The New Republic

Would that every day brought a story so entertaining: A tent on Donald Trump's estate in suburban New York City was dismantled Wednesday, and Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy apparently will not be showing up there at all. The dismantling came just after Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano said the Secret Service had told him Gadhafi would be coming to Trump's property. READ MORE >>

A wonderful account from the NYT's Sharon Otterman. I hadn't realized the official time limit on speeches was meant to be fifteen minutes. The Libyan went six times that long. Also, a money quote: “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of America." I have more than a few neighbors here in Brooklyn who might agree. READ MORE >>

Immediately following Obama at the lectern here at the U.N. is the Libyan "leader of the revolution" (as he was introduced), who has emerged from his bizarre run-in with Donald Trump--and the interference of angry protesters--to deliver a predictably kooky speech. READ MORE >>

Having recently been dumped by Time, I naturally had great hopes for this week's much-anticipated makeover of Newsweek. Both surviving newsmags (US News is said to exist still in some form, but no one I know has seen it lately) are in an Internet panic like that affecting newspapers. Newsweek has always been a bit faster on its feet. But judging from its first issue, the new Newsweek is not going to be the instrument of my revenge, alas. READ MORE >>

Donald Trump told the New York Post that he was endorsing Rudy Guiliani for the Republican nomination and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic one. I understand why he might like Rudy. But Hillary? Maybe it's his commitment to "the politics of meaning," that phony pseudo-religious dispensation she was peddling early in her husband's first term. READ MORE >>

AMERICAN POLITICS isn't physics, but it has rules nonetheless. And one of the clearest has to do with third parties. Since the nation's founding, no third party has knocked off one of the reigning two, and none has taken power. (The Republican Party of the 1850s, sometimes cited as an exception, actually emerged as a major party after the Whig Party expired.) That's not to say third parties always fail; they just succeed in a different way. When third parties succeed, it's because they change the terms of debate. They take a cry from the margins of American life—an issue, or an interest, or READ MORE >>

Were he not a reactionary and a demagogue, I would feel sorry for Pat Buchanan. Not long ago he held a respected position within the Republican Party, wherein he gave keynote speeches at political conventions, represented the conservative viewpoint on TV talk shows, and was courted by party leaders. Now he has become a figure of almost universal disrepute. READ MORE >>

I am acting out a fantasy and so is Eastern Europe. A psychiatrist once told me how dangerous it is to act out fantasies and I am beginning to see what he meant. --George Soros READ MORE >>