The Washington Times

Leaders of NATO’s 19 member countries meet in Prague this week, the main purpose of which is to extend invitations to join the trans-Atlantic alliance to seven Central and Eastern European nations: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. I have long been an enthusiast for this project, as readers of this column already know. I also understand that enthusiasm of this sort is and has been baffling to many people, including some foreign affairs specialists who, from the beginning, have feared that enlargement was far richer in the potential for harm to the United States than in the potential for good.

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The Washington Times

Last week’s election, the midterm of a first presidential term, was “supposed” to produce gains for the party opposing the White House. That was also “supposed” to happen in 1998, but didn’t. In 2000, Al Gore was “supposed” to win big thanks to the strength of the economy, according to every political science model on the market. Maybe the time has come to throw out all of the popular generalizations about elections.

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The Washington Times

Five days, 15 states, 17 campaign rallies: George W. Bush’s near-frenetic schedule in the run-up to the midterm election offers a portrait of a politician who understands that a legacy has two elements: the substantive policy achievements, of course, but also the purely political achievements. Is the president’s party better off for his time at the helm?

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