“It should come as no surprise if the Bush administration undertakes a pre-emptive war against Iran sometime before the November election.” So blogged former U.S. Senator Gary Hart at HuffingtonPost.com on Sept. 23.
No, replied a Democratic congressional candidate on another left-wing Web site four days later, the Bush administration is not plotting to attack   more

Do you think that the U.S. is on the verge of striking the Iranian nuclear program? Think again. President Bush’s speech to the United Nations this week did not even refer to Iranian defiance of the Security Council’s Aug. 31 deadline for ceasing and desisting from uranium enrichment. Instead the President praised Iranian culture and   more

More of the same? Or something new?
It’s the eternal election question–and one that bodes ill for U.S. congressional Republicans in 2006. Measured just about every way you can measure, U.S. voters are distressed and hankering for change.
Gallup’s latest poll (conducted Sept. 7-10) found that 67% of Americans described themselves as generally dissatisfied with conditions   more

The Valerie Plame affair is one of those mysteries that lose most of their interest as soon as you learn the solution.
For three years, investigators have hunted for the leaker who disclosed Ms. Plame’s name to the Washington press corps. In “Hubris,” their minutely detailed study of the affair, David Corn and Michael Isikoff   more

Five years on — and how little we have learned! In the first shock of 9/11, opinion leaders hastened to offer their publics comfort and reassurance. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, they said, were the work of a tiny extremist fringe, condemned by the whole world. The terrorists belonged to no culture,   more

This was a week of clever manoeuvres. First, George Bush announced that he would at last bring the captured 9/11 plotters to trial by military commission–if Congress would give him the authority to do so. That puts Democrats in Congress in a very awkward spot. The voters will want justice executed; the Democrats’ key constituencies   more