Two well-known, well-respected Brookings analysts (who, in addition, have been harsh, vocal critics of Bush's actions in Iraq) have published an op-ed in the New York Times entitled "A War We Just Might Win".

Their point seems to be exactly what I've been saying -- that the surge is a huge early success, that Petraeus knows what he's doing, and that the tide is turning decisively in our favor.

Once again, I'm not asking anyone to agree, but it's increasingly difficult to say that position is ridiculous and not sound ridiculous yourself. read more »

I haven't been a resident of the UK for almost a year now, but this story is an important one to discuss because we will soon be having this discussion on our shores as well - Couples who are living together should have more legal rights.

With more and more people of my generation delaying or avoiding marriage, we in America will be facing this issue. What do we do with people who are cohabiting that break up? I'm loath to get the government involved in matters of the heart, but these relationships are not happening in a vacuum. Society must get involved if the couple needs adjudication over assets or children. Therefore some sort of public policy is needed. read more »

Apparently YouTube and CNN scare the GOP Presidential candidates because Giuliani won't show and Romney may not either. In fact, only McCain and Ron Paul have signed on.

As someone who watched about 2000 of the 3000 videos for the Democratic debate, I'm disgusted that the candidates won't take questions from their constituents. None of the questions during the Democratic debate were crazy and the overall response to the format, real questions from real people, was that it was a winner.

I always hated that President Bush ensured friendly, sympathetic audiences at his town hall-style forums and rallies by screening out members of the public, but for the Republican candidates to continue to insulate themselves is neither good for their party or good for democracy.

Why are they afraid of the people they will represent? Or even more importantly, if the GOP is afraid of a snowman, how can they face up to the terrorists? read more »

In what can only be described as truly good news from Iraq, and against all odds, Iraq clinched the Asian Cup, beating Saudi Arabia 1-0.

As one fan put it, 'our government could not unite us, but hopefully, this team can.'

I realize that the plural of anecdote is not data, but this article puts a human face on the damage the Democrats will do if they axe the D.C. voucher program, as they show every intention of doing, at the first opportunity. Kinda makes you wonder if they really care about the kids.

Obama's weakness is that he just doesn't have the experience that most candidates have when running for President. That has always been both his Achilles' heel and a real strength, depending on what type of voter you ask. Those seeking a strong hand for stormy waters want a captain with a lot of experience. Those wanting a complete change of course are drawn to the new and fresh candidate.

Clinton was able, with a phrase, to define Obama. She said he was "naive on foreign policy." And since Obama has done a poor job of defining himself, that struck home with voters and suddenly Obama found himself on the defensive for his new approach to foreign policy, when that is exactly what the electorate seems to want. In my opinion he made two mistakes with his "rebuttal" when he declared that Clinton was Bush-Cheney light. The first is that it is virtually everyone knows that is ridiculous to the point of absurd. The second is that Obama pledged to run a new kind of campaign and negative attacks on another candidate are not "new" and may turn off the high level of grassroots support he has garnered from people that are growing cynical about politics. read more »

Michael Gerson summarizes this paper, presented at this conference (other papers here). Here’s Gerson’s conclusion:

It would be nice if teen sexual behavior could be automatically changed by an abstinence lecture or a sermon. Setting those norms and expectations, however, is a small part of a larger cultural task. Moral men and women need moral communities.

This is why an abstinence program, by itself, may not accomplish much. And this is why there are no substitutes for healthy communities, beginning with families, in which young people are embedded.

In this context, the right question to ask of any government program is: does it support or "empower" families and "civil society"? Perhaps another way of putting it is: What Would Tocqueville Do? read more »

On Tuesday, I went to a "Power Breakfast" sponsored by MSNBC and the National Journal that was moderated by Chris Matthews. It was very interesting.

The panel was made up of Peter Hart, Neil Newhouse, Charlie Cook and Linda Douglas. The guys are all pollsters and Linda is an MSNBC journalist. Peter is a Democrat, Neil is a Republican, and Charlie is non-partisan.

You'd think that they wouldn't agree on much. However, they were all agreed that in January 2009, a Democrat will be taking the oath of office. And that Democrat will probably be Hillary Clinton. read more »

...Victor Davis Hanson is God. And he's doing nothing to quell my shameless man-crush on him. Check out his latest column.

I don't believe he's making many friends on the right or the left.

Here's the money graf:

"After four years of effort in Iraq, Americans may well tire of that cost and bring Gen. Petraeus and the troops home. We can then go back to the shorter-term remedies of the past. Well and good.

But at least remember what that past policy was: Democratic appeasement of terrorists, interrupted by cynical Republican business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes." read more »

Words cannot adequately describe my freakish obsession with Wes Anderson films (well, sometimes they can). I am usually a spur of the moment guy, but I can now definitively say exactly where I will be on September 29th read more »

Daniel Larison wrote a very thought provoking piece yesterday about how his beliefs have changed since the beginning of the Iraq War. Here are some things he believed that he now feels otherwise:

1) First among these was my assumption that most Americans who called themselves conservatives distrusted government and feared the expansion of government power.

2) One of my other false beliefs connected to this was that most conservatives were conservatives first and GOP partisans second (if at all), and would therefore be just as outraged by GOP government activism and overreach as they had been in the 1990s. This was the worst sort of naivete on my part, and it was repeatedly shown to be false. read more »

After watching my first full Democratic debate last night, I have a couple of thoughts:

Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee and probably the next president. As Jeffrey Toobin of CNN quipped last night, this debate was "Gladys Knight and the Pips." She was confident (perhaps a little too much at times), nuanced, moderate (with an eye toward the general election) and dare I say: presidential.

Obama did OK but this clearly is not a format that serves his conversational style well. Edwards is sinking--hey, did I mention my wife is Elizabeth? Biden strikes me as the grown-up in the room on foreign policy--even if he's like the uncle at the family reunion, ready to tell you what he really thinks after the third glass of wine. Dodd fades into the background. Gravel is angry. Kucinich is Kucinich. But then there's Bill Richardson... read more »

Please excuse the maintenance on this site over the weekend. We are upgrading to the newest version of Drupal, our back-end software.

It seems the big political news today is that Elizabeth Edwards made a campaign video in which she claims her husband can look at himself in the mirror and "not blink."

Well, la di da.

Yesterday I was joined by Andrew Keen, author of the new controversial book The Cult of the Amateur.

I went into this interview with about three pages of objections I had about Keen's book. I had already written at length last week about some of my concerns about Keen's book.

However, as our discussion got underway, I decided that real dialog rather than playing the "gotcha game" would be much more interesting. I'm sure that some listeners will feel that I copped out of asking Keen some harder questions, but quite frankly those questions have already been asked of Keen both online and in other interviews.

As a blogger, I am more interested in finding common ground with Keen. As I discovered in our chat, Keen is less concerned about technology than he is about various cultural changes.

Feel free to join the discussion in the comment section. read more »

This post is mostly for Will. I know he'll get a kick out of it...

The Nation has an article about a meeting of the Green Party to discuss their 2008 plans.

The Green Party's national meeting in Reading, Pa., highlighted the fact that there are a good many Americans who want an alternative to the often disappointing choices offered them by the Republican and Democratic parties..

It is no secret that there are Greens who would like to see a "name" candidate like Nader or McKinney as the party's presidential nominee in 2008, and some who would like to see the two maverick political figures team up as a Nader-McKinney or McKinney-Nader ticket... read more »

In my spare time, I’ve been reading Mark Noll’s America’s God, which I recommend highly to anyone who needs a 500+ page diversion.

In the course of arguing that evangelical churches--above all, Methodists and Baptists (especially the former)--contributed mightily to the creation of our national identity in the early republic, Noll offers some telling statistics. In 1840, there were some 18,000 post offices and 21,000 postal employees; there were roughly 10,000 Methodist clergy (and three times as many clergy altogether). read more »

We are going to go out on a limb six months in advance of the Iowa Caucus to predict that Bill Richardson will win the state of Iowa in this election cycle.

Bill Richardson was at 1.0% in both Iowa and New Hampshire six months ago. Now he is hovering around double digits.

USA Election Polls shows that Richardson does extremely well among the most likely caucus voters (also borne out by the MoveOn.org poll where Richardson finished second among those that actually attended the house parties) read more »

Generally when I read an article from the AP wire, I expect a piece that sticks to the facts. I found one Friday about housing in NYC that could not be more wrong.

According to Citi Habitats, a Manhattan rental brokerage firm, rental rates have risen in Manhattan to $2,000 a month for a studio apartment. Where this story gets interesting is the explanation for the steep rising in housing costs.

The report reflects that "we're the center of everything," said Citi Habitats spokesman Christopher Dente. "There's a lot of relocation—thousands of people are coming in." read more »

The National Journal (which, along with my own CQ Press are the two Bibles of the Beltway) has a new poll out showing DC insider's predictions on who will win the GOP nimination. It's a dead heat between Giuliani and -- surprise! -- Romney. I'm telling you, if you think Romney has no chance, you've got your head in the sand.

I'll repeat a comment I made on another post:

Now, I don't expect everyone will agree with me that Romney is the favorite, but how can you consider the strong Republican leader in Iowa and New Hampshire "a long shot at best"? Who was the last Repub that won those two and didn't get the nomination? And who was the last Republican nominee that was "a long shot at best" in the general? Some rational analysis, please.

Anyone? Anyone?