For the past year, the neoconservative conception of democracy promotion and human rights — hollow elections; wars waged under the pretext of do-gooderism; speeches rather than actions — have been embraced uncritically by major media to measure President Obama and find him wanting. Today at Georgetown University, Secretary of More…
Politico reporters transcribe, you decide:
Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. “I basically don’t,” he replied without elaborating.
Right, and why follow that one up?
Dave’s insightful post on the Republicans’ Afghanistan strategy — try to use Gen. Stanley McChrystal as a cudgel against President Obama — is a good guide to next week’s testimony from the commander of the Afghanistan war. But when Bill Kristol frames the war as something conducted by McChrystal More…
For a candidate making his first bid for office, Tim Griffin couldn’t be in better shape. One week after announcing his campaign against Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.), the incumbent in Arkansas’s most Democratic-leaning district, Griffin had raised $130,000. A Public Policy Polling survey More…
Mark Leon Goldberg reports that John Bolton, the Bush administration’s former ambassador to the United Nations, has a new book out. It’s called ConUNdrum — get it? — and apparently continues Bolton’s quest to shave several more floors from the U.N.’s Turtle Bay offices. But what’s More…
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals just dismissed a landmark lawsuit filed by a Canadian victim of “extraordinary rendition” against former U.S. officials, ruling that torture victims have no right to compensation from the U.S. government, even if U.S. officials were complicit in their treatment.
Maher Arar is a More…
Perhaps I was too quick to dismiss the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board yesterday. The White House just released a new executive order that gives the board a powerful new institutional tool.
In signing the Defense Authorization Act, which, among other things, amends the laws governing military commissions, President Obama confirmed Wednesday that he plans to keep the controversial military commissions alive. The effect is to deny at least some suspected terrorists — now called “unprivileged enemy More…
Should it really surprise us that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the suspected druglord and brother of President Hamid Karzai, is, as The New York Times reported last night, on the CIA payroll? Remember how the United States entered Afghanistan in 2001. It wasn’t with infantry and air strikes. It More…
The Washington Post’s story today about liberals who are frustrated that the Obama administration isn’t pressing harder to win confirmation for liberal-leaning judges to the federal courts should also serve as a reminder that there are a whole lot of key Justice Department posts still not confirmed yet, More…
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