Democratic Conversation

by Mark Beyer 
The airwaves and cyberpages hum with comments on Tibet’s domestic uprising against Chinese rule, repression, and their latest military crackdown against mostly (but not exclusively) peaceful demonstrations. The reporting is dutiful, the commentary sympathetic. But the Tibetans need neither dutiful nor sympathetic words. What they need is action.
But what can The West do? […]

by Mark Beyer
Any review of John Bolton’s “Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad” could without great effort slump into ad hominem attacks of this former US Ambassador to the United Nations. In fact, I’m sure some will. Bolton is an easy target, given his inflammatory rhetoric about and […]

Vice President Dick Cheney now thinks he’s part of the Congress, after seven years wagging his (and others’) tail as semi-head of the executive branch. One must admit, he has conviction. Now, as a comic would introduce, all we need do is get a prosecutor to try him for his crimes. Joking aside, and America […]

The Democratic presidential hopefuls staged their first debate, and it was not Thursday Night at the Fights. It seems they want to present a more-or-less amicable style to political campaigning against which the American voters can see a stable Democratic Party that has differences, but is not fractious to the point where people say “these […]

George W. Bush has placed a help wanted ad: he needs a “czar” to run both of his failed wars: Afghanistan’s just war that he neglected and now is in nearly as chaotic a situation as before the Taliban took power in 1996; and the Iraqi Murder Expedition. While Mr. Bush continues to put on […]