Hugh

  (Photo via Wonkette.) I saw Charlie Rose interview David Gregory chief White House correspondent of NBC last night. For me the jury has been out on Gregory. Sometimes when he is asking questions at a presser, he seems like he understands what’s going on. But often when he gives his reports on TV, he [...]

Michael Gordon who never met a case for war with Iran, no matter how flimsy which he didn’t fall for, is at it again. Last Tuesday with the crisis over the captured 15 Royal Marines still ongoing and the sudden start of US naval wargames in the Persian Gulf just off Iranian shores, Gordon added [...]

  ("Aramco derrick at Abqaiq. Bedouin caravan to oblivion, [Saudi Arabia, 1947]." The World of Allah, p. 173.  Photo by David Douglas Duncan.  What a gorgeous, evocative shot.) Two stories from last week passed almost unnoticed, but both have a lot to say about what is going to happen to our country and what kind [...]

IANAL* but . . . Re plea deals and pardons, Libby would have been much better served if that much vaunted poor memory of his had kicked in a lot sooner, say when he was talking with the FBI and testifying before the Grand Jury. Instead he tried to play it too smart thinking no [...]

I expect you are all getting sick of the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group report by now. Well, if it is any consolation that is exactly what Bush and his Administration want you to do. Since its release on December 6, the weaknesses and biases of the ISG report have been out there for all to [...]

The Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group report has been out for a few days now and the dust is beginning to settle. Was it worth all the hoopla? That depends on your expectations. The ISG is the creation of the traditional foreign policy Establishment. The ISG report carries both its imprimatur and its limitations. Its description [...]

  Leaking memos has become quite the thing in Washington. The purpose seems to be to show that policymakers are not as out of touch as their public pronouncements paint them. It is a way to admit through various linguistic somersaults that something may not be going quite right in Iraq without giving up on [...]