Republicans should be scared.

Not because Obama just delivered a great speech, but because it pretty clearly demonstrated what Obama has been up to for the last month.

As you may recall, the mainline press has spent the last few weeks pontificating ad nauseam about the...

For all its seeming complexities, sometimes politics can be painstakingly simple.

Take central Asia. For at least a year now, it's been clear that the Bush administration has two priorities in the region.

The first is to contain Iran and curtail its nuclear program. The second is to...

Jerusalem is a city famed for its faith and shamed by its violence.

That much I knew when I arrived here last month. What I didn't know was that the shame stems not from how much violence there is, but how little.

Take the attack yesterday afternoon near the...

Not since "Mission Accomplished" had President Bush made such an iconic blunder.

When the president insisted to the world on Friday that "this government does not torture people," the gap between the rhetoric and reality of his words was so bitterly obvious that it instantly became the...

As Matt Bai noted this morning, the dominant story of the past two weeks isn't so much Congress's haggling over Iraq as its frenetic posturing over the now infamous "Petraeus or Betray Us" ad. Published in the Times on September 10th,...

Fifty years ago next week, American audiences were introduced to Ian Fleming's From Russia, With Love. As the fifth installment of the 007 series, the novel matched the suave brutality of a British agent against the brute efficiency of the Soviet system -- and...

Another week, another slew of bad news for Guantanamo -- and the Military Commissions Act that legalized it.

The most recent trouble began last Sunday, when the New Yorker published its chilling piece on the treatment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, currently Guantanamo's...

In an op-ed yesterday, Senator Feinstein hit the nail on the head when it comes to the Military Commissions Act. "We must track down, prosecute and punish terrorists," she wrote. "But we must never forget that we are a nation of...

As ThinkProgress reported Monday, this week Senator Leahy and Senator Specter have been hoping to introduce a much-needed amendment to the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

For those unfamiliar with the MCA, it's the bill that officially made Guantanamo legal. More specifically,...

As I first mentioned on the 4th of July, there's now a petition going to repeal the Military Commissions Act, the bill that formally made Guantanamo legal.

Needless to say, there's no shortage of reasons to repeal the MCA....

Back on the 4th I announced RepealtheMCA.org, an on-line petition to repeal the Military Commissions Act that Congress passed last fall.

Not two days later, we've already been reminded just how crucial such legislative pressure is. For...

Fireworks and hotdogs may be the most famous ways to celebrate July 4th, but this year there's an even more fitting one: now you can celebrate our Declaration of Independence by voting to repeal the Military Commissions Act.

If you're unfamiliar with the

The great charge of justice is not to redeem history but to make it possible. The great failure of Alberto Gonzales is his refusal to heed that charge.

To see what I mean, let's start with the former statement. Redemption no doubt has its place, but human justice isn't it....

As the son of a pastor, I learned early on that each season of the Christian calendar brought with it a new set of questions. In that regard, Easter was no exception: for one, there was the whole resurrection thing; for another, that small matter of the ascension. Not easy...

The great irony of American public life today is this: never before have we so fully democratized political speech, yet never before have we so thoroughly misunderstood the nature and meaning of political silence.

To see what I mean, we need to pause for a moment to look at silence...

Today the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and the Yale Forum on Faith and Politics are co-hosting Voices and Votes: Religious Convictions in the Public Sphere, a conference on the intersection of religion and politics in America. I'll be liveblogging from the conference throughout the day.

Today the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and the Yale Forum on Faith and Politics are co-hosting Voices and Votes: Religious Convictions in the Public Sphere, a conference on the intersection of religion and politics in America. I'll be liveblogging from the conference throughout the day.

Today the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and the Yale Forum on Faith and Politics are co-hosting Voices and Votes: Religious Convictions in the Public Sphere, a conference on the intersection of religion and politics in America. I'll be liveblogging from the conference throughout the day.

Today the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and the Yale Forum on Faith and Politics are co-hosting Voices and Votes: Religious Convictions in the Public Sphere, a conference on the intersection of religion and politics in America. I'll be liveblogging from the conference throughout the day.

A brief word on Francis Fukuyama's recent renunciation of neo-conservatism.

Four years ago, I attended a discussion of the September terror attacks that centered on Fukuyama's thesis concerning the end of history. It seemed to me that Fukuyama's argument was immaterial because inaccurate. The post-Soviet world...