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Why talk with Iran?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 31, 2006 Comment (13)Here is my Creators Syndicate column on how to deal with Iran. And here is the latest offering on Iran from the invaluable Michael Ledeen, on National Review Online, with a link to Der Spiegel's interview of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
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Another turn on the immigration issue
Tweet Share on Facebook May 31, 2006 Comment (32)The Senate passed an immigration bill last week with border security, guest worker, and legalization provisions. Now the issue presumably goes to conference committee. But the initial word is that House Republicans, who passed a border security measure last December, are not inclined to go along.
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Here's a good job for Jeb Bush
Tweet Share on Facebook May 25, 2006 CommentEric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, who served as a top aide to Mack McLarty when McLarty was special envoy to the Americas during the Clinton administration, proposes in the Miami Herald that George W. Bush appoint his brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, to a position similar to McLarty's—presumably after Jeb leaves office in Florida in January 2007.
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The Shield of Achilles
Tweet Share on Facebook May 25, 2006 Comment (15)Here's a fascinating interview by Matthew D'Ancona, former deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph and now editor of the Spectator, with Philip Bobbitt, author of the provocative and ambitious The Shield of Achilles. The interview was conducted at the top-notch British think tank Policy Exchange. Bobbitt believes that we are evolving from the nation-state to what he calls the market state, and he argues that the terrorism we are going to face may be more sophisticated and dangerous than anything al Qaeda and its sympathizers have done. Both Bobbitt and D'Ancona have first-rate minds, and this is a thought-provoking interchange. I can't do it justice here: Read the whole thing.
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Official secrets
Tweet Share on Facebook May 24, 2006 Comment (19)The Washington Post had a thoughtful editorial yesterday entitled "Official Secrets" and subtitled "Be careful what you read." The nub of the Post's argument is in this paragraph.
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Kudos for Nancy Pelosi
Tweet Share on Facebook May 24, 2006 Comment (27)House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi deserves praise for depoliticizing the House ethics process. Yesterday Pelosi called for an ethics committee investigation of her Democratic colleague Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, who has been accused of taking bribes.
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Destroying a great national institution
Tweet Share on Facebook May 24, 2006 CommentIf you want to understand the disastrous decline of the New York Times in recent years, a good place to start is this National Review Online "Media Blog" post on a commencement speech given by Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. Stephen Spruiell of "Media Blog" links to the text of Sulzberger's speech, so you can read the whole thing if you want. What struck me about the quoted excerpts was their stupidity. This does not seem to be a very smart man. Example:
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George McGovern on the unions
Tweet Share on Facebook May 22, 2006 Comment (1)Former senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern has written an interesting column for the Los Angeles Times on unions.
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Time for good news
Tweet Share on Facebook May 22, 2006 CommentThat's the theme of my column this week in U.S. News. It's based on two reports, the International Monetary Fund showing record world economic growth and the Human Security Center of the University of British Columbia showing that armed conflict in the world is at record lows.
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An end to the leftward trend in Latin America?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 19, 2006 CommentHere's an E-mail I received from pollster John Zogby on a poll showing Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe with a huge lead in his race for re-election:
