Northampton, Mass. - The brutality of the Khartoum regime's military actions in the Darfur region of western Sudan continually forces a question that seems to have no morally intelligible answer: Is there no act of civilian destruction so cruel, so savage, that the international community will finally respond vigorously and unambiguously?
No one wants to see judges, umpires or government contracting officers getting handouts from people seeking their favor. But it's standard practice for doctors to take gifts — lunches, sports tickets, vacations dressed up as medical seminars — from pharmaceutical companies trying to sell them on the latest drugs.
WASHINGTON -- When they say, "It's not the money ..." -- it's the money!
Everyone who writes for a living or reads for pleasure has a pet peeve. My first city editor had a thing about "not only." He insisted that "not only" always had to be followed by "but also." Thousands of otherwise rational folks will never end a sentence with a preposition. I myself get cranky over "replica."
The Nation -- A lot of people wrongly believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. As I documented in a cover story for the magazine, this is largely due to a viral internet rumor that's been spread via email.
There is no argument in Washington that the Montgomery GI Bill has not kept pace with rising college costs — it provides for less than 70% of public tuitions and 30% of private — but there is debate on how to improve the benefit. That is where two Senate colleagues and fellow Vietnam War veterans — James Webb, D-Va., and John McCain, R-Ariz. — are at odds.
The Nation -- One of the few national politicians willing to speak unflinchingly about how the so-called "robust" U.S. economy has failed vast swaths of America, last month, Sen.
Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 013, Issue 34 - 5/19/2008 - To the question of the moment--What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?--I answer, Obama knew everything, and he's known it for ages.
St. Andrews, Scotland - History Often provides an excuse for a party. In Europe and America, romantics are celebrating 1968. It seems that every hotel in Paris is booked for this month's festivities – even the Ritz. Anniversaries have a way of cleansing the past of unpleasantness.
Before he became Russia's president last week, Dmitry Medvedev came across as less edgy than Vladimir Putin when talking about the West. Some Kremlin watchers thought this might mean a spring thaw in relations with the US and Europe. Now there's a case to test this theory.
In print, the Pentagon's policy on women in combat looks like this: Women shall be excluded from assignment to most units "whose primary mission" is "direct combat on the ground."
The dust is more or less settling around the largest child custody case in Texas history.
Congratulations to the Indiana legislature, whose harsh voter ID law has ferreted out a suspicious bunch who tried to cast ballots without proper identification in the Democratic primary last Tuesday. Who do those old ladies think they are, American citizens?