A lunch in Berlin (nearly) gets out of hand.

I just got back, an hour or so ago, from the first political demonstration I’ve participated in for some decades. (No, I’m not proud of that, but a fact is a fact.) This demonstration was the brainchild of Christopher Hitchens, that old Trotskyite menace become semi-neocon gadfly. In a September 21 Slate article called “Stand […]

Yesterday’s Washington Post caught my editor’s eye in a special way.First, Nell Henderson’s front-page feature, “As Economy Thrived Under Greenspan, So Did Debt” gives readers of The American Interest a decidedly “been there, done that better” feel. The current (Winter 2005) issue’s essay by Peter Hartcher, “The Amazing Bubble-Man”, covers the story in much greater […]

The verdict continues to strengthen about Spielberg’s “Munich.” Check out Holocaust Museum director Walter Reich’s piece in the January 1 Washington Post “Outlook” section, p. B5, under the title “Something Missing in Spielberg’s `Munich’.” Reich’s critique is similar in spirit to Edward Rothstein’s, noted here a few days ago. It’s the “spiral” theory of violence […]

Well, the AI office is officially closed in the week between Xmas and New Year’s, and I, AI editor, elected to just mainly hang around the house for most of the period, with my wife and my three kids coming and going seemingly at random. There was just too much movement to plan anything serious, […]

Rep. Murtha’s dissent on Iraq war policy made front page news in both the Washington Post and the New York Times today, and other papers besides. Well it should have, too. As everyone knows, Murtha is no shrinking violent when it comes to the use of force, and his defection from supporting the White House […]

To many conservatives, there isn’t much to choose from between two of the most prominent liberal newspapers in the United States: the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both are considered biased beyond hope. On many key issues this simply isn’t true, however, and every once in a while a particularly clear example of […]

In the August 25 Washington Post, the top of the Federal Page caught my eye. “U.S. Mint Confiscates 10 Rare 1933 Gold Coins” it read, dateline Philadelphia. Along with the story was a photograph of the obverse and reverse (called “front” and “back” by those down-home folks at the Post) of the famous 1933 Saint-Gaudens […]

The major intelligence error that presaged the Iraq war and the many errors that followed raise questions about the capacity of the United States to manage complex interventions. They cast a shadow forward on U.S. Middle east policy, as well.