Expect no grand political realignment this November. Neither party has the right diagnosis for what ails America, and much less a cure.

The usual grumblings attend the day on which we commemorate the most famous illegal immigrant in the history of the Americas, an undocumented wanderer from Spain who brought plagues, fire and the sword from the Old World to the New.Columbus Day is our most confused holiday celebration, one in which the public understanding of the […]

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney made his most significant public appearance since last week’s presidential debate. You can read the whole thing here. It was for the most part a frank and brave speech, but it defended some unpopular points of view even as it sharpened the contrast between the two men vying to lead […]

The border artillery battles between Syria and Turkey keep heating up, though Syria keeps making loud noises about wanting to end the violence. It’s not entirely clear whether this represents duplicity at the top or chaos on the ground; Syria’s central command may not be able to hold its local commanders on a tight leash.Turkey […]

The current political campaign has always looked like a close contest that may remain undecided until the closing days and even hours of the race, but it’s also interesting as a window into the state of American politics. Possibly because I’m so old myself that this is the fourteenth such campaign I remember (when I […]

If you were a political junkie who missed last night’s presidential debate, you could have quickly found out what happened by flipping between Fox and MSNBC. On Fox it was all high-fiving and smiles; MSNBC was all dour and ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda.’ After listening to the President’s closing statement, a distraught Andrew Sullivan asked “How […]

Today is one of those days in which we are particularly grateful that George W. Bush is no longer the president of the United States.The news from Afghanistan is grim. With the latest round of deaths, we pass a milestone: 2,000 US combatants have died in what is now the longest war in American history. […]

As everybody knows, there is no such thing as a global war on terror anymore. Instead we live in a harmonious world of interfaith comity with only the occasional criminal act that is quickly and competently handled by law enforcement officials. As a result we can cut our defense budgets and get on with the […]

The President of the United States, even in the midst of an election campaign, and even when the country is reeling from a series of attacks and policy setbacks is more than a political leader. He is more than a prime minister; he is the Chief of State and the closest thing this republic has […]

The repercussions from 9/11/12—the day the roof fell in on the Obama administration’s Middle East policy—continue to rumble across the diplomatic and political landscapes. Before that day, much of the country’s political and media establishment had been studiously ignoring signs of trouble in the Middle East or, when problems were too serious to ignore, studiously […]