Liberal Talk Radio

Those election season attack ads finally cross a line: According to the Republican National Committee, the stakes of the upcoming midterm elections are nothing less than the future of national security. The stakes of running video images of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to drive that point home, however, are substantially less. When the [...]

As I mentioned back-handedly in a post yesterday, I’ve long contended that most suicide bombers just need a good lay to get their minds off jihad. Apparently, the same idea is gaining traction elsewhere. Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle profiled a provocative new film on [suicide bombers], which some might say isn’t sympathetic enough. “Suicide Killers,” [...]

Shorter Elizabeth Rubin in the Sunday Magazine: Pakistan is to Afghanistan as Iran is to Iraq. And we should probably just legalize all drugs. Then again, in some ways I’d prefer to have Afghans blowing up each other than have drug addicts breaking into my apartment. Choices are a bitch.

Make a bed in Gitmo, the Secret Service is johnny-on-the-spot in a new effort to track down “evil-doers.” Apparently, this one is a 14 year old girl “with a heart on her backpack.” The latest … to be questioned by federal agents in possible threats against President Bush is a 14-year-old girl with a heart [...]

It’s true that history will judge what’s happening now (and also true that the Future will be left to pick up the pieces). And I’ll give you that it’s a sour, sour pickle that we’re in. The biggest issue, IMO, remains: there’s very little agreement on first principals. In some sense, by quibbling over the definition [...]

Although I think it’s interesting and important to have a public conversation about the best way to deal with the terrorist threat, I wonder if we would be as vocal about rights, wiretapping, extraordinary rendition and everything else if Bush wasn’t in power. The issue seems to be boiled down to this: How the measure [...]

Is it just me or wouldn’t you have expected the U.S. to threaten Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan would be bombed into the stone age if they didn’t stop working with the Taliban after Sept. 11? I know it’s pick-on-Richard Armitage season, but “cooperate or we’ll bomb you” is basically the definition of military deterrence . [...]

… Or, How to Screw Up Three Wars at Once. Remember Afghanistan?  Benighted crap-hole of a country hard between Pakistan, Iran, the CIS, and hell?  The place where they play polo with dead goats for fun … but, oh, yeah, they’re ready for Democracy? Anyway, if you care, we’re losing Afghanistan, too. International forces defeated [...]

Following up on this post from Wednesday, President Bush is, indeed, making a full court press on his “clarification” of the Geneva Conventions. In his press conference today, he argues (and I do mean argue — he was visibly ticked off for most of it) that Common Article 3 is too vague: Bush said legislation [...]

Signs that Colin Powell, The Sackless Wonder*, may be growing a pair.  Mr. Bush said after conferring with Republican House members that he had “reminded them that the most important job of government is to protect the homeland.” As part of his plan, the president wants Congress to enact legislation that would authorize tougher interrogations [...]