Tim Fernholz

Here’s a piece analyzing some writing by Arab journalists disappointed by the supposed adjustments to Barack Obama‘s Middle East policy. While the senator could improve America’s image in the region with his Muslim background and his opposition to the Iraq war, Arab intellectuals are still concerned about his outreach to AIPAC and Israel. I get […]

Returning to blogs and the news cycle after a brief vacation, I’m glad to see the latest news is … Rev. Jesse Jackson has said a dirty word! The accidentally recorded threat isn’t news or even fair to Jesse (never thought I’d say that, but imagine what it would come out if your behind-closed-doors conversations […]

Steve Schmidt, the new head honcho of the McCain brigades, is doing a good job shifting the media storylines in his boss’ favor (check out CW compilation the Note to get an idea of how excited the press is about this story). Various other pundits are checking in to chat about the man — here’s […]

One on hand, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs sez: “Opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful for us,” referring to the prospect of a direct clash with Iran while fighting continues in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don’t need it to […]

Jon Soltz, who served in Iraq and is now the Chairman of VoteVets.org, has been a key voice on military and veterans issues in the Democratic party and a critic of the Iraq war. Lately he’s been getting shouted at on TV for his defense of General Wesley Clark, so I called him for a […]

Yesterday, John McCain was so angry after he was asked by a reporter how his military experience would affect his Presidency that Senator Lindsey Graham had to respond to the question. “Graham expressed admiration for McCain’s stance on the treatment of detainees in US custody. … ‘That to me is a classic example of how […]

Delightful economic news in the Times this morning: “It’s clear that the housing downturn and credit crunch are still very much under way. Clearly, there are more jobs to be lost in housing, finance and construction — hundreds of thousands of more jobs to be lost collectively.” Without easily accessible credit, the article goes on, […]

George Packer touched off a discussion yesterday with a comment suggesting that conditions in Iraq might be improving so much that Obama won’t able to see through his ambitious withdrawal plan. This is very optimistic, to say the least, but even if Packer is right (and he almost certainly isn’t), Obama sees the whole engagement […]

This post has been updated. Conservative provocateur James Kirchick pens a bit of nonsense in Politico today, arguing that Democrats are smearing John McCain. To do that, he has to equate lies about Obama with critical discussions of John McCain’s biography. On the smear side, you have malicious and baseless rumors about Obama’s religion, past, […]

Noam Scheiber makes a good point about the secondary effects of Obama‘s outreach to evangelical voters, but I think he’s got his vocab wrong — he calls it “pandering.” But doesn’t pandering imply a certain expediency, as though Obama wouldn’t have delivered the best speech on religion in politics in years, or be spending today […]