Are Dan Drezner and Jack Shafer Brothers of the Asp? Because they certainly are Queens of Denial. Both Dan How scared should we be about 2024? and Jack Why the Fear of Trump May Be Overblown cast a cold eye if not cold water on Robert Kagan’s widely discussed and damn well verging on magisterial…
Tag: Robert Kagan
Robert Kagan writes an interesting essay, with some stretchers, and not a few omissions
In one way, Robert Kagan’s recent “long-form” (7,000 words) essay in the Washington Post, “The strongmen strike back”, is an honest, intelligent examination of the rise of illiberalism in the modern world, a phenomenon as incontestable as it is dispiriting. In another way, Bob’s latest and longest is a bit of a con job, and…
Robert Kagan, hoist on Fareed Zakaria’s bare bodkin
At the Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria notes the long-time silence of “principled conservatives” regarding decades of Republican thuggery in the name of power. Zakaria seems to take particular pleasure in skewering Robert Kagan, whom I skewered earlier for his tardy recognition of Republican sins. Sure, Trump is terrible, says Fareed, but how and why is…
Robert Kagan, struggling with the math
Bipartisan neocon Robert Kagan, who has served in the administrations of both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, has a prescient rap on the Donald Trump phenomenon up at the Washington Post, denying that Donald hijacked the GOP. Instead, says Bob, Donald is “the party’s creation, its Frankenstein monster, brought to life by the party, fed…
Expanding Starobin, excoriating Kagan
Last Friday I ran an effusive post on the fabulous articles now appearing in the New Republic! Well, that still stands, although I’d like to expand a little on what Paul Starobin wrote about the demise of Bill Daley and walk back, just a little, about what I said about the “good Kagan,” whose first…