The New Republic

As a New Yorker, I count myself among those stunned at Michael Bloomberg's close call last night. And I certainly find it satisfying to see a billionaire spend a $100 million on an embarassment-tainted victory. The way Bloomberg overturned term limits and seemed to buy off supports with philanthropic wealth was in some way anti-democratic. READ MORE >>

Interesting thought experiment from Slate's Double X. Emily Bazelon says that much would have been the same substantively, but: One specific counter-prediction: If Hillary were president, we'd either have more troops on the way to Afghanistan by now or we wouldn't. She wouldn't have taken her time to ruminate the way Obama is doing, because the barbs about weakness and dithering would have sunk in deeper. READ MORE >>

From today's White House press briefing: Q:  President Obama, last month in Pittsburgh, said of the Afghan elections and the aftermath, "What's most important is that there's a sense of legitimacy in Afghanistan among the Afghan people for their government."  Is there a sense of legitimacy in Afghanistan among the Afghan people for the Karzai government? MR. GIBBS:  Well, I have no reason to believe there is not. READ MORE >>

He congratulates, admonishes the Afghan president. READ MORE >>

I noticed over the weekend that the Economist is indignant that the West doesn't focus more on human rights atrocities in North Korea: READ MORE >>

I'm not sure how to assess Abdullah Abdullah's exit from the Afghan runoff election, which renders Hamid Karzai the unchallenged Afghan president. A runoff election certainly did promise to be tainted by the same fraud we saw last time around--quite likely more, in fact, given how fast they were slapping the plans together. But it's a problem that Abdullah is not exiting on a conciliatory note. Today's Washington Post has this: READ MORE >>

An Iranian student criticizes Supreme Leader Khaminei to his face, in public: It was near the end of a meeting Wednesday between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a group of university students when the man who is Iran's highest political and spiritual authority asked if there were any other questions. READ MORE >>

So much for getting tough. No sooner had I finished praising her tough talk in Pakistan than she began walking it back. Clinton carefully scaled back her comments from a day earlier suggesting that some Pakistani officials knew where al-Qaida's upper echelon has been hiding and have done little to target them. READ MORE >>

John Hannah, who served as Dick Cheney's national security advisor, takes to NRO to express his anger that Hillary Clinton was bashing the Bush legacy in Pakistan this week. First, what Hillary said: READ MORE >>

This is pretty great. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed doubt Thursday over Pakistan's failure to locate top al-Qaeda leaders in the eight years since they escaped over the border from Afghanistan, telling a group of Pakistani journalists that she found "it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to." READ MORE >>