Recent events in the Middle East are melting my pessimism and cynicism about the region. Events that I had thought would take decades seem to be emerging in months. The news from Iraq recently is downright encouraging: Iraqi citizens are taking up arms against the terrorists. In three different cities across Iraq, the people have also engaged in apparently spontaneous demonstrations against terrorists, extremists, and the government of Jordan, which Iraqis belive has tacticly tolerated support and sanctuary for them....

You said you’d pay us up front! Every time South Korea hits a new low of shamelessness or senselessness over Tokdo, all I can think of it just how little they’re willing to do for the millions of their starving and terrorized countrymen to the North. It’s almost as if there were an election coming up.

You can read the full text of most of Condi Rice’s remarks and interviews here. There’s simply an enormous amount of material for study here. I’m struck by the degree to which Condi sticks to the script, carefully repeating the same points nearly verbatim. The interesting points I take away from her remarks, with links, where appropriate: (1) The administration is very directly signaling its impatience with the six-party process, and that the U.S. is considering “further measures” without specifying...

You said you’d pay us up front! Every time South Korea hits a new low of shamelessness or senselessness over Tokdo, all I can think of it just how little they’re willing to do for the millions of their starving and terrorized countrymen to the North. It’s almost as if there were an election coming up.

You can read the full text of most of Condi Rice’s remarks and interviews here. There’s simply an enormous amount of material for study here. I’m struck by the degree to which Condi sticks to the script, carefully repeating the same points nearly verbatim. The interesting points I take away from her remarks, with links, where appropriate: (1) The administration is very directly signaling its impatience with the six-party process, and that the U.S. is considering “further measures” without specifying...

Since one of the AP reporters in Seoul seems to have a well developed sense of irony, I’ll let him or her tell what happened at Condi Rice’s press conference at the U.S. Embassy there yesterday: Earlier Sunday, Rice extolled the virtues of free and open societies at a news conference with Internet journalists, after security guards wrestled a man to ground as he loudly called for American intervention to free the communist North. “Miss Rice, the North Korean people...

Since one of the AP reporters in Seoul seems to have a well developed sense of irony, I’ll let him or her tell what happened at Condi Rice’s press conference at the U.S. Embassy there yesterday: Earlier Sunday, Rice extolled the virtues of free and open societies at a news conference with Internet journalists, after security guards wrestled a man to ground as he loudly called for American intervention to free the communist North. “Miss Rice, the North Korean people...

Years ago, the Tango Security Force was one of my main sources of business as a JAG prosecutor. Today, Condi Rice visited the place and spoke some words that the New York Times apparently construed as harsh. I’ve never seen a paper make so many characterizations of a statement without quoting the allegedly significant statements. I’ll try to dig them up as soon as State actually publishes them. I liked this part: “Even China must eventually embrace some form of...

Not that anyone’s listening to me, but I second the nomination of Claudia Rosett for a Pulizter for her oil-for-food reporting.

Years ago, the Tango Security Force was one of my main sources of business as a JAG prosecutor. Today, Condi Rice visited the place and spoke some words that the New York Times apparently construed as harsh. I’ve never seen a paper make so many characterizations of a statement without quoting the allegedly significant statements. I’ll try to dig them up as soon as State actually publishes them. I liked this part: “Even China must eventually embrace some form of...

Not that anyone’s listening to me, but I second the nomination of Claudia Rosett for a Pulizter for her oil-for-food reporting.

Cold War Nostalgia. A link to the funniest TV commercial of all time–Wendy’s “Soviet Fashion Show.” It still works, in a way that Yakov Smirnov doesn’t.

Mourning liberalism. I have too much nostalgia for the contribution that liberalism once made to our society not to wince when I hear Sean Hannity speak of it as if it were a skin infection or an unnatural sex act. There was a time, after all, when liberalism stood for freedom and tolerance instead of hostility to everything America supports, simply because America supports it. The torch once held by Ken Kesey and Alan Ginsburg has been passed to Ward...

Condi to the North Koreans: Our offer is on the table, and you’d better give it serious thought now. FWIW, it’s a terrible offer from our perspective. And naturally, it didn’t meet its actual objective of mollifying South Korea’s inexhaustable compulsion to appease. Thankfully, the North will never accept it, particularly if we insist on rigorous verification.

Demonstration Forecasts. For our soldiers in Korea, they’re as much a fact of life as weather forecasts and exchange rates. Don’t think they’d be announced this way if they were all necessarily peaceful.

Link here. The substance of the question and Rumsfeld’s answer are reproduced in full without edits, but the boldface portions are my own emphasis. Staff Sergeant Sharp, U.S. Army: In regards to United States Forces Korea, we already have a brigade in Iraq, and I recently read in the Army Times that General LaPorte was recommending relocating an additional 3,000 troops. How do you feel about the readiness of United States Forces Korea in regards to the North Korean regime?...

Cold War Nostalgia. A link to the funniest TV commercial of all time–Wendy’s “Soviet Fashion Show.” It still works, in a way that Yakov Smirnov doesn’t.

Mourning liberalism. I have too much nostalgia for the contribution that liberalism once made to our society not to wince when I hear Sean Hannity speak of it as if it were a skin infection or an unnatural sex act. There was a time, after all, when liberalism stood for freedom and tolerance instead of hostility to everything America supports, simply because America supports it. The torch once held by Ken Kesey and Alan Ginsburg has been passed to Ward...