As a democracy, we tend to know a lot about our problems and weaknesses than a dictatorship. So when we compare ourselves to China it is easy to overestimate China and underestimate the U.S. I often wonder what that comparison looks like from the perspective of China’s leader, Xi Jinping. China has a lot of

Something you run across in all of Donald Trump’s legal difficulties is that Trump is usually the key witness against himself. Whether he is being impeached, sued or prosecuted criminally, there is usually something in the record or on tape that Trump has said that gets him in trouble. This audio tape of him showing

Screenwriter William Goldman said that about Hollywood’s ability to determine what might be a successful movie and what might bomb. That is hyperbole. But it is true about a lot of things, like Russia and Putin. There is a tendency to think of these guys as master strategists. We have heard for years how clever

I first heard Daniel Ellsberg when he was on the lam in June 1971, 52 years ago next week, after the Pentagon Papers were published in the New York Times, the Washington Post and other papers. He was in a secret location, being interviewed by Walter Cronkite. Ellsberg passed away today at 92. I was

I am not surprised that the documents rap is the most serious legal problem Donald Trump faces. i went to the archives once to do some research nearly 30 years ago for my masters thesis. The archives is not a library. You hand over all your pens and notebooks and they put them in a

I feel like the Republican Party is headed for a 1964 moment in 13 months. The 2024 Republican Convention will be held in July ’24. It will be something. In 1964, the party’s base was supporting the very conservative (for 1964) Sen. Barry Goldwater to run against President Lyndon Johnson. The convention was at the

In yesterday’s Sunday comics, Peanuts had a baseball joke. Lucy is aggravating Charlie Brown on the mound and he asks in the last panel, “I wonder if I could trade her to Charlie Finley.” Peanuts comics are reruns of what Charles Schulz drew for 50 years until he passed away in 2000. He usually didn’t

I have become the village idiot. I have become the father of the bride.My daughter is getting married in 250 days, give or take. In popular culture, the FOTB is a comical figure, someone who stands by in bewilderment as the arrangements and drama swirl around him, aware that there are impressive financial consequences in the