The New Republic

Kazan on Directing Edited and with commentary by Robert Cornfield (Knopf, 368 pp., $32.50) READ MORE >>

Massive cheating or not? A new kind of coup d’etat or not? How do we interpret this strange election whose results were announced by the press affiliated with the secret services and militia--even before the polls were closed? Considering the absence of international observers, considering that the election officials demanded by Ahmadinejad’s rivals were chased from polling places with billy clubs, and considering the climate of terror in which the whole process was steeped, it is hard to come down on one side or the other with much certainty. READ MORE >>

Why was Terminator: Salvation so dull? And why, in particular, was Christian Bale's John Connor so emphatically uninteresting? Chud.com explains: READ MORE >>

Who said the following in defense of Nancy Pelosi? The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to - I was about to say 'candid'; that's too mild - to honesty. . .  Director Panetta says the agency does not make it a habit to misinform Congress. I believe that is true. It is not the policy of the Central Intelligence Agency to misinform Congress. But that doesn't mean that they're all giving out the information. READ MORE >>

Former Vice President Cheney says that President Obama's reversal of Bush-era terrorism policies endangers American security. The Obama administration, he charges, has "moved to take down a lot of those policies we put in place that kept the nation safe for nearly eight years from a follow-on terrorist attack like 9/11." Many people think Cheney is scare-mongering and owes President Obama his support or at least his silence. READ MORE >>

I am not a Trekkie. It’s important that this be clearly established before we move on. Yes, as a boy I was a fan of the original “Star Trek,” to the point where I could distinguish a Saladin-class Destroyer from a Ptolemy-class tug--an admission I’d be loath to make if my wife weren’t already bound to me by marital vows, two children, and a large puppy. But I never cottoned to the subsequent Trek series and bailed out on the movie adaptations shortly after the Enterprise started rescuing whales in the mid-80s. I am not, in other words, someone who approached director J. J. READ MORE >>

The depiction of Barack Obama that has emerged from some quarters of the American right is that of a Bush-like figure. He is irresponsibly running up deficits and covering them up with budgetary gimmickry. Under the guise of healing rhetoric, he ruthlessly pressures fellow partisans in Congress to toe the line. He is "filling White House ranks with former lobbyists," and his administration is devolving into general incompetence. And he has given unprecedented, Rove-like power to his political Svengali, David Axelrod. READ MORE >>

Dick Cheney is never known for his good cheer, but, when Politico interviewed him recently, he sounded especially dour on the subject of Barack Obama's intentions vis-a-vis counterterrorism. In what seemed like a direct slap at the new president, Cheney warned that national security is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business ... and we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek." READ MORE >>

Hillary Clinton got Flicked. Sarah Palin and Kirsten Gillibrand, too. READ MORE >>

I joined Walter Mondale's campaign as his issues director in June 1982, and I vividly remember the excitement that gripped most Democrats at the time. Ronald Reagan's approval rating had fallen below 40 percent, and party professionals believed that the failure of his economic plan to produce a turnaround all but guaranteed huge trouble for incumbent Republicans--political scientists predicted Republican losses of up to 50 House seats. It didn't work out that way, though: Republicans dropped a relatively modest 26 seats in the House and held steady in the Senate. READ MORE >>