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My fortnightly column in Salon.com is now out: “John McCain’s Arab-American Problem“. Excerpt: ‘ Arab-Americans do, however, have some distinctive concerns in common. They are more likely to care about the Iraq war and the Arab-Israeli peace process than other Americans. They are also particularly sensitive to racial profiling and assaults on civil liberties. That […]

Ben White writes from Nottingham, UK with a guest editorial: “I don’t like to use clichés, but this is really Orwellian”. So said my friend Hicham Yezza, speaking to me this weekend from Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre where he was being held awaiting deportation. Moved last night to Campsfield detention centre near Oxford, for “Hich”, […]

Liz Trotta, a veteran journalist who helped pioneer a place for women at the front as war correspondents, was being interviewed on Fox News on Sunday by Eric Shawn, when she commented on Hillary’s Clinton’s reference to RFK’s assassination: ‘ “And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off […]

Senator Clinton’s reference to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June of 1968 does not seem to me consequential, for all the brouhaha it has provoked. She was just saying that many previous primaries have gone on into June, including that of Bobby Kennedy before he was cut down. The idea that she was […]

John McCain actively sought and accepted the endorsement of pastor John Hagee. Breaking News: CNN is reporting that McCain has just repudiated Hagee, specifically over these remarks on Hitler as God-sent hunter of Jews. Now, what about Rod Parsely? Or is that OK? And, when will AIPAC, JINSA, etc. also repudiate Hagee and his ilk? […]

The Newshour with Jim Lehrer will be doing an Iraq segment this evening on the Public Broadcasting Service, and I will be one of the commentators.

After all that trouble George W. Bush caused with his foolish speech before the Israeli Knesset condemning negotiation with bad guys, it turns out that no one in the Middle East, including Israel, is paying the slightest attention to him. Even his own secretary of state seems to be disagreeing with him in public. Such […]

Zogby Polling has permitted the reprinting of the below. What I take away from it is that in a four-way race Nader would hurt Clinton more than he would hurt Obama, and Barr could be deadly for McCain. Reuters/Zogby find that Obama is starting to do better with the Democratic base than Clinton, and he […]

I find it a little eerie how closely the finale of the television program American Idol resembles the presidential race. Here you have an older male from the school of hard knocks; a younger, soulful man who inspires his peers; and a woman candidate who shows amazing resilience. In a way, both Idol and the […]