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SOTU III: Oh yeah. Remember when Jon Stewart played a piece of Bush’s inauguration speech–the part where he offered democratic reformers our support–at which point Stewart added words to the effect of, “offernotvalidinSaudiArabiaEgyptorPakistan”? It was funny, but Bush answered that last night. Jon Stewart would probably agree that it’s hardly the time to be screwing about with things in Pakistan, but give him 2/3 credit for going after Egypt and the Saudis. Nice. There didn’t seem to be any retreat...

SOTU, P.S. Watching Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi was like being alone in a full body cast . . . with the TV showing city council meetings on public access. Ewwwww. Could they have been more lame? Lamelamelamelame. You could have picked Barack Obama, Harold Ford, Evan Bayh, Joe Lieberman, Ken Salazar, I mean, criminy . . . with all the appealing, talented folks in the Democratic Party, couldn’t you have done better than a farbissoner and a nebbish?

On Regime Change: Someone else gets it, this time in the context of Iran.

Libya Uranium Update: A very long update on the story, plus my analysis, here.

I’ll begin with what probably concerns most readers of this site, which is Bush’s undeniably wimpy avoidance of discussions of North Korea, David Sanger’s predictions notwithstanding. In what must be the worst possible sign, the speech actually won relieved praise from the South Korean press. Contrast that with his deliciously of more sanctions on Syria for its shenannigans in Iraq, and what sounded very much like (!). We’ll probably know by the end of next summer whether anyone will answer...

I’ll begin with what probably concerns most readers of this site, which is Bush’s undeniably wimpy avoidance of discussions of North Korea, David Sanger’s predictions notwithstanding. In what must be the worst possible sign, the speech actually won relieved praise from the South Korean press. Contrast that with his deliciously of more sanctions on Syria for its shenannigans in Iraq, and what sounded very much like (!). We’ll probably know by the end of next summer whether anyone will answer...

Proliferation Update: My full report here, on The Command Post, and also on NKZone. To all Command Post and NKZone readers, a hearty oso-oshipshio (welcome).

Proliferation Update: My full report here, on The Command Post, and also on NKZone. To all Command Post and NKZone readers, a hearty oso-oshipshio (welcome).

From UPI, May 6, 2004: North Korea has no intention of selling atomic materials to terrorist groups, a South Korean daily reported Thursday, citing an expert from a U.S. think tank. During his visit to Pyongyang late last month, Selig Harrison, director of the Asian program at the Center for International Policy in Washington, was told by North Korean officials that Pyongyang would not sell nuclear materials to al-Qaida or any other terrorist group. “The North Koreans said they would...

From UPI, May 6, 2004: North Korea has no intention of selling atomic materials to terrorist groups, a South Korean daily reported Thursday, citing an expert from a U.S. think tank. During his visit to Pyongyang late last month, Selig Harrison, director of the Asian program at the Center for International Policy in Washington, was told by North Korean officials that Pyongyang would not sell nuclear materials to al-Qaida or any other terrorist group. “The North Koreans said they would...

Condi Has a Spine. One of her first official acts is turn that lethal glare of hers on the cynical European death-merchants who want to lift the EU arms embargo and sell China missile engines, electric cattle prods, thumbscrews, Mirages, blood-resistant tank treads, or whatever is on their shopping list. She raises the same concerns (arms race, human rights), albeit much more diplomatically, that I raised in this fulminating rant. Add a point to Condi’s column.

This certainly looks pretty desperate. Too good to be true, almost. Could anyone actually try something this patently ridiculous?

Victory by Vodka? I admit that this is even more innovative than what I’ve suggested (well, maybe not this innovative), but the essential point is this: in most cases, the most effective way to dissolve the control of a tyranny is to give the people access to something they really want, and which the government doesn’t want them to have. A great story, even if we’ll probably never know whether it’s true.

Name That Scandal! I nominate “dough-for-ho’s.” My apologies in advance for plunging the level of our discourse to a new low . . . at least until your nominations bring us to a new one.

Condi Has a Spine. One of her first official acts is turn that lethal glare of hers on the cynical European death-merchants who want to lift the EU arms embargo and sell China missile engines, electric cattle prods, thumbscrews, Mirages, blood-resistant tank treads, or whatever is on their shopping list. She raises the same concerns (arms race, human rights), albeit much more diplomatically, that I raised in this fulminating rant. Add a point to Condi’s column.

This certainly looks pretty desperate. Too good to be true, almost. Could anyone actually try something this patently ridiculous?

Umm, Jon, the war isn’t over yet. Let me try to explain this one more time: it takes a long time and a lot of patience to win a guerrilla war. This was a good week. Triumph and disaster were just what Kipling called them: impostors. Still, it’s encouraging to see what this guy is doing–objectively considering the possibility that what we did may have been right. There’s still time. We’ll need that reservoir of determination later, when the tough...

Condi Rice and the Tempting Politics of Race: My thoughts here, on the rising, disturbing bipartisanship of a destructive trend–the acceptance of race as a component of one’s qualifications. Yes, I’m blaming conservatives this time. What happened to “the content of our charater”? I could swear someone just gave me an extra day off to think about this.