The Audacity of Hype

The Obama bandwagon is moving fast and furious, rolling over the few remaining pockets of dissent even as it prepares to take power. The mainstream media, particularly on television, has lost all sense of objectivity and proportion, and their reporting of the...

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The Russian Question

The Obama-oids aren't talking too much about foreign policy these days, although that was their candidate's ticket to the White House. Iraq was the winning issue that gave Obama's primary campaign the oomph it needed to oust the putative front-runner from her perch as...

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Forget the Honeymoon

When I hear talk of a "honeymoon" for the President-elect – to last as long as six months, by some accounts – I think: "Fine. You lay off, and I'll do the same." But oh no, it doesn't work that way. Obama has already started in on us, and he hasn't even...

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A Mandate to End the War

Let's be clear about the nature and meaning of the mandate we're going to be hearing so much about: President-elect Barack Obama has a clear mandate to end the Iraq war as expeditiously as possible. His campaign was energized by and differentiated from Hillary...

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The Limits of Change

As I write this, we are 24 hours away from the end of this seemingly endless presidential campaign, and all the signs point to a victory – some would say an overwhelming victory – by Barack Obama. I won't make any predictions here, what with the Bradley...

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Making Excuses for Obama

Every time I write about Barack Obama I get a lot of letters, and the most typical goes something like this: Dear Justin, I read your column regularly, and generally agree with what you have to say, but I think you've got Barack Obama all wrong. Yes, I know, he went...

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Is War Good For the Economy?

Editor's note: The following originally ran June 25, 2008. The idea that warfare helps the economy is a prime example of Bizarro logic, which has pervaded our collective consciousness since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ideological fallout from the explosion of national...

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October Surprise?

Who would really be all that surprised by an October surprise? After all, if history teaches us anything, it's that incumbent presidents are inclined to use their power in this way. George Condon, the San Diego Union's man in Washington, gives us a little history...

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Bailing Out Georgia

The US government is sending $1 billion to "rebuild" Georgia – no, not the Georgia located in the southern United States, where home foreclosure rates are double the national average, but the one located in the Caucasus, along Russia's southern frontier, where...

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The War Party Embraces Obama

In the midst of a softball interview with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, New York Times reporter Deborah Solomon hurls this zinger: "For all your lofty talk about democracy, last November you shut down the opposition television station in Tbilisi."...

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