Outside the Beltway

There is a fundamental problem with the feedback loop in American politics.

After 3,193 days and more than 4,000 lives, the American war in Iraq is officially at an end.

With Gingrich surging in the polls, the pundit class has gotten out the long knives.

Time Magazine has chosen “The Protester” as its Person Of The Year. Let the outrage ensue.

Paul Krugman’s latest column, “Depression and Democracy,” is simply bizarre.

No, some mythical candidate will not swoop in and save the day for the Republican Party.

A revealing quote and some musing on Newt’s consistency.

Is technology making retail politics less important?

There’s a little historical revisionism going on on the right.

How did Republicans get in this mess?

Public opinion on the Occupy movement has turned increasingly sour.

Apparently, we should be more like China. Or something.

The most disturbing part of Saturday’s debate came when most of the GOP candidates endorsed torture.

From across the pond, an observation that the way we pick Presidents isn’t really that bad after all.

Huntsman will gain little if any traction and none of the frontrunners really helped or hurt themselves.

The Electoral College doesn’t matter in the way pundits think it does.

My latest for The Atlantic: “For Europe, Some Fear a Conflict Between Union and Democracy”

Herman Cain’s promise to rely on “experts” should raise eyebrows everywhere.

Are America’s political parties become irrelevant?

It’s the 5% versus the 1% moreso than the 99% against the 1%.

For the most part, all those plans the candidates release are barely worth the paper they’re written on.

If you are taking 9-9-9 seriously, then you don’t understand the way the US government works. Herman Cain, I am looking at you.

Do we place too much importance on performance in presidential debates?

President Obama’s surprise announcement Friday that all U.S. forces would leave Iraq in time to be home for the holidays has been roundly condemned. While there are real concerns about what happens next, there was no better alternative.

Yes, again with the EC.

Cain (like a lot of people) is confused about what the words “conservative” and “liberal” mean.

There’s no consensus for European-style social democracy or a Randian libertarian paradise.

Have Republicans been co-opted by the Big Government they claim to hate?

Protests at least loosely affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement were conducted around the globe yesterday.

Not surprisingly, the “Super Committee” to deal with the deficit isn’t making much progress.

With the advantage of hindsight, it’s clear that more creative strategies were needed. But they probably couldn’t have been passed.

My latest for The Atlantic, “Romney’s Realist Foreign Policy Is a Lot Like Obama’s,” has been posted.

Ahead of his big foreign policy speech, Mitt Romney has unveiled his “Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team” which “will assist Governor Romney as he presents his vision for restoring American leadership in the world and securing our enduring interests and ideals abroad.”

Elizabeth Warren has a deeply flawed view of our social contract.

The Occupy Wall Street protests look more like a temper tantrum than a substantive protest movement.

Where should we look to understand the failings of the government?