A Dutch Retreat on Speech?
And now we come to what may be a truly fundamental test, maybe even a turning point, for that part of the world generally known as the West.
Memory speaks volumes
It’s a dangerous business, oral history, at least when you try it in Russia. Without oral history a complete history of the Soviet Union is almost impossible to write. Archival documents are dry, containing only the official point of view; memoirs, often written years later, are unreliable and frequently slide over important details.
Would You Follow the Country That Bungled Iraq?
“Why do they hate us?” Much ink has been spilled over the past six years in attempts to answer that question. By contrast, not enough attention has been paid to what is, in some ways, a more perplexing conundrum: Why don’t they like us as much as they used to?
Playing Democrat At Columbia
The novelty of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance yesterday at Columbia University did not, as many critics would have it, lie in the fact that an august Ivy League institution had invited the Iranian president — a Holocaust-denier, authoritarian leader and sponsor of terrorism — to speak on its campus. The protests, the fury, the screaming New
Does This Mystery Matter?
Russian President Vladimir Putin sacked his prime minister last week and replaced him with one Viktor Zubkov, an obscure official never before mentioned as a potential leader. Wondering why?
Ade, neues Europa: Amerikas Diplomatie hat die Chance verpasst, einen geeinten Kontinent für sich zu gewinnen
Es war ein sonniger Tag im Juni und George W. Bush hielt an der Universität von Warschau eine Rede. Drinnen lauschten die Politiker interessiert und wisperten zustimmend miteinander. Draußen hatte sich eine jubelnde Menschenmenge versammelt, die Plakate mit Sympathiebekundungen für Amerika hochhielt.
Bin Laden’s Mortgage Calculation
And now, ladies and gentlemen, time for a quiz. Three guesses as to who said this: “And Iraq and Afghanistan and their tragedies; and the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes; and the abject poverty and tragic hunger in
Like a Candle In the Wind
“She was the people’s princess. And that’s how she will . . . remain.” I marked the 10th anniversary of the death of the Princess of Wales by watching Tony Blair’s sob-choked 1997 tribute to Lady Diana on YouTube.
What Presidents Don’t Know
“You’re not going to have time in January ’09 to get ready for this job.” “If the position of president was a street, someone would have to hold Obama’s hand while he crossed it.”
Fighting On the Beaches
Famously, Margaret Thatcher hated holidays. Even when persuaded to take a brief one in Salzburg, the British prime minister could hardly bear the enforced relaxation. Upon hearing that Helmut Kohl was vacationing at a nearby Austrian lake, she called to request bilateral talks with her German counterpart. Kohl, who couldn’t bear Thatcher, claimed to be