Election Day, as always, is fraught with peril. Beware the seductiveness of opinion polls, which can mislead badly; beware the even greater attraction of exit polls, which have so often been wrong. Beware the too-early commentary, the too-swift judgment; and, above all, beware the hopeful, reassuring cliches that will be passed around today and tomorrow, giving false succor to winners and losers alike.  Read on »

Yesterday, while reading the latest polling data on John McCain, Sarah Palin and their appeal — or growing lack of it — to ” independent women voters” it suddenly dawned on me: I am one of these elusive independent female voters, and I have the credentials to prove it. Read on »

Imagine this scenario: In a medium-size European country — call it Country X — the bank regulators hold an ordinary meeting. These being extraordinary times, the regulators discuss the health of various banks, including the country’s largest — call it Bank Y — which is owned by an even larger Italian financial group. Read on »

PANMUNJOM — Step out of the bus, walk across the courtyard, stop in front of the low-built, blue buildings: Here, in the Joint Security Area — a neutral space between North and South Korea, under U.N. jurisdiction since the 1953 armistice — is one of the world’s weirdest scenes. Read on »

“I think we need a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street there, brought to Washington, D.C.”

A specter is haunting this presidential election — the specter of “Washington.” Read on »

Kabul — The scene is a small textile factory in a new industrial park on the outskirts of Kabul; the characters are an Afghan businessman, his American partner and a USAID official, the latter straight out of central casting: flustered, important, accompanied by gun-wielding bodyguards. Read on »

Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan — From the top of Cemetery Hill, just outside town, the village of Chura looks like a thin green ribbon winding along the bottom of a narrow valley. Read on »

And now, ladies and gentlemen, before the convention season comes to a close, let us pause a moment and suspend our partisan impulses: It is time to sing the praises of 44-year-old women. Read on »

“Closing ceremony of Beijing Olympics draws world attention, praise.” That was how Xinhua, the Chinese press agency, described Sunday’s final Olympic celebration, and for once it wasn’t exaggerating. Read on »

Forty years ago this week, on the night of Aug. 20 and early morning of Aug. 21, 1968, thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of soldiers rolled into Czechoslovakia. The goal of the invasion was straightforward: to prevent a Soviet satellite from carrying out democratic reforms, which, if they had been allowed to succeed, could have threatened the legitimacy of the governments of the other Soviet satellites and, indeed, of the Soviet Union itself. Read on »