In the New Republic, Leon Wieseltier criticizes the weakness of Obama’s support for the Iranian protesters. Wieseltier correctly points out that by his tepid response, Obama refused to take the leadership role that would have meant a great deal to … Continue reading →
By now you’ve heard the story of Neda Agha-Soltan, killed last weekend in a demonstration in Iran, and seen her photos—alive, dying, and dead. Her fiance and witnesses report that she was purposely targeted by Baseji paramilitaries who shot her … Continue reading →
The Walpin firing should be a big big story: heavy-handed executive overreach by the President in order to protect a political supporter from charges against him. Right now it’s not. The NY Times? So far it’s offering the sound of … Continue reading →
The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Over forty years after the fact, documents have been unearthed that turn on its head the common understanding of a seminal event in German history: The killing in 1967 … Continue reading →
Hugh Van Es, the photographer who took the iconic “helicopters on the roof” photo of the fall of Saigon, has died at 67: [Van Es’s] shot of the helicopter escape from a Saigon rooftop on April 29, 1975 became a … Continue reading →
Sometimes I think I’ve been writing too many posts on Obama’s handling of the Chrysler crisis. But the tale seems especially important because this is one of those times when Obama’s mask of affable reasonableness has slipped most dramatically, exposing … Continue reading →
[NOTE: I decided it was high time for a repeat of this series (first posted in December of 2006) on how the press came to consider its function to be changing popular opinion rather than informing the public. Here’s the … Continue reading →
[NOTE: I decided it was high time for a repeat of this series (first posted in December of 2006) on how the press came to consider its function to be changing popular opinion rather than informing the public. Here’s the … Continue reading →
The Boston Globe reports on its own stay of execution. The decision about its fate has been postponed till midnight tomorrow. One of the Globe’s many problems is that it seems to have made an error in calculating the value … Continue reading →
Please take a look and a read, and see what passes for acceptable political cartoons these days. This quote seems to me to be the most important: [The mentality this cartoon represents] is part of the merging of much Western … Continue reading →
I don’t know why I bother with the AP anymore. Maybe it’s because their articles permeate most of the newspapers in the country, and become the reality for so many readers. And so today we have the re-opening of the … Continue reading →
Just in case you thought the AP had turned over a new leaf, here’s its current take on the Israel/Palestine conflict. It’s titled, “Israel kills top Hamas figure, escalating campaign.” True to form, the AP takes its time in divulging … Continue reading →