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Monthly Archives: February 2012
American Republic – A Theory and Defense of Politics
Following years working or covering politics at one level or another I began to read political theory and political philosophy to try to build a theoretical foundation for my practical experience. I had long been frustrated by the expanding gulf … Continue reading
Faith, Politics and “The West Wing”
I always felt that for all its other traits “The West Wing” was in secret an extended essay on the political experience. I know who work in the arena must have shared this notion, if only psychically, with one another. … Continue reading
Nowa Huta and the Political Aesthetic
In the fall of 2009 I visited Krakow, the ancient capital of Poland, with a NATO delegation. This allowed me to visit an extraordinary experiment mounted by the Communist government in the late 1940s. On the outskirts of Krakow, in … Continue reading
Your Inalienable Right to Rock
The recent death of the dissident playwright and Czech President Vaclav Havel reminded me again how badly misunderstood politics and power are in the waning age of totalitarian regimes. I wrote about Havel’s attempts to galvanize the opposition in Czechoslovakia … Continue reading
History as a Presence
While living and working in Memphis, Tennessee, I moonlighted as a book reviewer for the local broadsheet, the Commercial Appeal. In retrospect I’m amazed I was able to do it, now in a time when The Washington Post no longer … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Books
Tagged diaries, Konin, Poland, Rwanda, Stalin, thought police
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Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Politics
I have worked in politics at virtually every level — local, state, federal and international — for nearly my entire career. For much of my adult life I have been unable to shake the intuition that the common conception of … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, The Former Yugoslavia
Tagged hannah arendt, western political philosophy
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War, Truth and Justice in the Balkans
As a law student studying in an appalling banlieue satellite campus of the University of Paris in 2000, I quite by accident stumbled across a book by Pierre Hazan on the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. Published that year as La … Continue reading
The Secret History of Watergate
As a reporter for UCLA’s Daily Bruin I wrote about a New York Times op-ed published after the 1993 death of H.R. “Bob” Haldeman by fellow UCLA alumnus Clancy Sigal. In the article, Sigal revealed a campus controversy that embroiled … Continue reading
Posted in Politics and Political Theory, Watergate
Tagged bob haldeman, john ehrlichman, watergate affair
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The Only Game in Town
Fifteen years ago as a cub reporter for the Daily News in Memphis, Tennessee, I noticed something nobody else seemed to care much about. Just south of the city, in Tunica County, Mississippi, the largest expansion of the casino gambling … Continue reading
