Outside the Beltway

Many people seem to have a rather inappropriate view of their relationship to the President of the United States.

Not surprisingly, the last man to lead the Soviet Union believes we’d be better off if it still existed.

Like many Republicans before him, Newt Gingrich is trying to claim the mantle of Reagan. He is the one least entitled to it.

This time, it was Newt Gingrich who walked away unscathed from a Republican Presidential debate.

Don’t believe the fear mongering about the coming decreases in the growth of defense spending.

Could Newt Gingrich really become the Republican nominee? Stranger things have happened.

I liveblogged and tweeted my instant, mostly snarky, reaction to the CNN foreign policy debate. Here are some more fully formed thoughts.

With the Super Committee dead, 2012 is likely to see a fight over the defense cuts set to take place starting in 2013.

How did Republicans get in this mess?

“Democratic” pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen argue that President Obama should decline to run for re-election.

Why we shouldn’t be surprised that police are using tools of violence against protestors.

Thomas Ricks posts several recommendations for fixing the Army. Most of them are really, really stupid.

The Republican candidates for President have been mostly silent about foreign policy issues. That changes starting tonight.

It’s the 5% versus the 1% moreso than the 99% against the 1%.

Have Republicans been co-opted by the Big Government they claim to hate?

Herman Cain’s foreign policy consists of little more than deliberate ignorance.

Like clockwork, the arguments for creation of a third party are popping up again.

Debating proposed changes to the US military’s retirement system.

When the old rules don’t apply anymore, the system breaks down.

During last night’s debate, Mitt Romney repeated a charge that has become part of the conservative zeitgeist. But is it true?

A new poll shows that Americans are starting to look East.

Does Bachmann think the USSR is on the rise? I expect not, but her defense and fiscal policy skills still need some work.

Examining the impact of current events requires stepping back from them just a little bit.

Joseph Nye explains why China’s “demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets” is really just talk.

Watching the news and reading the op-eds makes it clear: America is doomed.

Former Oregon governor and long-time US Senator Mark Hatfield has died.

The defense spending lobby is already engaging in fear-mongering over very modest defense cuts.

The cuts to Pentagon spending in the new debt deal are further revealing a split in the GOP over foreign policy and military spending.

It is always useful to go inside the numbers.

A legendary American soldier, General John Shalikashvili, has died.

One of the GOP’s staunchest media allies isn’t too impressed with their Balanced Budget Amendment.

Thomas Ricks makes the case that JFK was the worst President of his century but his argument misses the mark.

Tim Pawlenty’s foreign policy speech shows him siding with the hawks, and joining in the neocon distortion of Reagan’s legacy.

One foreign policy analyst argues that President Obama should look to Nixon’s Vietnam withdrawal strategy for ideas on Afghanistan.

For the first time since the end of World War II, the GOP is wrestling with two diametrically opposed visions of foreign affairs.

Left-wing religious groups are firing salvos against the Republican Party on the basis of Ayn Rand’s “anti-Christian” influence.

The jobs market has been weak for much longer than just the past two years.

While President Obama has had some amusing gaffes on his trip to London, including getting the year wrong in the guest book and an awkward toast to the Queen, his speech to Parliament today hit all the right notes.

Part of a speech that Mitch Daniels made in 2009 is setting off a firestorm among some conservative bloggers.

Once again, Congressional abdication has led to an Executive Branch power grab.

Newt Gingrich says the coming presidential election will be the most important since the Civil War.

Elias Isquith proclaims my Atlantic essay “How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology” to be “a total disaster.”

Matt Eckel’s takeaway from my Atlantic piece on How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology is that we need a peer competitor.

The 60 day deadline for Presidential discretion under the War Powers Act will expire next week. Congress won’t do anything about it.

Why the United States has found itself in a seemingly endless series of wars over the past two decades.

An aide’s compliment about the president “leading from behind” has generated controversy.