Mustafa Barghouti is one of Palestine's real gems -- a former doctor turned political leader who previously ran for the presidency of Palestine. He now heads the Palestinian National Initiative and is an advocate of non-violent...

Weeks before snipers sparked war at the Sarajevo Holiday Inn in 1992, I visited a psychiatrist, silver-maned and clearly loony, at his Bosnian Serb party headquarters.

He jabbed a stick at a colorful grade-school map on a wall of the tiny office to show how Serbs would displace Muslims and...

Be careful what you wish for, John.

That seems to be the message of the week for Senator John McCain. He took some campaign consultant's idea a few weeks ago and tried to make political hay out of it -- put a running "clock" up on his website to show...

Presidential politics ran on two tracks this week. Barack Obama roaming the world to widespread applause and great pictures. And John McCain and his campaign griping about it all.

For Thursday, McCain, a noted gambler, thought he had an ace in the hole to counter Obama's big Berlin speech....

Is the McCain campaign borrowing from Hillary Clinton?

Consider the similarity between these statements -- one from Hillary herself last March as she battled Obama in Ohio, and the other from McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds yesterday as he responded to Obama's speech before 200,000 fans in Berlin.

First...

In the matter of Barack Obama and his rhetorical style, a familiar and tedious critique appears -- and reappears -- each time the candidate steps on a new stage. The high-falutin' words. The inspiring sentiments, devoid of any content or connection to reality. The absence of policy prescriptions. The poverty...

This week, Senator Obama began the European leg of his much anticipated overseas trip. I spoke to Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner and author Robin Wright about their observations after the Senator's first stop in Berlin, where he drew a crowd of...

There were, to be sure, a number of risks associated with Barack Obama's nine-nation foreign policy foray. It is one thing to masterfully run a primary campaign, and quite another to travel to three of the world's hottest conflict zones, each with its own unique challenges.

First was...

Civilians are still shot and killed in Iraq, despite a decline in overall violence, on a regular basis but this one will draw special attention: The U.S. military has confirmed today that American soldiers shot and killed the 14-year-old son of the chief editor of a U.S.-sponsored newspaper.

It happened...

Obama's obvious overseas success may be a triumph of visuals over substance; will it come back to haunt him? The panelists agree that this campaign should be a walk for a Democratic candidate, so why are the polls on McCain and Obama so close? McCain's week has been as bad...

On today's Situation Room, when Wolf Blitzer asked him about his vow to catch Osama bin Laden, John Mccain said, "Well, I'm not gonna telegraph a lot of the things that I'm gonna do, because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But look, I know the area....

On a recent visit to my mother's house in Wisconsin, a single day's mail included a dozen entreaties for money. Many were from worthy charities -- cancer research, the heart fund, injured vets, CARE -- but ones to which she had already generously donated this year. Two envelopes were from...

When it comes to presidential politics, in the words of the immortal Duke Ellington, "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." Because presidential elections are decided by the electoral vote and not the popular vote, and because every state except Nebraska and Maine awards all of...

In his column in today's New York Times, David Brooks argues that Barack Obama's speech in Berlin extolling unity and hope offered nothing more than "Disney" because it did not address "hard realities."

In fact, it is Brooks who cannot understand the hard reality -- that after eight years...

Ugh. The numbers are terrible. Tied at 43-43 only a little four months from Election Day. Why can't he close the deal? Why with an economy in the crapper aren't more people coming to his campaign? He should be up by at least 20.

43-43. So said a New...

John McCain sure is a maverick, I'll give him that.

In just a week, he's managed to alienate the Iraqi Prime Minister, the Iraqi people, the American people, and the veterans community. The question is, is this the kind of maverick that we really want to see?

First, just after...

I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion on a new online show called Meet the Bloggers. Here's the introduction post I did yesterday all about Meet the Bloggers.

Also on the show was Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV), someone who has been trying...

ROME -- Here in Rome this evening, the images of Barack Obama's European tour are streaming non-stop across European television sets. His every move is being reported in the Italian and broader European media -- rockstar status to say the least. Italians understandably feel a bit left out of all...