Republicans and self-styled "Christians" are agog over what Andrea Mitchell of NBC characterized as the "crisp, immediate, forceful response" John McCain gave to Rick Warren's question about evil during the forum at the Saddleback Church. They dismiss Barack Obama's "more nuanced approach."

The great debate on how much – or how little -- Barack Obama would change our disastrous U.S. foreign policy usually focuses on the Middle East. That makes sense. Nowhere has the price of the Bush national security strategy been higher, as the violent deaths of more than 4,000 U.S....

A few months ago I wrote an enthusiastic article about Barack Obama for the Huffington Post. In response a poster said: "You mean the same Obama who didn't even know that Afghanistan doesn't need Arabic translators because they don't speak Arabic?" Ouch, I thought. But then came this post: "At...

While Russian tanks roll through the streets of Georgia's Gori, there is actually another front on Russia's northern border of crucial geostrategic significance that has so far received little attention in Washington. President Bush is right to demand an immediate end to the looting and shooting in Georgia by Russia,...

Like lots of progressive Democrats, I've been pulling my hair out for the past month as John McCain and his new campaign operatives have successfully tagged Obama as an effete, elitist celebrity, with no core principles who would sell out his country to win an election, while they successfully painted...

My wife and I have a bet on who Barack Obama will choose as his vice presidential nominee. She says Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), while my money's on Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. But the more I think about Bayh, and the mini-controversy surrounding his name being in...

Matt Yglesias has a great post which really captures a key component of McCain's foreign policy approach - it is rooted in hyperbolic rhetoric mixed with hysterical over reaction. As Matt describes it,

Not only is Russia on the march beyond Tbilisi to Ukraine, Finland, and substantial swathes...

Obama's campaign is really smart. They have the blogging and media communities jumping at every flick of the Obama campaign's collective pinky -- wondering what this gesture or that might reveal about who will be...

I came to work this morning wearing my "McCain 2000" hat. I'd really like to vote for the 2000 version of McCain. I'd also probably like to vote for the 2016 version of Barack Obama, and might even wear his "Obama 2016" hat, but that one's not available yet. Our...

Gun Shows are the equivalent of al Qaeda terrorists walking right onto the airplane while law abiding citizens wait in the TSA line!

At over 5,000 gun shows each year, in 32 States, criminals and terrorists are allowed to purchase firearms from private gun dealers without an ID or background...

Picture this scene: Britney Spears and Paris Hilton stand in front of television cameras at a press conference and declare that they are virgins. What would the reaction be from the public and the media? My money would be on bedlam. The backlash would be immediate. The media would slam...

WASHINGTON DC - Russia's Vladimir Putin swiftly and decisively checkmated the Bush administration's clumsy attempt last week to expand US influence into the Caucasus. The score in this latest round of the Great Game - Putin: 10. Bush: 0.

We are not facing a return to the...

It was Monday evening in February of 2004 when a particularly harsh winter arrived at the doorstep of Yusuf Sultonov. The Tajik immigrant was walking into his apartment building in St Petersburg with his young daughter, Khursheda, and son, Akobir. A gang of seven teen-aged skin-heads rushed across the...

He is the hottest act in Orange County, and Orange County hasn't seen many hot acts. His venue is SRO every weekend, which means perhaps 20,000 souls; last weekend, it meant national TV exposure and international publicity.

So I decided to go to church (that is, mega-church) last Sunday to...

The glasses. The closed mouth resolve. The angle. The military pageantry of it all. Yahoo news/AFP runs this shot of VP prospect Joe Biden today. Did the photographer know what a "leader who knows his military stuff" money shot looks like?...

Denver. Minneapolis-St. Paul. Washington, DC. These are the hottest party spots right now for politicians and the lobbyists trying to influence them. If you want to know who's being feted by whom - and how much it costs - there's now a place to go.

The Sunlight Foundation just launched...

Could you tell us the greatest moral failure of your life, and greatest moral failure of America?

Thomas Jefferson: You, Pastor Warren, live in world where everything must be confessed, not just to a preacher, or to one's God, but rather to the world...

I was startled at Sen. McCain's formidable presentation at the Saddleback College debate because he seemed so obviously...prepared. It turns out that McCain was not sequestered in a "cone of silence" but was in a automobile where he could well have been... prepared.

It began to be a huge...

People who want Obama to win are heartened by his post-Hawaii willingness to object to McCain's tone, and to deplore McCain's ad hominem attacks on his patriotism and motivation, which Obama continued on Tuesday in his VFW speech. But it ain't enough.

A few Augusts ago, what finally shook...