Sam Rosenfeld

SMELLS NICE. Via Drum, see this American Footprints rundown on the Iranian elections, which did not go well at all for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies. The post makes an important point at the end: “The results will certainly please Western capitals. Not that we should expect any major shifts in Iran’s foreign policy, which […]

IRAQ: THE GROTESQUE PHASE. Cliff May informs us that he is one of the anonymously quoted party attenders in the truly lovely opener to this new Fred Barnes piece: It turns out you only have to attend a White House Christmas party to find out where President Bush is headed on Iraq. One guest who […]

DOUBLING DOWN. So Charles Krauthammer, after denigrating the members of the Iraq Study Group and their findings, says he wants us to “‘double down’ our military effort” in Iraq? (“This means a surge in American troops…”) The thought that anyone in the administration listens to this guy is frightening. The time for sending sufficient troops […]

LORDY. Good to see Eason Jordan, of all people, legitimizing an absurd right-wing mau mau campaign against the press. –Sam Rosenfeld

QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT. For our DC readers, Tom will be at Olsson’s in Dupont Circle tonight at 7:00 PM discussing Whistling Past Dixie — all are welcome and Tom’s eager to say hi. –Sam Rosenfeld

IRAQ 25K. At icasualties.org, the site which tracks American and coalitional deaths and woundings, there is a fantastic slideshow essay put together by Glenn Kutler for Newsweek to mark the 25,000th American casualty — about 22,000 wounded, and nearly 3,000 dead — in Iraq. (Click on the impossible-to-miss graphic in the top-right corner of the […]

JOHNSON SEMI-UPDATE. Just to update Ezra‘s post, see his comment thread for information showing that there’s some conflict and confusion in SD law about when a special election would be held (either soon after the vacancy or not until the next general election). That’s just an informational update, and for now we’ll wait for actual […]

PINOCHET’S NON-LEGACY. Reacting to the “communist dictatorships (Cuba!) versus right-wing dictatorships (Chile!)” discussions kicked up by Augusto Pinochet‘s death, Matt offers a unified theory of the terrible right-wing foreign policy approach to both countries. Meanwhile, via MaxSpeak comes this very interesting 2004 Washington Post piece pushing back on the conventional wisdom about the glorious legacy […]

CARVILLE SAYS HILLARY CAN WIN FLORIDA. A week ago I wondered aloud what southern states, if any, Hillary Clinton-backer James Carville thinks she could win, if nominated, in the 2008 general election. Yesterday, at an event at Northern Virginia Community College co-sponsored by Carville and Charlie Cook, I got to ask him myself. Carville puts […]

MUSICAL CHAIRS. The New York Times reports on U.S. plans to attempt to curb Moktada al Sadr‘s influence by fostering a new coalition that gives enhanced power to SCIRI’s Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. As Laura herself notes, she reported on variations of these plans for TAP Online recently: The plan would be to try to forge […]