How Mom sent a guy to Gitmo

February 26, 2009

My mother is a terrorist!

We need a bailout too

February 19, 2009

Brother, can you spare $22 billion?

Wall Street's crybabies

February 12, 2009

You "can never be too rich or too thin," said the Duchess of Windsor, who was wrong on both counts.

'Finish the job' in Afghanistan? Where do we begin?

February 5, 2009

Is it finally time to "finish the job" in Afghanistan?

Obama's bold first week

January 29, 2009

Barack Obama ended four wars during his first week as president. With just a few words and strokes of his pen, the president ended the war on terror, the war on Islam, the war on science and the war on women.

Critics of Obama's speech missed his point -- inclusiveness

January 22, 2009

Keep quiet, please.

Bush was a uniter after all

January 15, 2009

Admit it -- you're gonna miss him.

The Gaza blame game

January 8, 2009

Israel can't bomb its way to peace

January 1, 2009

It's a new year in an old and bloody world.

Blagojevich's corruption: a warning for Democrats

December 11, 2008

How dumb can you get?

'War on terror' -- an exercise in folly

December 4, 2008

The Mumbai metropolitan area is home to an estimated 19 million people, but it took just 10 men to shut the city down.

Bush: forget the pardons

November 27, 2008

Don't pardon those turkeys, Mr. President.

Bush's land mines for Obama

November 20, 2008

You knew that W & Co. wouldn't go gently into that good night, didn't you?

If Dubai sneezes, who gets a cold?

November 13, 2008

So enough about the struggling middle class. In this global financial crisis, how are the really rich holding up?

Obama and the world

November 6, 2008

Hello, World!

Bush's booby traps for Obama

October 30, 2008

Ever since Joe Biden suggested that the world would "test" Barack Obama if he becomes president, the McCain campaign has been hoping to make political hay out of the remark. "We don't want a president who invites testing from the world," John McCain warned voters.

The 'real' America, really

October 23, 2008

Will the "real" America please stand up?

Obama's no troop-hater

October 19, 2008

Is Barack Obama a dishonorable troop-hater?

Thinking conservatives: MIAs of the GOP

October 16, 2008

Liberals haven't had so much fun in decades.

Obama's, and our, iceberg

October 9, 2008

'What don't you know, and how will you learn it?"

Time for an FDR moment

October 2, 2008

We established its basic contours in 1789, half forgot about it until the Civil War and Reconstruction, practically abolished it during the Gilded Age, remembered it again during the Depression and then, during the reign of Reagan the Great Communicator, forgot about it once more.

Keating 5 ring a bell?

September 25, 2008

Once upon a time, a politician took campaign contributions and favors from a friendly constituent who happened to run a savings and loan association. The contributions were generous: They came to about $200,000 in today's dollars, and on top of that there were several free vacations for the politician and his family, along with private jet trips and other perks. The politician voted repeatedly against congressional efforts to tighten regulation of S&Ls, and in 1987, when he learned that his constituent's S&L was the target of a federal investigation, he met with regulators in an effort to get them to back off.

Hey U.S., welcome to the Third World!

September 18, 2008

Dear United States, Welcome to the Third World!

Saving the economy, one face-lift at a time

September 11, 2008

Call them the forgotten victims of the economic slump.

Palin's secession flirtation

September 4, 2008

That John McCain -- he's such a maverick!

He's Barack Obama, not the messiah

August 28, 2008

Rejoice, Democrats. After all those months worrying about a train wreck at the Democratic National Convention, you can relax. Everyone in Denver is acting like a normal human being.

The Cold War, reheated

August 21, 2008

So you haven't liked the last couple of decades? Been longing for a simpler time, before text-messaging, Hannah Montana, the Global War on Terror and other total bummers?

Who got Georgia into this?

August 14, 2008

The Georgians have now been punished enough, declared Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday. Or maybe not. At press time, Russian tanks were reportedly rolling through the Georgian city of Gori, in violation of a cease-fire agreement. So there could be more punishment in store for the Georgians, who were stupid enough to imagine that if they picked a fight with Russia over the disputed region of South Ossetia, Uncle Sam would come riding to their rescue.

A new Condi, but who cares?

June 26, 2008

You've come a long way, baby.

It's your call, Hillary

March 6, 2008

Hillary? Hillary?

A Clinton twofer's high price

January 24, 2008

Whether you loved them or hated them, Bill and Hillary Clinton were always a twofer. On the campaign trail in 1992, Bill used to joke about it. Vote for me and get "two for the price of one," he chuckled. Plenty of Americans thought this wasn't such a bad idea. A bumper sticker popular at the time proclaimed: "I'm voting for Hillary's husband."

Torture's blame game

December 13, 2007

Who done it?

Good news on Bush's watch?

November 29, 2007

Peace in our time?

In Musharaff, Bush made the wrong friend

November 15, 2007

Oh, George. Why do you hate America?

Mukasey's black magic on torture

November 1, 2007

Maybe it was in honor of the Halloween season.

Too much cloak and swagger

October 11, 2007

Score one more for the White House, which may keep its secrets to the bitter end.

Outsourcing foreign policy

September 21, 2007

WAR FOR SALE -- CHEAP! Somewhat tarnished but still offers significant profit-making opportunities for the entrepreneurial. Inquire at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. Additional components of U.S. foreign policy also for sale (including, but not limited to, intelligence gathering, humanitarian assistance and counter-terrorism).

The shrinking Bush bubble

September 7, 2007

The president is a lonely man. Once, he was surrounded by admirers and acolytes. There was Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell and Alberto Gonzales and Condi Rice and Karl Rove -- many of them better known inside the White House by the affectionate but often unprintable nicknames assigned by their playful president. (Rove, you'll recall, was "Turd Blossom.") Yale University forgave Bush's mediocre student record and gave him an honorary degree in 2001, and bright young Yale law graduates at the Justice Department struggled to acquire Texas drawls and develop legal rationales for White House criminality.

Succeeding by withdrawing

August 31, 2007

What? You want us pundits to stop complaining about what a mess the Bush administration has made in Iraq, and say something constructive for a change?

Bush's next invasion: Vietnam?

August 24, 2007

Re-invade Vietnam!

Heroism and the language of fascism

August 3, 2007

'Everyone's a hero, everyone's a star," sings Jon Bon Jovi on his 2005 album, "Have a Nice Day." It's an insipid song, but a fitting anthem for what has become a thoroughly insipid age.

A really bad case of 'reality'

July 20, 2007

REALITY mugs us all, in the end.

Clear-eyed questions about Iraq

July 13, 2007

TIME'S up.

Shame on Bush -- and us

July 6, 2007

THE MEDIA'S Stockholm syndrome finally seems to be wearing off.

How immigrants improve the curve

June 29, 2007

'THE IMPACT of immigration — legal and illegal — on jobs, schools, healthcare, the environment, national security, are all very serious problems," insists Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a man famed for his extreme anti-immigration views. "But more serious than all of them put together is this threat to the culture. I believe we are in a clash of civilizations." Tancredo's right about that last bit. We are in a clash of civilizations — and someday, immigrant culture may even displace some aspects of American culture.

Hillary's tone-deaf campaign

June 22, 2007

AFTER MUCH trumped-up suspense, Hillary Clinton's campaign announced this week — via a YouTube spoof of the last episode of "The Sopranos" — that the votes are in.

United, not divided -- against Bush

June 15, 2007

YOU KNOW YOU'VE got a problem when only the Albanians welcome you with open arms — and even then you need to take your watch off to keep them from stealing it.

The good, the bad and the prosecuted

May 25, 2007

Last week, in a news cycle dominated by Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales' latest woes, the conviction and sentencing of Lt. Cmdr. Matthew M. Diaz made hardly a ripple. On May 17, Diaz was found guilty of leaking secret information about Guantanamo detainees. According to prosecutors, Diaz was intent on aiding enemies of the United States and endangering U.S. troops.

The GOP's torture enthusiasts

May 18, 2007

IT WASN'T AN edifying spectacle: a group of middle-aged white guys competing with one another to see who could do the best impersonation of Jack Bauer, torture enthusiast and the central character on Fox's hit show "24."

The terrorist we tolerate

May 11, 2007

LIKE PIRATES, terrorists are supposedly hostis humani generis — the "enemy of all mankind." So why is the Bush administration letting one of the world's most notorious terrorists stroll freely around the United States?

Sweet Jesus I love Bill O'Reilly!

May 4, 2007

POOR BILL O'REILLY! Members of the vast left-wing conspiracy really can't stand him. They denounce him, they mock him, and now the final indignity: They study him as a lab specimen.

9/11 was bad, but ...

April 27, 2007

ARE WE A NATION of irrational wimps? Rudy Giuliani thinks so. On Tuesday, he claimed that if we elect a Democrat to the presidency, we should expect more 9/11-style attacks. This, he assumes, is enough to scare the pants off the voting public and send them scurrying frantically off to support Republicans such as … well, Rudy Giuliani.

We're not all victims

April 20, 2007

FIVE DAYS after the Virginia Tech massacre, the friends and families of the victims are grieving — and despite the relentless glare of the media spotlight, their pain is still private. It belongs to them, not to the rest of us.

To the rest of the world, we're cheapskates

April 13, 2007

SEX! MONEY! FAME! POWER!

Bring on the Iraq micromanagers

April 6, 2007

FACED WITH congressional bills setting timelines for the redeployment of combat troops from Iraq, the president and his dwindling band of supporters have been complaining bitterly about lawmakers' efforts to "micromanage" the war.

What impeccable timing, KSM!

March 16, 2007

Rosa Brooks will chat live Friday, March 16, noon Pacific time at latimes.com/rosabrookschat.

The lunatic right returns

March 2, 2007

IF YOU HATED IT the first time, you might like the sequel better.

America tortures (yawn)

February 23, 2007

IT WAS MUCH LIKE the usual Nigerian e-mail scam, but it had a dispiriting twist.

Insurgents -- they buy American

February 16, 2007

ACCORDING TO the defense lawyers at his trial, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby didn't lie to investigators about his role in outing covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. He was just so darn busy with pressing national security matters that he kept forgetting the chummy chats about Plame he'd had with NBC's Tim Russert and Time magazine's Matt Cooper — not to mention his two-hour lunch on the same subject with Judith Miller (late of the New York Times).

Kiss a baby then, support our troops now

February 9, 2007

POLITICIANS USED TO kiss babies, but in these days of terrorism and war, babies have gone out of style. Today's most coveted political accessory? An active-duty member of the American military. "Our troops" are the new babies.

The Dubya Vinci code

January 26, 2007

I COULD MAKE nothing of it until I got to the bit about Baby Einstein.

Those ingrate Iraqis

January 19, 2007

'HOW SHARPER than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!" complained Shakespeare's King Lear. But Lear didn't know from ingratitude. Think it stings to have a thankless child? Just try the sting of a thankless occupied nation!

How Republicans win if we lose in Iraq

January 12, 2007

IF YOU THINK the growing similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is tragic but inadvertent, you're not being cynical enough.

Weaning the military from the GOP

January 5, 2007

BURIED IN THE NEWS last week was one of the most potentially significant stories of recent years. The Military Times released its annual poll of active-duty service members, and the results showed something virtually unprecedented: a one-year decline of 10 percentage points in the number of military personnel identifying themselves as Republicans. In the 2004 poll, the percentage of military respondents who characterized themselves as Republicans stood at 60%. By the end of 2005, that had dropped to 56%. And by the end of 2006, the percentage of military Republicans plummeted to 46%.

How Bush can make Iraq disappear

December 22, 2006

NO ONE LOVES HIM.

Barack's ready

December 15, 2006

SO WHY not Barack Obama?

An SAT for citizenship

December 8, 2006

GOOD NEWS, fellow citizens: The federal government has created a new standardized test!

Rosa Brooks: Abandon Iraq to save it

December 1, 2006

CONDITIONS IN IRAQ grow more appalling each day, and a substantial majority of Iraqis now believe that the continued presence of U.S. troops is a major cause of the ongoing carnage. Despite this, supporters of the Bush administration continue to insist that if we withdraw U.S. troops, we'll be "abandoning" Iraq.

Rosa Brooks: The GOP's short-lived humility

November 17, 2006

THEY GOT HUMBLE on Nov. 8 — and stayed that way for four whole days, until President Bush announced that he was resubmitting the nomination of John "Mustache of Death" Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

Rosa Brooks: Was Kerry right?

November 3, 2006

SINCE John Kerry "botched" a joke and implied that those without education "get stuck in Iraq," political leaders from both parties have been piously describing U.S. troops as valiant young Einsteins in desert camouflage. But deep down, a lot of them probably think Kerry is right.

Rosa Brooks: The Google Catches Bush

October 27, 2006

UNLIKE HIS DAD, whose apparent befuddlement over a supermarket checkout scanner helped lose him the presidency, George W. Bush is one tech-savvy guy. He told CNBC this week that he sometimes goes "on the Google … to pull up maps like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes."

Rosa Brooks: Hillary Hits Bottom

October 20, 2006

HAS HILLARY CLINTON been watching too many episodes of "24," or is she just determined to prove that she really is entirely without principles?

Rosa Brooks: A Good Week for the Axis of Evil

October 13, 2006

THERE WAS good news and bad news for authoritarians this week.

Rosa Brooks: Grand Old Party of Child Endangerment

October 6, 2006

THE FAMOUSLY effective GOP messaging machine has broken down.

Rosa Brooks: I'm No Bush Hater

September 29, 2006

ARE YOU A Bush hater, so blinded by "primal" loathing for the president that you automatically dismiss everything he says or does?

Rosa Brooks: Our Torturer-in-Chief

September 22, 2006

WE DON'T torture detainees, President Bush has repeatedly insisted; we just make use of lawful "alternative procedures" of interrogation.

Rosa Brooks: Students, Beware Professor Osama

September 15, 2006

WITH SEPTEMBER upon us, it's time to reflect on that perennially popular back-to-school activity, Bash the Professors.

Rosa Brooks: Do You Feel Safer?

September 8, 2006

FIVE YEARS after 9/11, the Bush administration has run out of troops, ideas and political capital. But there's still plenty of Kool-Aid in the White House fridge.