Columns, pieces and posts
August changed things; it wasn’t just a bad month. It left a lingering, still head-shaking sense of “This isn’t how we do things.” We don’t make up withdrawal dates that will have symbolism for photo-ops with the flinty, determined president looking flinty and determined on the 20th anniversary of 9/11; we don’t time epic strategic […]
“For all sad words of tongue or pen, / The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’” I keep thinking of what happened at Tora Bora. What a richly consequential screw-up it was, and how different the coming years might have been, the whole adventure might have been, if we’d gotten it right. From the […]
The ends of things matter as much as the beginnings. This end was unworthy of an epic struggle. It was not a departure but an abandonment. We left carelessly, with incompetence that can hardly be imagined. Could there have been less planning and foresight? That’s what will follow Joe Biden now, his carelessness and, when […]
They’re all afraid of their base. That’s the central fact of American political life now, that leaders of all sorts aren’t leading their people but are terrified of getting crosswise with them. They’re afraid of their own fans. This is true of everyone from cable anchors and hosts who know exactly who’s watching and what […]
Let’s stop for a second to reflect on the state attorney general’s report in the case of Andrew Cuomo. I have read the 165 pages. It is a narrative about charges of sexual harassment that investigators found credible, and that were more numerous than expected. But there is a real Crazytown aspect to the story. […]
“It happened, move on.” “It wasn’t so bad.” “It was just a protest that got out of hand.” A lot of the rioters were screwballs in antlers—crazy uncles, unhappy sons. They didn’t even have a plan. They didn’t know what they were going to do in there. They just ran around and screamed. “Hang Mike […]
In the Democratic primary, which took place Tuesday, the candidates for mayor reflected competing party realities. Each brought a particular vibration. City Comptroller Scott Stringer was Abe Beame without the charisma. Former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia was the woman on the train working a hard job in the city, the kind of middle manager who […]
The word now is radicalized. So many people feel pushed to the edge and are pushing back. Go to social-media sites and search “school board meeting” adding descriptors like “explosive,” “outrage” and “chaos.” Parents are rising up. New York Democrats just picked an anticrime former cop as their mayoral nominee. Other signs that suggests a […]
America is a sharply divided place. The conservative world is divided, marked by the continued estrangement of old friends. There is the divide over Donald Trump, and the connected division between those open to conspiracism and those not. There are divides between those quietly fighting over policies that will determine the Republican Party’s future meaning […]
Here’s a statement that deserves amplification. Last week Bill Maher of HBO’s “Real Time” did a commentary on something he believes deeply destructive. Maher, who has described his politics as liberal, libertarian, progressive and practical, is a longtime and occasionally brave foe of wokeness in its extreme manifestations. He zeroed in on one aspect that […]