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Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean is a master of timing. His appearance in Jacksonville, Florida on election day 2003 served several purposes. It signaled very clearly to the incumbent president that Dean, the putative frontrunner for next year’s Democratic presidential nomination, believes that Florida is in play in 2004 and that the Bush team can’t … Continue reading “Just a Good Ol’ Boy”

In what the White House billed as a major address, President George W. Bush Thursday announced the United States has adopted a new policy he called "a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East." The speech, which comes amid growing public and congressional unease about the costs and duration of the US occupation of … Continue reading “Bush Vision Advances Mission-Creep in Mideast”

The Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 unleashed a maelstrom of pent-up violence between its people. Four bloody years later, the Communists emerged as the new power in the Balkans, reshaping Yugoslavia to their liking. Legacies of wartime carnage and genocide were shoved into hibernation, and Tito’s regime proceeded to create its own inter-ethnic conflicts … Continue reading “An Edifice of Lies”

Media outlets are filled with bad news about Iraq. A theme is emerging: This administration doesn’t know how to run an occupation! Those who oppose President Bush may welcome the recent shift in the media climate. But when war-makers get frustrated, they’re inclined to heighten the violence. And some critics of the occupation’s management are … Continue reading “The Iraq Trap: Watch Out What You Ask For”

"What’s gonna happen with Feith?” That, in a nutshell, is the question of the month for the Washington cognoscenti trying to figure out whether a major shift in the Bush administration’s unilateralist and ultra-hawkish foreign policy is or is not underway. The reference is to Douglas Feith, the administration’s rather obscure but nonetheless strategically placed … Continue reading “All Roads Lead to Feith”

War and drought are the standard explanations for starving Africans. War and drought definitely take their toll. But so do tax rates. Jude Wanniski has taken a look at taxation in Ethiopia. This is what he found. A farmer who earns $68 a year after expenses from cash sales of a crop is taxed 10%. … Continue reading “Western Intervention Starves Africans and Starts Wars”

Those cowards in the U.S. Senate wouldn’t be put on the record as having voted in favor of the $87 billion appropriation for waging war on Iraq – they preferred a voice vote. When it came time to speak out, very few were actually in the Senate chambers, and the muttered assent of these few … Continue reading “THE LAST SENATOR”

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The deaths of 16 Americans in a Chinook helicopter might have an impact on how ordinary Americans think about the ongoing conflict in Iraq, although it seems to have had little or no impact on the imperial capital just yet. Or did it? In a "profile in courage" worthy of the next ghostwritten chronicle the … Continue reading “Iraq Reassessment: Due but Not Likely”

The Iraq supplemental conference report before the Senate today has been widely described as a victory for President Bush. If hardball politics and lock-step partisanship are the stuff of which victory is made, then I suppose the assessments are accurate. But if reasoned discourse, integrity, and accountability are the measures of true victory, then this … Continue reading “A High Price for a Hollow Victory”