Outside the Beltway

The government of Malaysia paid a lot of money to get some blogs placed at various outlets.

Silly things members of Congress say (plus musings on authoritarianism).

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether limits on contributions to political candidates is Constitutional.

The main who coined the word “meritocracy” meant it as a pejorative term.

The smear campaign against defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel has taken a bizarre turn.

Andrew Bacevich bemoans the social impact of the all-volunteer force.

Despite some tough questions, Congressional Republicans didn’t land a glove on Secretary of State Clinton.

Congress is historically polarized.

The notion that guns prevent tyranny is based on fantasy and movies, not reality.

For the New Year, how about challenging your ideas just a little bit?

Representative democracy is a process of delegation of power to agents who act on behalf of citizens. The process of delegation matters.

There are factions of the American right that really need to understand this.

Conor Friedersdorf contends “The U.S. Already Had a Conversation About Guns—and the Pro Side Won.”

Richard Lugar puts in a word for compromise and good governance on his way out of the Senate.

My first piece for the New York Daily News, “A Drone Strike on Democracy,” has posted.

The Republican Party needs a new message on foreign policy that is true to the conservative principles of the base and yet has a broad appeal to the American public.

Fareed Zakaria declares “America’s election process an international embarrassment.” He’s right.

Republicans are starting to talk about immigration reform, but do they really mean it?

The impact of outside spending on the election turned out to be far less consequential than many had feared.

Without question, Barack Obama won the foreign policy debate in the 2012 campaign.

President Obama is likely to win re-election while overwhelmingly losing the white vote. Does it matter?

The analyst actually wants to understand and be correct far more than he or she wants their preferences to prevail in the analysis

There are several circumstances under which we may not know who won the 2012 election for some time after November 6th

The candidate’s meet for one last time tonight to talk about some of the most important issues in the world.

My latest for The National Interest, “Why NATO Should Have Won the Nobel,” is out.

Will conservatives freak out if Romney loses? That’s pretty much guaranteed.

Not surprisingly, television and reality don’t really coincide.

The Administration’s decision to stick with the meme that the Benghazi attack was about a movie becomes more puzzling.

My latest for The National Interest, “Insanity on the Iran Question,” posted last evening.

With Mitt Romney and Barack Obama basically saying the same things about foreign policy, it’s time to take a look at an alternative.

The battle over Wisconsin’s public sector union reform continues.

If the United States and Egypt were Facebook friends, their relationship status would be “It’s Complicated.”

President Obama gave an honest, nuanced answer to a complex question. So, of course, he’s taking it back.

Mitt Romney’s initial response to the attacks in Egypt and Libya displayed a tendency to jump the gun rather than wait for the facts.

A day of protests over a film nobody has ever heard of has lead to the death of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.

The 2012 campaign is revealing once again that many conservatives have a view of President Obama not shared by the public at large.

Last night, Bill Clinton hit one out of the park for the President Of The United States.

Condoleeza Rice’s first trip onto the political stage was very successful last night. Where will she go from here?