Tikun Olam-תקון עול×: Make the World a Better Place

When the NY Times published a Barack Obama op-ed on Iraq the McCain campaign asked for equal time.  But after submitting his copy, the candidate became peeved when the editors asked him to revise it and add more substance.  He refused and figured he’d get some good mileage out of it with his conservative base: [...]

Barack Obama made what most people would consider an entirely reasonable claim:
“…Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,†Mr. Obama said in Springfield, Mo., echoing earlier remarks. “You know, he’s not patriotic [...]

Today, Barack Obama made his required political stop at the Yad Vashem Museum to memorialize the six million victims of the Shoah.  While there he recommitted himself to ensuring the survival of the State of Israel invoking the phrase “Never Again.”
It’s unfortunate that a slogan first popularized by Meir Kahane has been absorbed into the [...]

John McCain is trying to paint Barack Obama into a corner regarding the question of whether Osama bin Laden deserves due process if or when U.S forces capture him. Leaving aside the fact that McCain’s good buddies Bush and Cheney haven’t been able to capture him for seven years despite their “best” efforts, perhaps [...]

Obama addresses AIPAC (Doug Mills/NYT)
Events transpired to transform a potentially awkward speech by Barack Obama to the AIPAC national policy conference into a candidate coming-out party, as he won the Democratic nomination the day before. AIPAC’s leadership had been so concerned they sent out a blanket e mail to members reminding them that they [...]

The Guardian reports a promising new development in Barack Obama’s policy toward Cuba:
Barack Obama today urged a thaw in the US embargo on the island nation and released an ambitious plan for Latin America. Obama threw a confident jab at Republican rival John McCain, who visited south Florida last week to accuse the likely Democratic [...]

As I write this at 12:50AM east coast time, 95% of Indiana is in and Obama is losing by around 16,000 votes (just over 1% margin). The remaining votes are coming from the region around Gary, IN. which heavily favors Obama. So it’s likely the final margin of victory will be even closer–perhaps [...]

I’m jealous of Phil Weiss. He gets to interview Zbigniew Brzezinski and gets paid to write about it! In his latest blog post, Phil informs us that while Barack Obama may not be for Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brzezinski sure likes Obama. I agree with Phil that Brzezinski presents an utterly compelling case for [...]

In the Barack Obama-Jeremiah Wright affair, a tragedy of sorts is playing itself out before our eyes. We have the first African-American presidential candidate in American history who has a serious chance of capturing the nomination of his party and the presidency itself.
Because of this, there is an underlying nervousness among Americans about what [...]

My new Comment is Free post, Giving Up the Golan, was published today. It calls on President Bush to engage with Syria and Israel to jump start a negotiating process that would lead to peace. And if Bush fails to lead, it calls for the presidential candidates to call Bush to task for [...]