If bloggers are to improve our public discourse - helping busy and usually uninformed people make sense of the world - it is necessary to use some sort of standard with which to judge their reliability. Perhaps the answer (strictly advisory) is a body of their peers. Perhaps not.

Obama, like Carter, is reacting to warning signs by seeking to split the difference between dispirited Democrats and increasingly radicalized Republicans.

The war on terrorism was a bait and switch operation.

Liberals do not appear to address potential solutions with anything like the far right's aura of God-given self-confidence.

Certainly there are worse sins than doing everything possible to make your presidency matter.

History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse.

As with almost every significant aspect of the Bush presidency, its handling of 9/11 was a catastrophe from start to finish.