The New Republic

This was supposed to be the "domestic issues" State of the Union address. In his January 2002 speech, President Bush dwelled on the war in Afghanistan. Last January, he dwelled on the war in Iraq. This year, his aides told reporters, he would turn to the home front, beginning the speech with national security and building to a domestic policy crescendo. READ MORE >>

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In the last couple of weeks, Americans have learned something about our troops in Iraq: They hate it there. They are hot, tired, and surrounded by a population they don’t understand who occasionally tries to kill them. The left isn’t demanding that the United States “come home,” because, while it abhors war, it likes nation-building. But the homesick men and women of the military may prove a far more compelling lobby—and the more the public focuses on their plight, the more pressure the United States will feel to cut and run before it has planted the seeds of liberal government in Iraq. READ MORE >>

Nothing makes me more nervous about the future of Iraq than hearing Bush officials declare that its people are free. Donald Rumsfeld said so six times in his post-looting “freedom’s untidy” press conference on April 11. A few days later, President Bush told a crowd in St. Louis that, “Thanks to the courage and might of our military, the Iraqi people are now free.” READ MORE >>

Michael Kelly died last week covering the war in Iraq. And, in many of the obituaries written since, you can detect a hint of anxiety, a fear that people who knew him only from his columns first in this space as TRB, then in The Washington Post would remember him differently from how he really was. That's understandable. In his columns, Mike could be combative, aggressive, unyielding. In life, he was gentle, warm, playful. And so, people who loved him have emphasized the distinction between the way he viewed politics and the way he lived his life. READ MORE >>

It’s dangerous to generalize about this war. America's attack on Iraq is moving so fast that basic assumptions about its course can flip in the course of one day. But, as of this writing, the war's conduct suggests at least one irony: This supposedly cold-blooded administration is making a remarkable, some might even say militarily dangerous, effort to spare Iraqi lives. Conservatives once attacked Bill Clinton for being too squeamish about civilian casualties. But compared with George W. Bush--at least so far--Clinton didn't even come close. READ MORE >>

"Last time, this nation entered a war to make the world safe for democracy and establish permanent peace; it was betrayed in the event because its aims were not embodied in the peace settlement. Do we now risk such a betrayal again?" Looking back to World War I, this journal asked that question on August 25, 1941, in an editorial called "For a Declaration of War." And that is the question again today. READ MORE >>

Al Sharpton is a world-class bullshitter. In a devastating 1996 review in these pages, Jim Sleeper noted that Sharpton's first autobiography, Go and Tell Pharaoh, included lies about his age (36 at the time, not 38), his residence (Englewood, New Jersey, not Brooklyn, New York), and even his motivation for writing the book (Sharpton attributed it to his 1991 stabbing; Sleeper showed that Sharpton hatched the idea months before that). READ MORE >>

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Americans want to believe September 11 changed George W. Bush. They want to believe it because they want to believe September 11 changed them. And because the president supposedly personifies the national character, Americans project onto Bush the transformation they wish to see in themselves: He has become more serious, less self-interested; he has found his purpose. In the public narrative, September 11 has become a kind of successor to Bush's famous decision to stop drinking. He saw danger, he rose to the challenge, and he put away childish, frivolous things. READ MORE >>