Dispatches

If you want to understand this year’s expansion of the European Union and NATO, go to Berlin. Fifteen years ago, the Berlin Wall, approximately 96 miles of concrete and soldiers, was the symbol of the Cold War. When I visited this spring, my taxi driver had to tell me to “imagine” where the wall had […]

If the American jailers of Sheikh Mahdi al-Sumeidayih hoped to take the fire out of one of Iraq’s most radical Sunni clerics, they might have been glad to hear the hesitant, almost beseeching tone in his voice less than a week after his release. “I told them that I do not support violence, that we […]

On April 27, beneath the fluorescent lights of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ basement conference room, Representative Jim Turner unveiled “Winning The War on Terror,” a large report prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. Turner hoped that the report might spark national debate over what could […]

So far the Democrats’ magic bullet seems to be falling short. Ever since the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance legislation passed, Democrats have looked to so-called 527 groups — named after a part of the tax code that allows groups to raise unlimited sums and make independent expenditures on issues — to save them from cash shortfalls (specifically […]

When President George W. Bush asserted in his May 5 attempt to mollify the Arab and Muslim worlds that “what took place in [the Abu Ghraib] prison does not represent the America I know,” Judy Greene nearly spat out a spoonful of dinner in disbelief. A veteran prison-policy analyst with the group Justice Strategies, Greene […]

They say that John Kerry has the entire Democratic establishment, and even some outliers, in his corner. “I personally have never seen the Democratic Party more united,” says one party strategist. “As in ever.” Swearing that the intraparty squabbling of the last decade is over, allegiance to the candidate has come from all corners. But […]

John Mearsheimer, one of the pre-eminent representatives of the realist school of international relations, voted for George W. Bush in 2000. But not this time. Come November, he’s not only voting for John Kerry but “will do so with enthusiasm.” As a realist, the University of Chicago political scientist liked Bush’s anti-nation-building rhetoric during the […]

People either love Tom Tancredo, the Republican representative from Colorado’s 6th District (home of Columbine High School), or they hate him. But they all agree on one thing: He is a man of character. Indeed, he has defined his political career by his principled stand on immigration. In September 2002, after reading a glowing Denver […]

Here’s the conventional wisdom, stated at a sadly conventional Israeli news event: “With respect to Israel, [George W.] Bush has been one of the best presidents we have ever had.” The speaker was James Tisch, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The venue was Jerusalem’s Keren Hayesod Street on the […]

The white whale of American finance has returned. In January 2004, JP Morgan Chase & Co. acquired BankOne for $58 billion. This merger is the latest reflection of a two-decade reversal in public policy, which invites enormous conflicts of interest within banks. It was this deregulation that led to scandals of insider trading and investor […]