A lengthy front-page story in last Friday's Washington Post offered many reasons to think Joe Biden wants to run for president—and several reasons to think he'd be pretty good at it: The vice president brings with him a populist political style, an impressive grasp of policy, and four decades' worth of friends and contacts in Democratic politics. READ MORE >>
George W. Bush, you’re no Dwight Eisenhower. A hacker using the alias Guccifer yesterday posted photographs, emails, cell phone numbers and other sensitive material swiped from the accounts of the Bush family. READ MORE >>
A Letter to Advertisers on Behalf of Mitt Romney’s New Magazine
As the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, Mitt Romney’s controversial post-election conference call with donors also included a proposal from the former Massachusetts governor to start a monthly publication for supporters. What might a letter to advertisers look like on behalf of the nascent title? Nov. 7, 2012 Dear Advertiser, READ MORE >>
Election Day, as everyone knows, is the most sacred of days in America’s civic religion—the pageant of democracy, the fundamental exercise of self-government, the day citizens in their millions get to choose their own leaders. For the Fourth Estate, meanwhile, the first Tuesday in November is rather less glorious. READ MORE >>
Pervez Dispenser
Some simple rules of thumb for the foreign ex-dictator out to make a mint on the U.S. lecture circuit: Get yourself included in a speakers’ series that features non-controversial names like Laura Bush and Jean-Michel Cousteau. Promise your “august audience” a “frank exchange.” Maybe drop the names of one or two revered American leaders who are your close friends. And perhaps it is best not to admit that you wish you still had the power to “sort out” an impolite member of the audience. READ MORE >>
Confirmation Nation
The best news I’ve heard in weeks is that New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci would appear as a witness in Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings. Ricci, as anyone within cable-TV viewing range of Patrick Buchanan now knows, is the guy who filed a lawsuit accusing his city of reverse discrimination after it threw out the results of a promotion exam because an insufficient number of minorities passed the test. READ MORE >>
Winning the Peace
After a quarter century of bloodshed and somewhere over 80,000 deaths, Sri Lanka’s civil war didn’t really settle anything. It began in 1983 in a flawed-but-functioning postcolonial democracy whose leaders never seemed quite up to the task of integrating different ethnicities into one nation. It apparently ended on Sunday, in a still-flawed, newly-swaggering postwar democracy where that basic task of integration remains even more elusive. READ MORE >>
Anchors Away
Despite a presidential election, a financial crisis, and an improbable Phillies victory in the World Series, the biggest story of 2008 in Philadelphia was probably the scandal involving Larry Mendte and Alycia Lane. READ MORE >>
Why I'll Miss Bill Kristol's Column
Exit, Pursued By History
George W. Bush’s first day of retirement from electoral politics will look just like his days as a politician. Upon leaving Washington on Inauguration Day, the former president’s first stop will be at a rally in his childhood hometown of Midland, Texas. As unnatural as a Bush rally may seem these bleak days, the plan ensures that news coverage of Barack Obama’s triumphal arrival will include at least a few clips of his predecessor addressing a joyous crowd. READ MORE >>
