November 20, 2008

Some great (but under-heard) experts on the Muslim world

The United States is deeply involved in the politics of the world's scores of majority-Muslim countries, which in turn occupy a number of the top slots on Washington's foreign-policy agenda....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:26 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

November 09, 2008

Look What's Hiding Behind the SOFA

For the past year the Iraq and US governments (not really, but we'll get to that later) have been working on a bilateral agreement regarding the scope and working details...
Posted by Don Bacon at 11:15 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

November 07, 2008

Congratulations, Tom Perriello!

Tom Perriello's lead over mean-spirited rightwinger Virgil Goode in our district's hard fought congressional race now looks unassailable. The Virginia Democrats' 'Raising Kaine' blog now says that Perriello is 646...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:23 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

R. Emanuel: Repudiate this disgusting racist comment

... that was reportedly made by your father, Benjamin Emanuel, to the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv in response to your appointment as Obama's White House Chief of Staff: "Obviously he will...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:09 AM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

September 17, 2008

Wesley Clark, underwhelming

I went to see Gen. Wesley Clark speaking at the New America Foundation today. Given that there are, you know, so many important things happening in the arena of global...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:51 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 29, 2008

A note on US politics

This past couple of weeks, I've felt a little disembodied. All this really interesting stuff has been happening at the level of the US presidential election-- but here I have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:03 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 07, 2008

Bobby Kennedy, Palestinians, and Israel

Kudos to the Lenny Ben David of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs who has found and republished a series of four articles that the 22-year-old Robert Kennedy wrote for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:53 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

May 23, 2008

Hagee, Hitler, & CUFI program

(updates in extension) Amid revelations (pun intended) that Pastor John Hagee deems the Holocaust to have been divine retribution against the Jews, presidential candidate John McCain belatedly sees the light...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 08:06 AM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

February 11, 2008

Virginia's Primaries (& Huckabee/Copeland note)

There's much to mull over concerning Iran's pending parliamentary elections - the vetting process yet again. Yet for the moment, we have the American political circus to comprehend, and our...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 04:41 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

November 12, 2007

Bush and Blair: sufferers from Hubristic Syndrome?

Through an interesting and happy concatenation of events, I ended up at a small-ish lunch yesterday along with former British Foreign Secretary David Owen. He recently released-- but only, alas,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:43 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

September 29, 2007

Washington's month in Iraq/Iran

I know I've been a bit AWOL from watching Iraq/Iran developments this past month. So this post is intended as a quick September's-end round-up of all the biggest developments in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:21 PM | Fulltext link (41 comments)

September 08, 2007

Senator Chuck Hagel to "retire"

The New York Times web site is reporting that Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, will not run for re-election to the Senate, nor for the White House. We've written about Senator...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 06:14 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

September 05, 2007

This just in! 'Century' mysteriously loses 93 years!

Sometimes, it seems hard to remember that 1997 was only ten years ago. It feels as if such a lot has happened since then! Indeed, sometimes it feels that all...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:42 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

August 09, 2007

US congress about to increase 'Subsidies of Mass Destruction'?

H'mmm, I've recently been writing about the numbers of people killed by Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction back in the 1980s. I guess it was around 25,000 people at...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:54 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

July 28, 2007

Meet the Evangelical Zionists

This is a brilliant short video by Max Blumenthal, shot during the recent big meeting held in Washington DC by a big Evangelical organization called Christians United for Israel (CUFI)....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:15 PM | Fulltext link (71 comments)

July 15, 2007

Sam Waterston: Commencent Address for America

Actor Sam Waterston, known to the nation as Jack McCoy on the long running TV series Law & Order, recently delivered one of the best commencement speeches anywhere -- at...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:59 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 09, 2007

Schumer, Israel, etc.

A great post from Steve Clemons on Friday. While giving general praise to the position that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is currently articulating, Clemons also writes this: Every time I...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:35 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

July 07, 2007

Jefferson & the Reign of Witches

Kudos to the Baltimore Sun for its July 4th editorial. Contrary to the keen imagination of another former "Jefferson Fellow" now at Oxford, I (Scott), as far as I know,...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 05:00 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

July 04, 2007

Just what did "The Declaration" Declare?

Here in the United States, it's July 4th, a day we commemorate with fireworks, cook-outs, concerts, and speeches. So what exactly is it that we celebrate? Nominally, today marks the...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 07:35 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

June 28, 2007

Republicans mutinying over Iraq

I have always argued that-- regardless of one's own party-political proclivities-- the movement to end the United States' disastrous occupation of Iraq and restore reason and sustainability to a national...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:51 PM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

May 18, 2007

Paul Wolfowitz open thread

He's gone! (But still not at all, it seems me, "held to account" by the US or Iraqi citizenry for the harm he has inflicted on both our countries.)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:05 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

April 30, 2007

Good investigative article on key H. Clinton advisor

Anne Kornblut had a good piece of reporting in today's WaPo about a guy called Mark Penn, described as the "chief strategist" for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. If you...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:13 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

April 29, 2007

Coming home: How the US feels

Bill and I got home Friday evening, after flying for what felt like a very long day from Amsterdam via Frankfurt to Virginia. Coming back home here to Charlottesville after...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:23 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

April 23, 2007

McCain v. Sa'di

I once admired Senator John McCain. We even appeared together 16 years ago on a national radio call-in show, just after I returned from my first trip to Iran. I...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 02:52 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

April 18, 2007

When all else fails, blame Iran (Part II)

Matters must be really deteriorating in Afghanistan. Why else would the Pentagon brass now be darkly suggesting that Iranian arms have been "captured," supposedly on their way to the Taliban?...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 11:47 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

66 percent of Americans now see the light on the Iraq war

I am so, so happy that two-thirds (66 percent) of our fellow US citizens now share the opinion that a small group of us within the country have held and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:50 AM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

April 10, 2007

Paul Wolfowitz and 'accountability'

How excited I was to read in the headlines that Paul Wolfowitz has finally "accepted responsibility"... But then I learned that this was only'for getting his Saudi-American girlfriend Shaha Aliriza...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:23 PM | Fulltext link (65 comments)

March 27, 2007

The Mother of all Sermons

(Note: this is Scott Harrop writing.) Four years ago this past week, 23 March 2003 to be exact, I heard what for me then was the “mother of all sermons.”...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 11:24 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 21, 2007

Molewatch: Cheney & Ahmadinejad?

On a lighter note, Nicholas Kristof recently suggested that Americans will learn more about Israel's real problems by reading Israeli papers than in the self-censored pablum in the US mainstream...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:42 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

New Challenges to AIPAC

An interesting crop of articles examining AIPAC - the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee - has emerged in the wake of the latest AIPAC convention in Washington. In his taboo breaking...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 12:17 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

March 10, 2007

Mayan Priests, Bush, Dobson, & St. Newt

Holy Chakotay! (irony alert) Maybe it's my native American side, but I rather think these Guatemalan Mayan Priests are on to something. According to the AP, they've announced plans to...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 05:34 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

March 08, 2007

Hoagie mentions possible Cheney resignation

I just Delicious-ed this piece in today's WaPo from erstwhile Iraq war uber-hawk Jim Hoagland... But I clicked the Delicious before I read to the end of the piece, where...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:23 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 05, 2007

Senator Webb's Leash for the Dog of War

"We have already given... one effectual check to the dog of war, by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body, from those who...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 11:52 PM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

February 16, 2007

Virgil Goode: "In Mohammed We Trust?"

Heee's baaaack. No, not "Chuckie," that " sneering, mean-hearted, movie doll," nor "Q" from Star Trek fame. But our "Q-ran" fearing Congressman Virgil Goode. Goode has been the subject of...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 09:53 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

February 08, 2007

Questions about US democracy

Several times over the past three months-- that is, ever since our state's election of Jim Webb to the Senate!-- I've had some real regrets that the US doesn't have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:41 AM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

February 07, 2007

Ellison on Islam & Democracy

You have to have some sympathy for the US Information Agency staff. Especially now that they are under Condi Rice's State Department, it's been mighty hard, if one has a...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:39 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

January 24, 2007

Webb 4 President (?)

My neighbor sent me a note last night chiding me for finally taking down my Webb for Senate sign at the end of my driveway, on the eve of Webb...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:01 AM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

January 16, 2007

Another "mission" ahead for Team Bush?

Tuesday, so we have Froomkin again. Scroll down through the account of the Scooter Libby starting up in DC today, to Froomkin's presentation of highlights from the interview Bush gave...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:17 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

January 04, 2007

About that Jefferson Koran

Yes, "Virgil," it's true: There is a Jefferson Koran. When and why? In the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library rests the original Virginia Gazette Daybook...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:30 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

December 22, 2006

Virgil Goode vs. Thomas Jefferson

Our local Virginia Republican Congressman, Virgil Goode thinks he's a good(e) American. We've written about him here before. He also wears the "good(e) book" on his sleeve. He's also likely...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 02:15 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

December 15, 2006

Bush and buddies battling the ISG

Politics in the US of A operates at a number of different levels. At the frothiest, most visible "top" of it are the instant spinmeisters, people who are handsomely paid...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:00 PM | Fulltext link (51 comments)

December 13, 2006

Bush losing control of the agenda?

Sen. Bill Nelson (Dem., of Florida) is the first of four U.S. senators who plan to visit Syria over the congressional break. (The others are Kerry of Massachusetts, Dodd of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:34 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

December 12, 2006

Bush's poll numbers plummet...

... especially regarding his handling of Iraq polisy. That's the main finding of this nationwide poll conducted yesterday for the WaPo/ABC News polling organization. Qun 2 (a) asked "Do you...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:45 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

December 09, 2006

ISG report causing fissures in GOP

Lots happening in the world and I've been busy doing (gasp!) non-blog things. So I'll throw together a couple of shorts here before going to get some rest.. First up:...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:44 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

December 07, 2006

Why I welcome the ISG report

The ISG report, released yesterday, did not urge two of the key steps that I consider essential if the US is to be able to undertake a troop withdrawal...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:46 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

November 28, 2006

Zelikow resigning, Charlottesville-bound

In a surprise move, our old neighbor Philip Zelikow announced yesterday that he'll be resigning from his job as "counsellor" to Condi Rice, and returning to teach at the University...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:46 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

November 08, 2006

Exit Rumsfeld

The second great piece of news of the day: Rumsfeld's resignation. Jeff Severns Guntzel of Electronic Iraq writes, quite correctly: Rumsfeld is a symbol of failure in Iraq just as...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:53 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

Prolonged electoral cliffhanger here in Virginia

So it looks as if we're headed for a lengthy process of recounting the votes here in Virginia. At 9:04 this morning, AP was reporting that our Democratic Senate candidate...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:30 AM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

November 04, 2006

Mutiny at the Military Times?

What would Hawkeye think of this!? Independent thinking at the Army Times? The Military Times Media - the publisher of the papers avidly read by millions of American military service...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 07:13 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

November 02, 2006

Scary Politics: "What happens if we lose?"

We survived Halloween. No October Surprises; No Gulf of Tonkin incidents manufactured to start another war in the Persian Gulf - yet. Meanwhile, the political air here in America has...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 03:14 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

October 14, 2006

Anti-GOP disgust surging high enough?

In a column in yesterday's NYT, Paul Krugman argued-- in my view, convincingly-- that the relationship between opinion poll results and the results of the upcoming congressional elections is not...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:29 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

October 10, 2006

Republicans foundering

Here's the latest WaPo-ABC News poll of American public opinion. And here's the summary from the WaPo's David Broder and Dan Balz: Democrats have regained a commanding position going into...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:11 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

October 09, 2006

Now they're censoring Tony Judt??

I happen to be in New York this week. Now, I've always known that New York was a strongly pro-Israeli city, but I was honestly really surprised to learn that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:52 PM | Fulltext link (96 comments)

October 01, 2006

Powell held captive for four years?

'Tis the season for "big" political books in Washington DC. The WaPo's Karen DeYoung has a new one just about to come out on Colin Powell-- just at the same...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:05 PM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

Why are we in Iraq? (DeWine quotable)

NBC's Meet the (de)Press(ed) today included conservative host Tim Russert interviewing the two candidates for a US Senate Seat in Ohio - a slot until recently thought to be an...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 04:39 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

September 30, 2006

Woodward and other bad news for the Republicans

Bob Woodward is a once-revered icon of the Washington journalism establishment. Back in the 1970s, he and Carl Bernstein helped to break the story of the involvement of the Nixon...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:38 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

September 18, 2006

What should the Dems say about Iraq?

I read with interest the attempt the attempt that Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin made to draft a "speech" for Democratic congressional candidates trying to run against the Bush administration...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:08 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

September 15, 2006

Sad JAGs and "Snow" jobs

In today's WaPo, Charles Babington and Jonathan Weisman have a little more on the back-story behind the sad little pro-administration letter that high-ranking JAGs from the four services and a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:29 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 14, 2006

Thank you, Senators!

Our senior Senator from Virginia, John Warner, today led three other Republicans in the Senate Armed Services Committee--and all the committee's eleven Democratic members-- in endorsing legislative language that preserves...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:37 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Kissinger and Friedman-- unhinged?

Did the bloody nose that Hizbullah was able to deal to Israel's once-"famed" military in South Lebanon this summer have the effect of driving some long-time American supporters of Israel...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:31 AM | Fulltext link (31 comments)

September 06, 2006

Bush preparing show trials for election run-up?

President Bush made news today by announcing that 14 alleged terrorists (ok, he didn't actually use the word "alleged", though these men have not yet been brought to trial) have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:08 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

August 22, 2006

'Peace after Lebanon' at TomPaine.com

I did another piece for TomPaine.com at the end of last week, and I see it's up on their site today. Astute JWN readers will see it's an updated combination...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:38 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

August 21, 2006

Chuck Hagel: Thinking

I have long been interested in Senator Chuck Hagel, a self-styled “Eisenhower Republican” from Nebraska. Still mulling a run for the Presidency in 2008, Hagel’s latest bout of independent “free...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 02:24 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

June 19, 2006

Sad developments in U.S. Congress

I realize I didn't blog much last week. I was busy elsewhere. But it was a sad, sad week for the relationship of the US citizenry with the rest of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:50 AM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

June 13, 2006

Bush in Baghdad

"Mission Accomplished"-- Part Deux? Well, he didn't have his "Mission Accomplished" flight suit on in Baghdad today, but Bush's media and political advisers have certainly seemed eager to create (and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:02 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 07, 2006

Politics, diplomacy, and Bush's 'defense-of-marriage' pander

Today in the US Senate, senators voted down a proposal that President Bush had been pushing with surprising intensity over the past few days: an amendment to the US Constitution...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:24 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 23, 2006

Al Weed, Congressional candidate

I'm in Kansas for a couple of days, doing something urgent and personal... Back home in Virginia, meanwhile, I see that Al Weed, the Democratic challenger for our local US...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:42 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

May 06, 2006

Blair and Bush both in big trouble

The two heads of the "coalition" of forces occupying Iraq are both in BIG political trouble. Blair was already foundering-- especially after Labour's disastrous showing in Thursday's local elections. Just...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:06 PM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

April 15, 2006

Rumsfeld and the cautious generals

President Bush came out swinging yesterday to offer what WaPo reporters called, "an unequivocal vote of confidence in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld." And to show just how seriously he...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:21 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

April 11, 2006

Rosenberg takes on Pipes

M.J. Rosenberg is the Director of Policy Analysis at the extremely centrist American pro-Israeli organization Israel Policy Forum (IPF). And he has a beef with the extremely hardline American pro-Israeli...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:11 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

Hispanics and the US: A proposal

Yesterday, in major cities throughout the US, there were massive demonstrations by recent immigrants to the country-- documented and undocumented-- and by their allies, to protest a new set of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:43 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

March 24, 2006

Harvard's shame (and Chicago's)

So it is indeed true. Harvard has indeed "removed its logo" from the footnoted version of the Mearsheimer/Walt study that is archived on a Keenedy School website, as HaAretz's Shmuel...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:48 AM | Fulltext link (65 comments)

January 04, 2006

Scandals engulf the Republican Party

The US ruling party is currently facing a "perfect storm" of scandals, the reach of which continues to expand. There are at least three major scandals now exploding all over...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:08 AM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

December 20, 2005

"The times that try men's souls"

Sen. Robert Byrd is the eloquent elder statesman whose speeches in the run-up to the present war offered potent warnings as to the dangers and unpredictability of war. Now, the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:25 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

December 18, 2005

Iraq as Bush's 'strongest card' (?)

So here's how bad the political situation at home has become for the Bush administration at this point, less than a year into his second term: He even has to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:37 PM | Fulltext link (41 comments)

November 18, 2005

Bush "magic" evaporating

At the end of the day, nearly all politics in Washington comes down to budgets. And this year, Bush is running into unexpectedly big trouble on the one he's proposing....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:38 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

November 08, 2005

Dems win in Virginia, New Jersey

Our fine Commonwealth of Virginia was one of two states in which the governorship was being contested in today's elections... and the Democratic candidate won! Great news! Especially since his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:24 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

November 04, 2005

60 percent disapproval of Bush

Oh yes! Today, the WaPo reported that its latest poll had the US public disapproving of the President's performance in office by 60 percent to 39 percent. Plus, this: several...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:12 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

November 01, 2005

So the US Dems have spines? (Maybe...)

This afternoon, the leader of the democrats in the US Senate, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada abruptly activated something called "Rule 21" which forced the Senate to go into a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:33 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

October 31, 2005

U.S. government historian ordered to suppress findings on Vietnam war start

The NYT has a very significant article today, in which reporter Scott Shane reveals that, The National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a finding by an agency historian...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:53 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

October 07, 2005

Can Bush speech buttress collapsing polls?

In his much-heralded (by him) speech to the National Endowment for Democracy yesterday, President Bush rolled out some of his old (and a little bit of new) pugnaciousness, along with...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:33 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

October 06, 2005

US Senate flexes muscles on control of the war?

I was really delighted to learn from the WaPo today that, The Senate defied the White House yesterday and voted to set new limits on interrogating detainees in Iraq and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:24 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

October 01, 2005

Dem party think-tank's plan for partial withdrawal from Iraq

Note: This post contains what I think is a handy little table comparing different withdrawal and redployment plans, including this latest one. If you want to go straight to the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:22 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

September 10, 2005

Privatization without limits or shame

The Bush administration's desire to put profit into the wallets of private business owners knows no bounds. Remember what I wrote here, about the BBC reporter pleading with first responders...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:23 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

Katrina, sad images, contd.

JWN commenter Windinthewhistle sent in this image from Katrina's aftermath, that he found one of the saddest: The caption there is, Milvertha Hendricks, 84, waits in the rain with other...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:22 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

September 09, 2005

Saddest image of Katrina

I think my saddest image/story from Katrina was watching Matt Frei on the BBC TV newsfeed yesterday evening racing round New Orleans with his cameraman, pointing out the many dead...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:32 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

September 04, 2005

Katrina, misgovernance, etc.

Laura Rozen of War & Piece has been providing great coverage of Katrina-related developments. (I'm afraid I've been a little busy with other things this weekend. One of them was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:31 PM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

September 02, 2005

Katrina, accountability, and structural change

If you Google for "disaster management graduate courses" you can find many fine institutions of higher education in the US and elsewhere that offer just such training. So you might...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:17 PM | Fulltext link (53 comments)

August 28, 2005

"We were misled": the indictment

Frank Rich has a good column in the NYT today, in which he makes many of the same points about the moral and political cowardice of the Democratic Party Leadership...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:34 PM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

August 22, 2005

Dem-hawks ruling the party roost

In a midnight post here last night I noted that Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has now clearly and openly joined the ranks of those calling for a speedy pullout of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:32 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

June 20, 2005

Good sense from a Republican Senator

Anti-war currents (and anti-Bush currents) are now stirring on a whole new level within Bush's own party in the Senate. On Monday (US time), US News & World Report published...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:40 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

June 08, 2005

US public wising up

Things are moving, inside the US body politic. In a good direction. Not nearly as fast as I would have hoped... But still, in the right direction. Today, the WaPo...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:19 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

April 14, 2005

US public opinion on Iraq

I'm writing a column for Al-Hayat today. About US politics, attitudes to Iraq (maybe), that kind of thing. I just found this web-page, from The Polling Report, Inc., which looks...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:28 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 14, 2005

Karen Hughes?

Sometimes, there are advantages to sitting far enough outside the Washington Beltway to be able to triangulate some on what seems to be happening there. What I was seeing was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:10 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

January 20, 2005

Inauguration Day, USA

Today, George W. Bush was (re-)inaugurated as US President, having won the election by 58 million votes to 55 million, last November. I did not travel to Washington DC to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:31 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

December 13, 2004

Two honest men

Last night, I watched an interesting tape of Zbig Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft appearing earlier in the day on Wolf Blitzer's "Late Edition" on CNN. These two old guys, respectively...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:57 PM | Fulltext link (31 comments)