Comic Book Foreign Policy (or the Batman Theory of Foreign Policy)
Readers may be familiar with the Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics (short version: the US can do whatever it wants if it just has even willpower). Now, it appears we can add another member of the Justice League to our understanding of foreign policy. On Friday, author Andrew Klavan had a piece in the WSJ comparing Batman ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 27, 2008 17:47
Obama Plunges in Newsweek Poll!
Newsweek has released a new poll and is excited by the huge change: "Glow Fading? The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by only 3 points. What a difference a few weeks can make." This is quite amusing in that pretty much everyone agreed that the June 20th Newsweek poll was an outlier. No matter. In ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 12, 2008 06:56
Poll: Third of Clinton Voters to Stay Home
The resilience of the Hillary Clinton dead-enders is surprising. CNN reports that the number of holdouts is actually growing. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain's camp is down from one month ago, but -- in what could be an ominous sign for Obama ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 5, 2008 07:00
McCain Shakes Up Campaign Staff. Again.
John McCain has reshuffled his top campaign staff for the second time is a less than a year, elevating Karl Rove protégé Steve Schmidt to the top post. Responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, Mr. McCain put a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 campaign in charge of day-to-day operations and stepped away from a plan to have the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 3, 2008 08:08
Brian Beutler Shot in DC Mugging
Blogger Brian Beutler was shot in DC's Adams Morgan neighborhood Monday night, Greg Sargent reports for TPM. Brian Beutler, a well-known progressive blogger, was shot and seriously injured during a mugging last night in Washington, D.C. One bullet damaged Beutler's spleen, and he had it removed during surgery this morning at the Washington Hospital Center. He's expected to make a "pre-trauma" recovery, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 3, 2008 07:01
Iranian Nukes Breakthrough? (Updated)
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his gang of mullahs are said to be "seriously considering" the latest EU 5+1 proposals on resolving the international standoff on the Iranian nuclear program and are telling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to pipe down. Warren Strobel: Iran's senior diplomat said Tuesday that Tehran was seriously considering a new offer from six world powers to resolve the dispute over ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 2, 2008 07:12
Obama = Charismatic = Hitler = Armageddon
Arthur Silber is, as am I, fascinated by the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama. He notes some anecdotal creepy gushing on a local radio show and then Reactions of this kind to Obama are fairly common. No, they are not this extreme much of the time, but such statements are far from unusual. And many of Obama's less obviously deluded ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 1, 2008 08:19
Bush Sewage Plant
Some creative San Francisco bar patrons want to rename a sewage treatment plant after the, um, sitting president. From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 25, 2008 06:53
McCain Veepstakes: A Woman?
David Paul Kuhn argues that John McCain should strongly consider choosing a woman as his vice presidential running mate in order to woo angry Hillary Clinton supporters. That premise strikes me as absurd, in that no Republican woman is going to be a suitable substitute for Clinton in the minds of her supporters. Still, reaching out to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 23, 2008 09:04
Caption Contest Winners
The Fearless Freep Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Jeff Swensen) ✰ THE WINNERS ✰ First: John Burgess - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 Second: Bithead - True to form, Barry brought a gun to a bungee jump Third: John425 - "...for I am the Living Obama, and he that believeth in me shall have everlasting federal subsidies and eternal taxation." HONORABLE ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 19, 2008 20:34
