President Bush's powerful May 7 speech in Riga marking the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany has created a firestrom across the political spectrum. Conservatives, of course, loved the speech, appreciating any diminution of the Soviet role in the war, but especially the none-too-subtle assault on FDR. Liberals predictably (and I would argue, […]

In his press conference last night, President Bush paid scant attention to China. Outside of the contexts of the North Korean nuclear crisis and climbing global demand for energy, the administration has been virtually silent about China's growing superpower status. The rapid transformation of China into a formidable strategic competitor for the United States may […]

As expected, the President's commission on pre-war intelligence regarding Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction offers a scathing critique of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. (The full report and other commission background can be found here; other Iraq/WMD documents are also available in the Perrspectives Document Library.) Also as expected, the report essentially absolved […]

These are pretty heady days for the White House and its fellow travelers. In Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Ukraine, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia, movements for popular, democratic change seem to rule the day. The wisdom, rightness and prescience of the Bush Doctrine, they say, have been vindicated. In triumphant and self-congratulatory tones, the President and […]

Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due. Like Chauncey Gardner in Being There, right now everything in the Middle East seems to be coming up roses for George W. Bush - and the United States. But like Chauncey, Bush the born-again democratic idealist has a series of happy accidents to thank […]

This week, most of the American press has focused on President Bush's European "charm offensive" and his prospects to "mend fences" with our NATO allies. But lost in the stories of Chirac the "good cowboy", "ridiculous" plans for Iran, and scolding Putin is the overriding issue of trans-Atlantic relations today: The Bush administration fundamentally does […]

Kicking off his European tour in Brussels, President Bush took Russian President Vladimir Putin to task for his steps away from democratic reform. Bush bluntly asserted that in order to take its place among the trans-Atlantic community, Russia "must renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law." Clearly, Bush sent his friend a […]

On the same day that the North Korean announcement of its nuclear weaponry put the Bush administration on the defensive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice got a double-dose of blowback from her 9/11 dissembling. First, the release of a previously classified report by the National Archives shows that the FAA had been warned repeatedly of […]

Once in a rare while, tectonic historical change occurs with the span of only few days. The dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall heralding the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, was one of those watershed moments. And for many Americans, the events of the last 10 days of January, with the Rice confirmation, the […]

With President Bush's 2005 State of the Union approaching, my 2004 SOTU-eve critique of Bush's so-called Ownership Society still stands. State of Disunion Even with his shaky State of the Union address and dipping approval ratings, President Bush unfortunately remains in a strong position for the 2004 election. Saddam is captured, GDP is surging, and […]