Learning To Love the Islamic Bomb
As I noted in my previous post, George Tenet: CIA or CYA?, much of what is contained in the former CIA director’s new memoir is a self-serving attempt to dodge responsibility for the monumental...
View ArticleStriking Iran: Cakewalk or Slam-Dunk?
In 1981, Israel hit Iraq’s nuclear facility at Osirak. Eight F-16 fighter-bombers and eight F-15 fighters swooped in to carry out a precision strike that set back Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions by...
View ArticleSam Tanenhaus: Arsonist
The current issue of the New Republic contains a caustic exchange between me and Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the Sunday New York Times book review. Tanenhaus had written an article in TNR about William F....
View ArticleMisreading Christopher Hitchens
Say what you will about Christopher Hitchens—his views on Israel, most exhaustively rendered in a book he co-authored with the late Edward Said, leave much to be desired—but he is the most eloquent and...
View ArticleAttention Must be Paid
Arthur Miller is widely reputed to be the greatest American playwright of the 20th century. And it’s true that his most famous work, Death of a Salesman, is a literary, as well as dramatic,...
View ArticlePaying Attention to Arthur Miller
Last week, the New York Times ran a piece gathering the reactions to Vanity Fair‘s exposé of Arthur Miller’s non-relationship with his Down’s syndrome-afflicted son, Daniel. They quoted my original...
View ArticleGaza Confidential
The exciting piece of foreign policy reportage to hit the presses this week is David Rose’s account in Vanity Fair of the covert strategy the Bush administration pursued to undermine Hamas after the...
View ArticleFlotsam and Jetsam
Democratic governors are in trouble, too — in states like Oregon, Ohio, and Washington. It seems the recession and Obamaism have not been kind to incumbent Democrats. Keith Hennessey on ObamaCare: “If...
View ArticleBrilliant No More
How many times has a pundit or Democrat gushed over Obama’s “brilliant” mind? As conservatives pointed out to the swooners on the left, there was very little evidence of it — no inventive Third Wave...
View ArticleBy Christopher Hitchens
If you haven’t read Christopher Hitchens’s Vanity Fair article on his battle with cancer, you should. It’s a remarkable article, really — honest and raw, in parts poignant and quite moving. It ends...
View ArticleThe Increasingly Self-Pitying Obama White House
According to the preview offered by Vanity Fair: [Todd] Purdum spends a day inside the West Wing and talks to Obama’s top aides, who tell him about the challenges of playing the Beltway game, ugly as...
View ArticleChristopher Hitchens, Jon Stewart, and More
In his moving article in Vanity Fair about his cancer, Christopher Hitchens disclosed that just before he went on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he violently threw up — the result of the illness he...
View ArticleFlotsam and Jetsam
Ben Smith has this right about a new, fantastical Vanity Fair piece: “you can really write anything about Palin.” Michael Goldfarb has the goods on the “moderate” Ground Zero mosque builders. It seems...
View ArticleFlotsam and Jetsam
Indignant are the elite opinion makers. “The editor of Vanity Fair is in dudgeon over last week’s election. … They heard this wave of Dem/lib defeats was coming, but it’s just possible they didn’t...
View ArticleDaily Beast Swallows Newsweek
They call it a merger, but let’s not kid ourselves. Tina Brown will be running the show and is sure to offload the remaining deadwood at Newsweek and dispense with its un-navigable website. I sort of...
View ArticleDunking for Dollars
An enterprising journalism school might want to start offering a one-day seminar in the effective staging of videotaped waterboarding. Getting under a wet towel is a surefire way to put your name out...
View ArticleWhere Are the Smart Liberals?
So who does Job remind you of? I bet you didn’t think of Barack Obama. But that’s what pops into Jon Meacham’s mind, as Rick noted, prompting many of us to wonder how Newsweek lasted as long as it did....
View ArticleVanity Flair
The Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was rightly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. President Obama, in his statement about the award, began this way: One year ago, I was humbled to receive the Nobel Peace...
View ArticleWhy the Constitution — and What It Means — Matters
Having taken control of the House of Representatives, Republicans plan to begin their political journey by today reading the American Constitution word-for-word. This is simply too much for those on...
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