GUADALAJARA, Mexico — While campaigning last April in the National Action Party (PAN) heartland of Los Altos, a dry region east of Guadalajara known for tequila distilling, blue-eyed inhabitants and conservative-Catholic politics, candidate Felipe Calderon scheduled a youth rally, an event that inadvertently highlighted his biggest shortcoming: a lack of charisma. Jaded members of the national press core — who had already been riding the PAN campaign bus for three months and had barely reached the halfway point of their sojourn — described him as gris (gray), a Spanish expression for dull. As he entered the boisterous auditorium that Sunday [...]
All the sound and fury over Iraq in advance of the American midterm elections signifies nothing. The United States has been reacting to events — not dictating them — since shortly after the U.S. military seized Baghdad three and a half years ago. President Bush’s press conference Oct. 25 was a political gesture designed to convince the electorate that he is not terminally detached from Iraq’s brutal reality. His relatively clear-eyed description of violence and sectarian divisions were a long-form version of his decision to ban “stay the course” from his vocabulary. But Bush did not unveil a new policy [...]
Gaza is close to exploding into war. The only major issue appears to be which will come first — a new war with Israel or a Hamas-Fatah civil war. With crushing domestic pressure on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in the wake of foreign aid cuts — the result of Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist — Hamas and other terrorist groups have been smuggling an unprecedented level of weaponry into Gaza from Egypt. But any move by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led PA and set up an emergency government — thereby defusing the growing [...]
