In his presidential memoir, “A World Transformed,” written with his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and published five years ago, George Bush the Elder explained why U.S. forces didn’t go after Saddam Hussein at the end of Gulf War I: Trying to eliminate Saddam … would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him […]

The last time I looked, way back in May in another life, the question about Wal-Mart was: Small-town savior or company gulag? At least that’s the way I put it. Even the increasingly irritating David Brooks got off a funny satire about Wal-Mart’s lad-magazine ban, “No Sex Magazines, Please, We’re Wal-Mart Shoppers,” although it was, […]

Did I say the other day that David Brooks is still trying to find his rhythm as a New York Times op-ed columnist? I was too kind. Judging by his effort this morning, “A Burden Too Heavy to Put Down” (wisely positioned by the editors below the fold), the guy’s melody has become all too […]

A friend messages: “Aren’t you bothered by the fact that at a time when too many children in this country go to bed hungry, when senior citizens cannot afford medical care, when soldiers are being sent home from Iraq in boxes, the U.S. Senate held public hearings on college football’s Bowl Championship Series? And you […]

Do you ever get the feeling the Bush administration is fighting the war on terrorism by bobbing for apples? I do — and not because it’s Halloween. But never mind. It’s also floppy Friday, time to forget our troubles. Here’s some entertaining word-play, aka bad puns, making the rounds of the Web in various places […]

Everybody has noticed how foolish the president sounded at his Rose Garden press conference. But mea culpa! I forgot to mention what may have been his most peculiar remark: “The world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership, and America is more secure.” Was he dreaming? Maureen Dowd’s claim this morning, that Crawford George […]

Does the president know what the meaning of “is” is? I’m not talking about Slick Willie. I mean Gee Dubya Shrub, whose evasions — a mixture of half-lies and outright lies — were on display again yesterday in his Rose Garden press conference. (Here’s the entire transcript.) His attempt to blame the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln […]

One brilliant writer I know who used to be a major sports columnist keeps telling me he has two novels in mind. This is someone who wrote four smart, densely literate columns a week at a minimum of 1,000 words each, for years. Try it some time, it ain’t easy. After Rupert Murdoch bought the paper […]

Nothing like a combination of nitrous oxide and Stan Getz to get the week off to a relaxing start, even if it had to begin this morning in the dentist’s chair. Anyway, getting back to reality … It’s well known that Molly Ivins has the president’s number. The current issue of Mother Jones reminds us […]

Nice to see one of our strongest political columnists continuing to appear in the arts and culture pages. I’m talking of course about Frank Rich, of The New York Times, who excoriated the Bush administration Sunday for its sublimely misguided efforts to manage the news, “Why Are We Back in Vietnam?” Loved it all, but […]

Charles Murray is stirring up trouble again. Emily Eakin reports in “A Cultural Scorecard Says West Is Ahead” that he says it’s not his intention. “But his record is hard to ignore.” Murray, the conservative co-author of “The Bell Curve,” which put the civilized world in an uproar when it professed that whites were smarter than blacks due to […]

Let’s end the week on an entertaining, not to say lascivious, note. Here it is: “My Vagina Monologue,” by George Gurley, which was the most amusing piece I read all week.

It’s about time: “Defying a threatened presidential veto, the Senate joined the House Thursday in moving to end four-decade-old restrictions on travel to Cuba.” Maybe sanity will prevail, and not the politics of South Florida, where Gee Dubya Shrub needs to curry favor with the Cuban emigré community for the next presidential election. I went […]

It’s no fun to start the day with computer troubles, which I’ve had all morning. Now that Tech Support has solved my problem, I’m hoping it can rescue a troubled world’s war-crime panel called the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission. Its problems are much greater than mine, according to a front-page story in today’s Wall Street Journal. […]

So now it’s official: The U.S. government believes Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl’s executioner was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged chief organizer of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Yet something about yesterday’s announcement smells fishy. As The Wall Street Journal noted in its news story yesterday: “Reports […]

As a recovering workaholic I took an unannounced day off yesterday. I’m also unprepared today. If the world were right side up, it would matter. But it’s not. So I’m relying on my old friend Skeets Gallagher to bring me around, and he’s no model of efficiency. Skeets is still catching up with last week’s […]

“Neglect Paul Krassner at your own risk.” So sayeth Skeets Gallagher. Krassner’s most recent Zen Bastard column in the New York Press, begins with a tidbit about Der Gropenfuhrer that must have had the Los Angeles Times eating its heart out. Krassner writes: Maybe I should start selling “I Told You So” t-shirts. Five years […]