Elections Blog

The most well-known Christian (and anti-Syrian) politician has been assassinated:
Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, his Phalange Party radio station and Lebanon’s official news agency reported.
His fatal shooting will certainly heighten the political tension in Lebanon, where the leading Muslim Shiite party Hezbollah has threatened to [...]

[Read more →]

To counter the pessimism of my previous post, I present you with this lengthy defense of the ‘consensus’ solutions being leaked from the Iraq Study Group and speculated upon by Gregory Djerejian of the Belgravia Dispatch.  If one were a cynic (who, me?), one might call the following a bit utopian:
With the nomination of Robert Gates [...]

[Read more →]

…despite what some of you may think; I’m an easy-going, live-and-let-live type who is all in favor of peace, love, and understanding. Still, sometimes the news is so bad that you can’t sugar-coat it, and Iran’s nuclear program is one such story:
New traces of plutonium and enriched uranium — potential material for atomic warheads [...]

[Read more →]

Has Tony Blair gone wobbly in calling for dialogue with Syria and Iran (in a prelude to what is widely expected to be a similar call in the Iraq Study Group report)?  It’s not as bad as you think…and it’s worse than you think.
The overall approach is entirely sensible.  Said Blair:
“It is a perfectly straightforward [...]

[Read more →]

…and I’m not talking about Iraq.  First, Hamas makes it clear that it is perfectly content to let the Palestinian people suffer rather than give Israel the barest shred of compromise:
The ruling Islamic group Hamas said on Tuesday a planned Palestinian unity government would not recognize Israel or accept a two-state solution to the Middle [...]

[Read more →]

Writing in the Christian Science Monitor:

With their votes, the American people asked for change. They cast their ballots in favor of a New Direction.
They called for greater integrity in Washington, and Democrats pledge to make this the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history.
The American people called for greater civility in how Congress conducts [...]

[Read more →]

Hamas has thrown in the towel and admitted that Palestine cannot function with Hamas at its helm:
Hamas committed today to folding its eight-month government if that would restore the international assistance that was cut off after it won national elections earlier this year.
In a shrewd and dramatic speech, the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyah, said [...]

[Read more →]

As our good friend mtl points out, the New York Times is running with a big story on how the “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal” apparently posted very, very detailed nuclear documents for public consumption before being shut down after the Times started asking questions.  This bothers me a great deal, because my regular readers [...]

[Read more →]

What the HELL?
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government.The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support [...]

[Read more →]

Proof positive that even Rhodes Scholars can be idiots:
In a contentious taped interview that aired on “Fox News Sunday,” former president Bill Clinton vigorously defended his efforts as president to capture and kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
“I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still [...]

[Read more →]

Mahmoud Abbas should not be surprised; when you deal with assassins, you will get burned:
Accusing the Islamic militant group Hamas of backtracking, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned on Saturday that his efforts to set up a national unity government that is acceptable to the West are “back to zero.”
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas [...]

[Read more →]

It’s looking like the sorry SOB may still be polluting the atmosphere with his breath after all:
General Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA, walked into the celebration of Saudi Arabia’s national day in Washington D.C. and was immediately posed with the question of the day. “Is it true?” Hayden was asked by a Time reporter. [...]

[Read more →]

…for the second time (once at the theater and now on DVD), and I must say my initial impression stands: this is the finest creative work (as opposed to straight documentary) that 9/11 has yet inspired.  Of course, in the wake of Path to 9/11, I noted with interest the disclaimer at the end, explaining [...]

[Read more →]

The MinuteMan makes an excellent point (no surprise there); if Bill Clinton was so all-fired-up about getting Osama, why was it hidden from David Halberstam? What the hell am I talking about? Read about it here…

[Read more →]

It’s in very, very poor taste to play God and wish for the death of another individual, but I’m only human, and sin or not, for this individual, I do most fervently wish it so.  However, the report is not confirmed.  Obviously, more on this if warranted…
UPDATE: 11:13 a.m.: This certainly sounds promising:
Fugitive Al Qaeda [...]

[Read more →]

Where is the will of the international community to get the Israeli prisoners back? I don’t see them, do you? Wasn’t that a condition of the ceasefire? And is Hamas Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon?
Of course not, and no serious person thought any of the above would happen, because everyone - EVERYONE - knows the [...]

[Read more →]

The Palestinians, by way of their chosen leaders Hamas, have already torpedoed another chance for peace in mere hours:
Palestinian militant group Hamas has said it will not join a planned national unity government if recognising Israel is a condition.
It follows a speech by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in which he said the government would [...]

[Read more →]

Those of us who hope for a peaceful two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been burned so many times that it’s well-nigh impossible to get our hopes up again, but if it should come to fruition, this would be pretty significant:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday that the planned national [...]

[Read more →]

Michael Barone says it is, as he detects a shifting of the public debate from what to do about Iraq to the much safer Republican ground of what party will keep me safer from Islamic extremists.  Says Barone:
Polls have shown a noticeable uptick in Bush’s job approval and in Republican candidates’ performance over the past few [...]

[Read more →]

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, given an opportunity to disavow his statements denying the Holocaust, pointedly refuses to do so:
TIME: You have been quoted as saying Israel should be wiped off the map. Was that merely rhetoric, or do you mean it?
Ahmadinejad: People in the world are free to think the way they wish. We do [...]

[Read more →]