I’ve been closely monitoring the political situation here in Canada as events have unfolded over the past several days. Rarely are our politics so exciting. I’ve written two articles for The Guardian, the first with some background and an overview of the situation, the second a response to yesterday’s developments (specifically, the governor general agreeing to Prime Minister Harper’s request to prorogue (or suspend) Parliament (so as to avoid a confidence motion). You can...

Over the weekend, my friend Grace noted that “there [were] rumblings that two of [Canada's federal] opposition parties, the Liberals and New Democrats, [were] in the process of brokering a deal to throw out the Tories and form a coalition government with the support of the Bloc Québécois.” (Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, or “Tories,” won the most seats in October’s election, but they only won a minority and so formed, or re-formed, a minority...

As you’ve surely heard by now, it looks as though Obama will ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain at the Pentagon for at least a year, if not longer. We’ll see if the anonymous sources are right. I suspect they are. This has been rumoured for some time, after all, and, as far as I know, no other names (e.g., Nunn) have been leaked or floated. As I put it a couple of weeks ago, this is not change I can believe in. Why? Because it’s not change at all. Yes, I understand that...

As you may have heard, President Bush yesterday issued 14 pardons and commuted 2 sentences. This is what presidents do near the end of their terms, and Bush is no exception. (Make sure to read Jazz Shaw’s excellent post from earlier today on presidential pardons, for and against, which includes an examination of Hamilton’s Federalist 74.) According to the Times, there are “2,000 pending petitions,” but there were no big names among the 16. Bush commuted Scooter Libby’s...

Did you happen to catch Rumsfeld’s op-ed in the Times on Saturday? And did you happen to read it? I won’t blame you if you didn’t — who cares what Rumsfeld thinks about anything at this point? — but, believe it or not, once you get past the pro-Bush, pro-Iraq Surge self-aggrandizing, he actually had some interesting, and correct, things to say about what is needed in Afghanistan. Specifically, he argues that success in Afghanistan will not be achieved “with the...

Very busy day today, which explains a lack of posting on my part, but let me refer you to an interesting article in the Times: As Taboos Ease, Saudi Girl Group Dares to Rock It’s about an all-girl rock group in a country that doesn’t much care for girls or rock: They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom. But the members of Saudi Arabia’s...

If you’re already thinking ahead to 2012 — and, honestly, who isn’t? — check out Chris Cillizza’s post at The Fix on “ten Republicans to watch.” The big names, of course, are Palin, Romney, and Huckabee, but only Romney makes the list, and rightly so. As I have said before, I think Palin’s star will fade markedly over the next few years. Huckabee will continue to be a leading figure among the theocrats, but I suspect Republicans will go for old-fashioned...

Democratic challenger Al Franken seems to be narrowing the gap, but there’s still a long way to go. Here’s the latest from the Star Tribune: The U.S. Senate recount continued Thursday without major glitches across Minnesota, as tabulators and the volunteers watching them settled into an increasingly familiar routine of thumbing, counting and sorting. With about 46 percent of the 2.9 million ballots counted by Thursday evening, the gap between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and DFL...

Well, the first part of that is true if not the second. At long last, the presidential election is over. The last remaining state to be decided, Missouri, has been declared a win for McCain. It’s still unofficial, but CNN has called it: “According to the unofficial results, McCain won the state by 3,632 votes. The unofficial count shows McCain with 1,445,812 votes, or 49.4 percent, and Obama with 1,442,180 votes, or 49.3 percent.” Which makes you wonder: Is Missouri no longer the...

In case you missed it, Al Qaeda’s #2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has issued a video statement directed at President-elect Obama: You have reached the position of president, and a heavy legacy of failure and crimes awaits you. A failure in Iraq to which you have admitted, and a failure in Afghanistan to which the commanders of your army have admitted. The statement, as you might expect, also criticizes Obama for his support for Israel and for being “captive to the same criminal American mentality...

Please check out Michael Kavanagh’s “Five Million Dead and Counting” at Slate, a reporter’s account of the ongoing civil war and atrocities in North Kivu, an eastern province of the Congo: There are now more than 1 million displaced people scattered throughout the province. In the last 10 years of fighting, more than 5 million people have died in the Congolese conflict — mostly civilians who haven’t had access to enough food or health care because of the fighting....

Duke political scientist David Rohde had an interesting piece at The New Republic yesterday on why the Democrats are much better off today because of Kerry’s loss to Bush in ‘04. Basically, Rohde’s argument goes, “had Bush lost in 2004, the Democrats simply wouldn’t be anywhere near as powerful as they are now.” Kerry and Edwards would have faced “a hostile GOP Congress” unwilling to support their legislative agenda and, at best, they would have been...

There has been much speculation — it has been reported, through anonymous sources, that Obama discussed the job with Hillary at their meeting in Chicago last week, and Bill is apparently being vetted with respect to his many international dealings and connections — and now one newspaper (and one newspaper alone), Britain’s Guardian, is reporting that Hillary will accept Obama’s offer. Or will she? The Guardian does not identify any sources. It has simply “learned”...

According to the NYT, “President-elect Barack Obama’s advisers have begun reviewing former President Bill Clinton’s finances and activities to see whether they would preclude the appointment of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as secretary of state.” I still think Obama is serious about this (and should be) — and that he and Hillary could form an effective “Team of Allies.” It isn’t just for show. And yet… Questions abound — and TNR’s...

I must admit, Sarah Palin sounds better (or reads better) when she’s speaking to her fellow Republican governors about “conservative solutions to these economic challenges” than when she’s stirring up vicious mobs at hate-filled rallies on the campaign trail. Not that I approve of “conservative solutions,” but at least she was coherent today. Besides, I’m not entirely against “the federalist principle” (whether in the U.S. or here in Canada)....

Obama and Hillary met in Chicago yesterday and apparently discussed what role she might play in Obama’s administration. Secretary of State remains at the top of the rumour mill, and, as I put it earlier today, although I would prefer Kerry for the job, strictly in terms of policy considerations, I am certainly intrigued by the idea of Hillary and Obama working together, if that is possible (and if she wouldn’t overshadow him), to chart a new course for U.S. foreign policy. Steve Clemons...

Democrat Mark Begich overtook Republican/felon Ted Stevens late yesterday, at one point holding a lead of just three votes, and he has expanded his lead as the counting continues. As the Anchorage Daily News is reporting (and CNN and Alaska Elections have the same numbers), Begich is now up by 814 — “132,196 to 131,382 — with the state still to count roughly 40,000 more ballots over the next week.” In percentage terms, it’s Begich 47.41, Stevens 47.12. Sean Quinn at...

With the election now over, pretty much, I really don’t want to waste much time on as loathsome a creature as Sarah Palin. I wrote about her extensively during the campaign, but what I may not have expressed explicitly — though it was certainly there implicitly — was my utter contempt for her. There are few political figures I despise as much as I came to despise her. She is, as I put it, an ignorant thug and an arrogant twit. Simply put, she was, given her place on the presidential...

Well, it now seems that both Obama and Durbin want Lieberman to remain as chair of the Homeland Security Committee, at least according to Newsweek’s Howard Fineman. It has been reported that Obama wants Lieberman to remain in the Democratic caucus, but it hasn’t been clear whether or not he wants him to keep his chairmanship. It has also been reported that Durbin wanted him to be stripped of his chairmanship. Meanwhile, the Politico is reporting that some Democratic senators — including...

As the presidential campaign was nearing its end, as the Republicans were getting more and more desperate amid prospects of doom, the McCain-Palin fear- and smear-mongering focused not just on Obama’s “socialism” but on how horrible so-called “one-party rule” would be for the country. McCain himself put it this way: “We’re getting a glimpse of what one-party rule would look like under Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. Apparently it starts with lowering our defenses...

I’ve been focusing much of my attention lately on the still-unresolved Senate races in Minnesota and Alaska, but, lest we forget, there is still one undecided state in the presidential election: Missouri. Here’s the latest: [T]he vote count in Missouri is tightening. Republican John McCain’s statewide lead has shrunk to fewer than 5,000 votes, as various counties have recounted and revised their totals from last Tuesday’s election. Since Election Day, Obama has gained almost...

The WSJ is reporting that “Obama is leaning toward asking Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain in his position for at least a year, according to two Obama advisers. A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates would likely accept the offer if it is made.” I’m sorry, but that’s not change I can believe in. (To those of you who think I’m now turning on Obama because he’s not progressive enough, I’m not. It’s just that I’m not so rigidly ideological...

In addition to Frank Rich’s fine NYT column, about which I wrote here, there was a lot of good stuff to read yesterday — and reading was what I was doing to try to to take my mind off the Steelers’ loss to the Colts, a game they should have won but let slip away. (I’m looking at you, Big Ben. Thanks for the interceptions, the first two at terrible times in the game. And thanks also to Bruce Ariens, offensive coordinator, for those predictable and uninspired play calls when...

The Minnesota Senate race, now in its post-election is nothing if not intriguing. I wrote yesterday evening that Coleman’s margin over Franken had narrowed to just 239. Well, it was down this morning to 204, according to the Star Tribune (via Chait), and CNN now has it at 206. Which is truly remarkable, given that almost 2.9 million votes were cast (or have been counted so far), including 437,389 for independent candidate (and Ventura supporter) Dean Barkley. As of right now — 3:30 pm...

At The New Republic today, Jonathan Cohn argues that has actually accomplished a great deal as president, from overhauling the tax code to reforming education to gutting the regulatory state to rewriting “long-standing doctrine on foreign policy and human rights” to launching “a war that overthrew a dictator, destabilized a region, and committed the U.S. to an occupation whose end is still unknown.” Put another way, Bush has been a profoundly transformational president, achieving...