Posts by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman

COMMENTARY
Washington again placed bets on the wrong foreign leaders. Is personal diplomacy a farce?

The House has passed a new version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. It is not surprising that the legislation makes many Americans queasy. After all, this is the country that created its first secret agency in 1947 and then announced it to the world.
The irony of America’s intelligence services is that they [...]

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when “talking” got such a bad rep. But it clearly has one, and it is dogging the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, despite his clinching the Democratic nomination last night in a photo-finish against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. In his Minnesota victory speech, Obama called for “tough, direct diplomacy.” Not [...]