Germany is a nation that has had its fill of "Mission Accomplished" martial spectacles and ostentatious displays of nationalistic "glory." The Germans know it was all jingoism and propaganda. And to what else can we attribute George W. Bush's eight years of misrule but to jingoism and propaganda?

With...

It really makes the Iraq debate easy for John McCain when he throws around words like "win" and "victory" and "prevail" and "success" without really defining what they mean. A short time ago he was calling for American troops to remain in Iraq forever and that Obama was "naive" for...

In today's New York Times the Israeli academic Benny Morris, in an article fittingly entitled "Using Bombs to Stave Off War," opines that a "preemptive" nuclear conflagration in the Middle East could have some kind of positive outcome for Israel, the United States, and the world. It's a disgraceful...

David Remnick, the New Yorker magazine editor, explained the purpose of the July 21st issue's cover art, which depicts Barack Obama in Muslim garb and Michelle Obama as a black militant: "The intent of the cover is to satirize the vicious and racist attacks and rumors and misconceptions about the...

Right-wing talk radio and television are abuzz with full-throated calls to drill off the coast of California. From Rush Limbaugh to Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity to Michael Medved, it seems that all of the anti-environment blowhards that contaminate our public airwaves are calling for the Congress to hand over the...

In Sunday's New York Times, Adam Nagourney and Michael Cooper, the ace political reporters, hand over 17 of their 29 paragraphs either entirely or in part to John McCain's own words. About two-thirds of Nagourney and Cooper's article is LITERALLY "stenography." Just because a presidential candidate wishes to compare himself...

Yesterday, the New York Times sniffed at a new web site, LiebermanMustGo.com, writing that it "catalogues Mr. Lieberman's perceived sins," as if the turncoat Connecticut Senator's betrayal of Democratic Party principles is only a matter of "perception." Well, 43,000 people have "perceived" the need to sign a petition calling for...

The most interesting snippet from the lengthy cover story on Rush Limbaugh's empire by Zev Chafets in Sunday's New York Times Magazine was a brief quote from Karl Rove. "Rush is an intellectual-force multiplier," Rove told Chafets. "His listeners are, themselves, communicators." I found Rove's reference to "intellectual-force multiplier" pretty...

I always disliked Karl Rove's Republican patronage system that masqueraded as federal "Faith-Based Initiatives." Barack Obama's apparent embrace of this blurring of the line between Church and State, like his stand on the FISA bill and other moves lately, is a disappointment. It illustrates that too few of our political...

In 2004, the Republican Party's "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," acting as a surrogate for the George W. Bush reelection campaign, launched the sleaziest, most despicable smears against a veteran's war record ever undertaken during an American presidential campaign. This well-heeled group of extreme right-wing Nixonians who were still smarting...

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the greatest, most progressive president of the 20th Century. He also tried to stack the Supreme Court and imprisoned 112,000 Japanese-Americans without due process. Does that mean the country would have been better off without Social Security, labor union rights, and should have stuck with Herbert...

John McCain's top advisor, the Washington lobbyist Charlie Black, told Fortune magazine recently that another terrorist attack in the United States would "be a big advantage" for McCain in the coming election. "Certainly, it would be a big advantage to him," he asserted. On another occasion Black talked up how...

Sometime during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq I remember watching a comedy bit on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that drove home what a big joke the United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq were. The segment featured the UN inspectors, who were at the time charged...

In the fall of 2002, and most dramatically on February 15, 2003, anti-war protesters across the world carried placards reading: "No Blood for Oil!" The American punditocracy sniffed at these displays of dissent and heaped scorn on the peace demonstrators for suggesting that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would...

In January 1998, John McCain signed the now infamous open letter to President Bill Clinton cooked up by the neo-conservative "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC). The letter urged the president to take unilateral military action against Iraq. McCain and his neo-con brethren were literally cheerleading for the United...

I caught a little of a panel discussion on the Charlie Rose Show on the future of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He had with him the scholars Stephen Biddle and Vali Nasr, as well as the famous New York Times' stenographer for the powerful, Michael Gordon. Vali Nasr made...

I wish sometimes I could stop time -- here in the shade of a magnolia tree at my father's grave site -- the third father's day since he left the temporal world -- my head filled with memories (only memories?) of his profound influence on who I am and who...

Back in 2004, the Republicans attacked the Democratic Party's nominee for president, Senator John Kerry, who married a very wealthy second wife, Teresa Heinz, the ketchup heiress, for being "out of touch" with ordinary Americans. Some right-wing media darlings even called Kerry a "gigolo" implying he married Ms. Heinz for...

President George W. Bush has embarked on his "Farewell Tour" of European capitals. He will meet with heads of state and other national leaders. He will be received cordially and diplomatically and treated like a powerful foreign dignitary. But this European trip better be Bush's last trip across the Atlantic...

Representative Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, just finished reading on the House floor a 35-count impeachment resolution against President George W. Bush. Kucinich's lengthy and detailed indictment of this wayward president is the most thorough and powerful case made to date. He outlined a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors and showed...