Assessing the impact of the Wikileaks revelations, Fareed Zakaria concluded the confidential cables actually show "the skills of U.S. diplomats." Overall, Zakaria was reassured that "the State Department works" and by "an American diplomatic establishment that is pretty good at analysis." But in one case - the conflict between Russia and Georgia in the summer […]

Just because you can leak embarrassing, classified national security information doesn't mean you should. And just because the American government may be able to prosecute someone for it doesn't mean they should, either. But in the case of the Wikileaks, prosecution - to the extent that U.S. law allows it - is warranted. Because Julian […]

On the day of his booking on conspiracy and money laundering charges five years ago, disgraced House Majority Tom Delay proclaimed, "Let people see Christ through me." Now a convicted felon, Delay isn't turning the other cheek but instead decrying "the criminalization of politics." If that sounds familiar, it should. For over a generation, Republicans […]

Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it. So it is with the uproar from disingenuous conservatives trying to capitalize on the public outcry over the TSA's airport body scans and aggressive pat-downs. While Charles Krauthammer now spouts "don't touch my junk" and Rush Limbaugh declares, "Keep your hands off my tea […]

Pushing his new memoir in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer which aired Monday, George W. Bush addressed one of the defining episodes of his presidency. Finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush claimed, left him feeling "sickened." But in 2004, as you may recall, President Bush found his Iraqi WMD fiasco side-splittingly […]

The only thing worse than a war criminal is an unrepentant one. Sadly, that's the self-portrait George W. Bush will present this week with the release of his new memoir, Decision Points. As his new book apparently makes quite clear, Bush has no regrets about his regime of detainee torture that broke U.S. law, violated […]

Over this pre-election weekend, CNN will air a special called, "Boiling Point: Inside the Tea Party." Whether or not its right-wing fury brings a conservative wave to Washington, the network insists, "the Tea Party has earned a place in history." But even more than its decibel level, none-too-thinly veiled race-baiting, casual incitements to violence and […]

By now, Americans have grown accustomed to Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio saying (and doing) what most hard-line conservatives are only thinking. So when Sheriff Joe tweeted that he gave Sarah Palin a pair of pink underwear, right-wing eyebrows weren't the only things being raised. Of course, this episode is just the latest to highlight the […]

During the 2008, the campaign of multimillionaire and multiple home owner John McCain tried and failed to paint Barack Obama as "elitist" and "out of touch." But now that moribund Democrats are showing some signs of life as Election Day nears, the right-wing Obama as Snob meme is back with a vengeance. Over just the […]

On Monday, the New York Times asked, "What if a president cut Americans' income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?" As it turns out, that question neatly sums up the sad dynamic at play in the 2010 midterm elections. On the one hand, President Obama and his Democratic allies have utterly failed to tout […]