Informed Speculation

Our good friend Eric says this is what the Internet was invented for – and who am I to disagree? Please note, however, that I have not been able to confirm this with Al Gore as of this writing…

Here goes: Two summers ago, on a Congressional trip to Estonia, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton astonished her traveling companions by suggesting that the group do what one does in the Baltics: hold a vodka-drinking contest. Delighted, the leader of the delegation, Senator John McCain, quickly agreed. The after-dinner game went so well — memories are [...]

Who will provide the troops? David Horovitz of the Jerusalem Post: Although US and European officials agreed in Rome on Wednesday on the creation of a multinational force to oversee a post-cease-fire era in southern Lebanon, and although Israel has put aside longstanding reservations over such a force, the international community is showing acute signs [...]

Is there a ceasefire in sight? At first glance, maybe: President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced agreement today to seek a United Nations resolution next week that would send a multinational force to southern Lebanon and end hostilities between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with [...]

From Norman Mailer’s Cannibals and Christians of 1967 by way of the introduction to Larry McMurtry’s In A Narrow Grave of 1968 (how appropriate for the ‘quagmire’ obsessed Mr. Rich), I have found a passage that completely illuminates the, ahem, ‘writing’ of one Frank Rich: In his introduction to Cannibals and Christians, Mr. Norman Mailer [...]

I like Chris Cillizza’s column, The Fix – it’s usually a must-read for political junkies.  But Rudy G. as a second-tier candidate? Just because Cillizza has a gut feeling he won’t run, despite the increasing signs that he will? Don’t take my word for it, here’s Cillizza: Giuliani’s schedule of late makes us think he [...]

I’ve been recommending high and low that the Republicans tout the Bush economy for November, but the latest GDP numbers are, if not bad, certainly not as good as expected: The nation’s economic growth slowed significantly in the second quarter, according to a government report Friday that came in well below Wall Street expectations. The [...]

Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of the New Republic and author of the recent The Good Fight, has discovered the prevelant national security strategy the Dems take into the 2006 election: pander and run: After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It’s [...]

Howard Dean, July 26, 2006: “The Iraqi Prime Minister is an anti-Semite…We don’t need to spend $200 and $300 and $500 billion bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe that Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself and who refuse to condemn Hezbollah.” Howard Dean, September 8, 2003: Howard [...]

…to tell who’s supporting what in the debate over immigation.  Fortunately, Mickey Kaus provided one…

…and clearly something is (most of the trouble comes from the three letters NEA), I bet, if asked to name the top ten problems, you wouldn’t come up with ‘capitalist hegemony’. Yet that’s exactly the diagnosis offered by Bill Ayers, former domestic terrorist with the Weather Underground and now…Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University [...]

You gotta love Howard (if you’re a Republican): Down with divisiveness was the message Wednesday delivered by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean as he told a group of Florida business leaders that Republican policies of deceit and finger-pointing are tearing American apart. Dean called President Bush “the most divisive president probably in our history.” “He’s [...]

Patrick Hynes becomes the latest blogger to have a minor scandal erupt over his undisclosed affiliation with a campaign; in this case, he’s working for McCain.  Jim Geraghty has the details. For the record: I am not affiliated with any campaign or political organization or political party.  I am a member of Pajamas Media, and [...]

Looks that way – it’s long and comprehensive, and some may find it hard-to-follow (though there are visual aids), but Patterico has set up a bill of particulars regarding the Greenwald sock-puppet accusations that is, frankly, damn near unassailable.  If there is any answer to these charges besides the obvious one, I would be highly [...]

Larry Sabato thinks so, if the war continues: …[T]he absence of the usual level of media coverage makes it more difficult for many challengers to get the attention needed to defeat incumbents. The public is also distracted, so even when well-funded challengers try to buy their coverage with paid TV ads, voters look elsewhere. Meanwhile, [...]

The Jerusalem Post comes out swinging: It is difficult at times, and perhaps today impossible, to fathom how UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan assesses events involving Israel. On Tuesday, four members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were killed when their position was hit by IDF fire. Annan reacted by declaring that the [...]

Is 2008 too soon for Barack Obama, asks Chris Cillizza? He answers his own question: On Nov. 4. 2008, Obama will be 47 years old. He will have served in the Senate for less than four years and in elected office for little more than a decade. Even assuming a Democrat wins the White House [...]

I’m sure this will come as a shock to you: Conservative voters don’t have very much to applaud in Lieberman. Yes, he has been faithful to his word in supporting the Iraq war. But his conservative impulses live very short lives. For a photogenic moment, he turned on Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky episode, registering [...]

Look, let’s not mince words: we’re the party in power.  We hold the presidency, both chambers of Congress, and we have more Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices.  The fact is, we have fundamentally failed at a crucial task: we have not given Americans, the most hopeful of people, reason to believe in a brighter future: With [...]

The U.S. is the odd man out (surprise) in holding that any ceasefire is worthless that leaves the underlying problem (i.e., Hezbollah’s armed presence in Lebanon) unaddressed: As the fighting and bombing intensified in Lebanon and Israel, an urgently convened, high-level international conference in Rome concluded in open disagreement, failing to reach accord on a [...]