Hillary Clinton and, well, shotgun-wielding freaks. But just before the holidays, both…
New Pentagon Strategy: Don’t fight real wars, prepare for imaginary ones!
As I’ve said before, if you want to know what official Washington is thinking, read Wash Post columnist David Ignatius. In his latest and greatest, David fills us in on what the Pentagon is thinking. The good news is, the Pentagon wants to stay out of the Middle East: “This generation of military leaders has…
The foreign policy debate: Wouldn’t it be nice if we had one?
I realize that the recent terrorist attack in San Bernardino may forbid rational discussion of any topic for the next six months, or even longer. Still, wouldn’t be nice to have foreign policy discussion that consisted of more than a choice between Tweedle-Dick and Tweedle-Hillary? I mean, I’m not asking for six degrees of separation,…
Jon Meacham’s biography of George H W Bush? I think it kind of sucks
I say I think so, because I haven’t read it yet, which is often considered a prerequisite for saying something intelligent about a book. However, I have read an extract that appeared in Politico Magazine, claiming that Bush 41 launched the first invasion of Iraq in 1991 out of moral revulsion, not realpolitik. Around Christmas…
Barack Obama to Dick Cheney: “Hey, maybe we aren’t so different after all!”
Daniel Larison explains what a huge liar our president is here, pointing to the president’s pronounced regret that the U.S. and its allies didn’t do “more” in Libya after dislodging long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi: “In his U.N. speech, Obama lamely tried to spin the problems in post-intervention Libya as a result of not doing enough…
Regressin’ to Jeb: the Renascence of the Republican Mean
The recent, entertaining demise of Scott Walker has caused many to embrace Marco Rubio as the once and future king of the Republican Party, something I’ve been known to do myself. Well, not so fast, conventional wisdom. Let’s step back and take a serious look at the tea leaves. It seems that Donald Trump, while…
The Republican Party earned Donald Trump
Starting with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Republican Party became the Irresponsible Party. Republicans in and out of government laid siege to the Clinton presidency, pursuing him with an endless series of shamelessly partisan investigations, law suits, and court decisions, finally impeaching him for lying about cheating on his wife, after having…