The New Republic

Frank Rich's column yesterday begins and ends with a suicide. READ MORE >>

A story about the Values Voter Summit in this morning's Washington Times featured a fairly tawdry blind quote about Mike Huckabee: Then, referring to Mr. Huckabee, he said, "He's finished, I think. Bad things will be coming out about him," referring to long-standing accusations surrounding Mr. Huckabee's clemency for a rapist who later murdered someone in another state.   READ MORE >>

Why, hello there! We didn't see you come in. Welcome to the all-new TNR.com. Please take a look around. We're still working out some kinks, but if you see anything buggy, go ahead and leave a Comment in this thread. And thanks for reading. --The Editors READ MORE >>

This morning the Center for American Progress hosted a forum devoted to "Green Collar Jobs," in service of a hybrid message on race, class, and the environment. Van Jones, an environmental activist and CAP's newest fellow, reported for his first day of work fresh on the heels of Thomas Friedman's kingmaking op-ed in last week's NYT. READ MORE >>

Over on what is undoubtedly one of the more peculiar (though highly entertaining) celebrity blogs going, Stephen Fry offers another of his infrequent and very-nearly-interminable "blessays," this time on the subject of his own addictive personality. He has this to say, for example, about his long romance with tobacco: READ MORE >>

On August 6, Ehud Olmert was on his way to the truly charming West Bank town of Jericho for one of those confidence-building meetings with Mahmoud Abbas. Alas, Israeli security had found out -- their intelligence is superb! -- that Fatah operatives attached to the Palestinian Authority had planned to target Olmert's party as it entered Jericho and assassinate him and others. The Israelis discovered the plot, and arrested some of the principals. Since these were security officials, they knew the details of the visit. READ MORE >>

On Sunday, the Associated Press carried a dispatch about the controversy surrounding the campaign of the Swiss People's Party and its zillionaire leader Christian Blocher against allowing more immigrants into Switzerland. The party says that it is only against expelling foreigners who are criminals. But there is every good reason to suspect their honesty. READ MORE >>

A Reuters report tells us the Burma dictatorship lifted its curfew and otherwise began relaxing its grip on Saturday. This will be taken -- and is -- at least partially a victory for Chinese foreign policy and for the indifference of the Communist leadership to who suffers under the rule of their trading partners. READ MORE >>

It's no surprise that the Democrats lost the governorship of Louisiana the other day, what with their record of sheer incompetence and more sheer corruption that actually made voters forget that George Bush presided over the Katrina disaster. But the winner, as Adam Nossiter reported in the New York Times, was no white man. He was Bobby Jindal, the son of immigrants from India and a conservative Republican congressman. READ MORE >>

I have an idea for how Larry Craig can make lemonade out of his current nightmare. With a scandal so tacky and tawdry, keeping a low profile doesn't offer much potential as a path to redemption, assuming Democrats and the media would even allow such. Instead, what Craig needs is a flashy, buzz-generating, I've-learned-my-lesson crusade--something akin to John McCain's using his Keating Five nightmare to become a loud-mouthed government reform advocate. READ MORE >>