Outside the Beltway

Lost in the hubbub of S&P downgrading the US bond rating is news that the Italian government has the ratings agencies under criminal investigation.

Upon further review, S&P’s downgrade of the United States bond rating . . . still makes no sense.

The world is starting to denounce the crackdown in Syria, but the reaction seems unlikely to go much beyond strongly worded statements.

A take on the conflict that’s probably different from the one you’ve been reading.

My latest piece for The Atlantic, “Is the U.S.-European Relationship Really in Decline?” is posted.

James Arness, best known as the iconic Marshal Dillon on Gunsmoke, has died at 88.

A bizarre legal case from Italy.

Humorous take on America’s wars.

John Kerry’s Washington Post op-ed supports U. S. leadership in establishing a no-fly zone in Libya.

Frank Jacobs explains how “in German, you can tell with some degree of certainty which general area someone hails from by the way they tell the time at quarter past ten.”

Today’s Foreign Desk includes comments on Brazil’s floods, developments in Ivory Coast, and Silvio Berlusconi’s sex scandal.

The lawyer who argued The Pentagon Papers case points out how Julian Assange is not Daniel Ellsberg, and how prosecuting him could have disastrous results for press freedom in the United States.

A capsule look at the world situation as 2010 draws to a close.

Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta is the first living recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War.

Ross Douthat’s latest New York Times column demonstrates an appalling misunderstanding of history in the context of immigration.