Dana Milbank
1/20/2011

American reporters had a unique opportunity on Wednesday to question Chinese President Hu Jintao directly on his country’s human rights record. The very first question at the state dinner press conference addressed the matter and Hu Jintao attempted to deflect by claiming difficulty in translation. But a persistent press corps forced him to address the matter, however mildly, in a way that would have been plainly impossible in any other circumstance.

Milbank writes about political theater in the nation’s capital.

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Elliott Abrams
12/1/2010

The WikiLeaks disclosures make interesting reading in London, Ottawa, and Tokyo, but in the capitals of some weak and undemocratic American allies (such as Yemen and Bahrain) they are a very unpleasant surprise. We can easily denounce the gap between private and public discourse in such countries and the lack of real public debate on key security issues, but when we consider the identities of some of the people they fear–the ayatollahs in Tehran, terrorists in Hamas and Hezbollah, al Qaeda itself–we see that the WikiLeaks disclosures are less likely to promote more open government than to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

Abrams served as an assistant secretary of state from 1981 to 1989 and as a deputy national security adviser from 2005 to 2009.

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Richard Cohen
11/30/2010

While abhorrent in many respects, this week’s Wikilinks leak serves as a stark contrast and counterbalance to President Bush’s book, “Decision Points.” The war with Iraq predictably handed influence in that country to Iran and thereby rearranged the region’s political balance. The various Arab governments and our own remain involved in a far messier debate over how to proceed than is evidenced in the former president’s memoir, which strains credulity in the harsh light of day.

Cohen is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on domestic and foreign politics.

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Warren E. Buffett
11/17/2010

Buffett writes an open letter to the American government to thank it for working so hard and efficiently to save the economy from meltdown in 2008. He gives a nod to Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Sheila Bair, who worked courageously, as well as President George W. Bush, who led through the crisis before the election of President Obama. Buffett notes that the crisis followed a bubble and now there is a fog of panic. People are second-guessing the government’s actions, yet the government was remarkably effective in that dark time.

Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

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