Recent articles: Salon, Daily Beast, Guardian

I have a piece up on The Daily Beast today seeking to explain the appeal of Nick Clegg, the leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, to an American readership. The article’s appearance reminded me that I have written several pieces for U.S. media in recent months, and not referenced them here.

For Salon, I wrote about Charlie Crist’s floundering Senate campaign back in early March and, later, about the search for a GOP presidential candidate — maybe John Thune or Mitch Daniels — who might appeal to the party’s intellectuals. (There is another Republican-themed Salon piece in the works, and it should appear within the next week or so.)

For the Daily Beast, I took a contrarian stance on British prime minister Gordon Brown’s allegedly bullying behavior and also gave my thoughts on the end of an era in Northern Ireland. Both articles appeared in February.

Finally, I defended the education policies of Barack Obama and Arne Duncan from the criticisms of the teachers’ unions in a March piece for the Guardian’s Comment is Free site.

In the unlikely event that anyone cares why I am supplying links rather than reprinting the articles in their entirety, as I have done in the past, a simple explanation: Most of the articles I have previously reprinted originally appeared in newspapers or magazines. I’ve decided — not withstanding the fact that I reprinted a previous Daily Beast column on Hillary Clinton on this site — that it is probably fairer to web-only outlets like Salon or the Daily Beast to simply provide the links.

Thanks for reading…

End of Year Update

The last day of 2010 seems like a good time to update the site.
For Salon, I spoke to Ron Paul about his thoughts on making a 2012 presidential election bid. If Paul does not run, Gary Johnson may well emerge as the libertarian standard-bearer. The piece also includes Johnson’s comments.
Also for Salon, Steny Hoyer told [...]

New Update: Salon, New Republic, Irish Times

It’s time for another update of assorted articles from recent months.
Judging from the reaction it received on Salon’s website, I suspect this profile of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson may be the most-read article I’ve written in quite a while. Although the profile appeared back in May, The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf gave his own [...]

New Year, New Update

I updated the website for the first time in a while today, with a selection of articles from the last months of 2009. It is impossible within the site’s current framework to post everything I write, so, under the “Most Recent” heading on the Print page, I have posted a general grab-bag, including: an Irish [...]

The Case For Obama’s Nobel Prize

The committee has a tradition of selecting winners as much as an act of encouragement towards their goal as a celebration of the miles already travelled.

Nick Hornby book review (WSJ)

“Juliet, Naked” is a rich and perceptive novel, with a keen sense of the lives led by the trio at its core.