Has it really been four months since I made fun of Dan Drezner? Well, it is, and, again, I’m saying that Dan just isn’t pessimistic enough. The last time around, in October of 2020, I snickered at Dan for snickering at Donald Trump’s “shambolic campaign” for reelection, Dan endorsing Ross Douthat’s picture of Trump as…
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McConnell to Trump: “You weren’t supposed to use me! I was supposed to use you!”
WashPost reporters Josh Dawsey and Ashley Parker fill us in on what future historians will undoubtedly refer to as “the Revolt of the Bitches”—the painfully reluctant decision of Vice President Mike Pence not to fulfill President Trump’s demand that his Veep piss all over the U.S. Constitution and unilaterally declare Donald Trump effectively President for…
U.S. Bombing Raids: American War Crimes or Commie Propaganda? Or both?
George Blake, a British spy for the Soviet Union whose information apparently led to the deaths of many operatives for British and American espionage agencies, is dead at 98. Blake, who was employed by the British as a spy, was turned by the Soviets after being captured during the Korean War. But, according to his…
Barack Obama, still not getting it after all these years
I confess that I have not read President Obama’s recent memoir, A Promised Land, nor am I likely to, because I have convinced myself that the political pressures on American politicians make it impossible, or at least exceedingly unlikely, for them to ever write anything that resembles an honest book. I would say that this…
Daniel Drezner, you shall not escape my wrath!
Well, you won’t, Dan. Just because I’m painfully slow and stumbling off the mark, and not much better down the stretch, you thought you could slip a few fast ones by me, but nuh-uh. I’m onto your game, and you’ll pay the price. The first of Dan’s “curve balls” (to vary the metaphor) came a…
I should grow the hell up, Daniel Drezner? I think maybe YOU should grow the hell up!
Yeah, I got Daniel Drezner—“Obfuscatin’ Dan”, I like to call him—on my mind, on my mind. I got Daniel Drezner on my mind. Again! I just got finished praising ole Obfuscatin’ Dan to the skies in a recent post for his recent post at Reason, “There Is No China Crisis”, calling it “absolute gold”. As…
What would Ronald Reagan do?
Daniel Drezner, who seems to be my favorite straw man/straight man, and maybe even tin man, has a long post up at Reason, “There Is No China Crisis”, which is absolutely gold. As Dan points out, in a thoroughly researched and most convincing manner, the very many sins and crimes of the Chinese government doesn’t…
Cutting Ike’s pages, and cutting Ike’s prose
I recently read a new book by Slate’s Fred Kaplan (if a webpub can be said to possess a man)—The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War—which is an interesting read, though I wouldn’t call it “definitive”, unless perhaps when Fred says he’s giving us the “secret history” he implies that he’s…
Old Man War Machine, he jes’ keep rollin’ along
(Editor’s Note: I wrote this piece to describe the military intellectual complex’s endless search for a new Cold War. But Donald Trump seems to be looking for a hot one.) The Washington Post’s recent release of the “Afghanistan Papers”, which reported at least a significant portion of the near-infinite number of lies told to justify…
Samantha Power and the art of looking away
(Editor’s note. Sometimes I write ‘em short, and sometimes I can’t shut up. This is one of the latter occasions.) Several hundred news cycles ago, Samantha Power’s autobiography/memoir The Education of an Idealist was in the news. Well, I am nothing if not slow, so I am just getting caught up with Samantha, who really…