Outside the Beltway

A 2020 blowout has long been presumed. But maybe it won’t happen.

Moscow is playing a very strange game.

The competition is slowly ratcheting up.

Normalcy is not a bad thing.

Foreign policy makes strange bedfellows.

They’re stealing our secrets and working to undermine our elections.

A diplomatic nightmare brewing since last week is now upon us.

The West continues to close Moscow off.

A trailblazing diplomat has died at 84.

Ukraine’s leader wants more help than he’s going to get.

We can only hope.

The most likely outcome is not a happy one.

Strikes near the Polish border show the real possibility of escalation.

He’s tanned. He’s rested. Is he ready?

The disintegrating military situation is leading to escalating brutality.

The American President is once again leading the free world.

Pundits like Thomas Friedman struggle with premature prognostication.

NATO has stepped up in a pleasantly surprising way to resist the Ukraine invasion.

Putin’s forces are in Kyiv.

The first shoe has dropped.

The much-anticipated escalation has happened. Now to see how the United States and its allies respond.

His attacks are, in fact, the best case for tenure.

A pioneering Black actor is gone at 94.

The Rogue Warrior is gone at 81.

Not every argument can be tested on a Pinocchio scale.

A depressing magazine piece argues it is.

The first modern stand-up comedian has died at 94.

The trailblazing soldier-statesman has died at 84.

The collapse is not his doing. But he’s accountable for the poor planning.

A massive investment falls just short. This time.

Democrats and Independents are losing their enthusiasm. But some perspective is needed.

He was both the youngest and oldest man to run the Pentagon.

A meaningless gesture that’s long overdue.

“If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere.”

The President has overturned decades of US foreign policy and alienated a NATO ally for, well, reasons.

Those expecting Bernie Sanders’ agenda are sorely disappointed.

The fecklessness of U.S. human rights policy in full display.

Some reflections

The distance in accountability between the highest and the lowest must be shortened.

The longtime public servant has died, aged 100.

Biden’s America is a place and idea in which the trappings of empire or glory are ephemera in comparison with perennial human relationships—families; friendships; communities; schools; neighbors; partners.

Our enemies are getting more brazen and sophisticated in their cyber warfare.

The 46th President’s foreign policy team is taking shape.

The iconic actor best known as the original movie James Bond is dead at 90.

The iconoclastic journalist is out at the publication he founded.

The stakes of losing will be catastrophic. Either way.

What meanings might the Founders have had? How should we understand the term?

I couldn’t help myself.

Pondering lack of US interest in our friends to the south.

The National Security Advisor to Presidents Ford and GHW Bush has died.