Matthew Yglesias

LISTEN TO ZBIG. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who people should have listened to before the Iraq War, had a great column on Iran in yesterday’s LA Times. Brzezinski was one of a relatively small minority of recognized Democratic Party foreign policy experts who opposed the Iraq War in a clear and forceful manner, and I can’t help […]

SECRETS AND LIES. Mark Kleiman has a great rundown of the hawkosphere’s lunacy on Mary McCarthy spilling the beans on the secret illegal torture prisons business. Less crazed figures on the right are mostly restricting themselves to throwing around hypocrisy charges. But, of course, if you think that leaking classified information in order to expose […]

COMPARE AND CONTRAST. Joe Klein thinks the “left wing of the Democratic Party” doesn’t “respect the military sufficiently.” Meanwhile, in recent weeks a lot of generals have put forward the idea that America’s current military policies are serving the country poorly. Uber-hawk columnist Charles Krauthammer accuses them of laying the groundwork for a coup d’�tat […]

BUT DO WE KNOW? My first thought was that I shouldn’t comment on “The Politics of Definition” until it was, you know, fully published so that I could actually read the whole thing. But on second thought, this is a blog so who needs due diligence. I have concerns about the idea that the essay’s […]

WHEN CROOKS GO DOWN. This hasn’t gotten much attention, but Silvio Berlusconi is refusing to admit defeat in the Italian election. In this, he has the support of seemingly none of the relevant legal institutions in Italy. What’s more, all of the democratic world’s left-of-center governments have already congratulated Romani Prodi on his victory. Then […]

WAR IS PEACE! Whoah . . . there’s some crazy stuff lurking behind that TimesSelect subscription wall, notably Paul Kane‘s notion that “President Bush and Congress should reinstitute selective service under a lottery without any deferments.” Why? Well, because if we do, “Iran’s leaders and public will see that the United States is serious about […]

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON MCCAIN. Daniel McKivergan offers his view on the John McCain issue: Since Jonathan Chait and others have turned their focus to Sen. McCain the last few days I’d like to add one point — for now at least — going back to 2001. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I was his […]

THE GLOBALIZATION OF ICK. After my own mind was blown by this “reproductive tourism” business, I got down to some serious thinking. The main engine of globalization is exploiting gaps between average productivity in a given nation (which drives its wage rates) and industry-specific productivity, which drives the potential for employer profits. Countries like India […]

THE SHIFTING BUSH C.W. Peggy Noonan has a very interesting column up on The Wall Street Journal website offering her take on George W. Bush‘s approach to the presidency. It’s interesting, primarily, because it’s exactly the sort of thing you heard all the time from liberals about two or three years ago — Bush doesn’t […]

CUTTING CARBON EMISSIONS — FUN AND EASY. I don’t think Ezra should be so quick to concede the infeasibility of big reductions in carbon emissions. The notion that this would require earth-shattering economic sacrifices is the product of an unfortunate conspiracy between regulation-averse right-wingers who don’t want us to do anything about the problem, and […]