Andrew Sullivan has recently published a couple of interesting pieces in places other than his blog.
First is an article about how Hillary Clinton is expertly positioning herself for a 2008 presidential run:

...[T]he former first lady has been showing signs of ramping up her steely, long-term political ambitions. Republicans are alternately salivating at the prospect and dreading it. Hillary mobilizes the Republican base more effectively than an evangelical rally on an aircraft carrier. But she's also a canny politician, like her husband. And there's always the slight chance that she could prevail.
...She and her husband already exercise strong control over the party, through their cheesy henchman, Terry McAuliffe, who is still party chair despite the Democrats' pathetic showing in last November's Congressional elections. What better strategy than to stay above the fray, while a bunch of ragged and raw aspirants squabble into a loss in November 2008? And so far, alas, the Democratic field looks particularly forlorn.
...So Hillary bides her time, waiting for the kill. She's probably hoping that in a few years' time, her capacity to polarize the country will have abated. Such a hope is probably ill-founded. There's a large swathe of Americans who would rather see Jacques Chirac elected American president than Hillary Rodham Clinton. But the same could have been said about Richard Nixon in the late 1960s, and he still won. So could she. With luck. And in time. And so far, she's been playing her hand very very smoothly.

I think there is little doubt that if Bush is re-elected in 2004, Hillary will run in 2008. Josh Marshall has argued that she has little chance of winning. His points are well taken, but he gives surprisingly short shrift (especially given how connected he is to political tacticians) to an obvious counterargument: that Hillary's power to mobilize the Republican base may turn out to be a Democratic advantage. As shown during her husband's presidency, a divisive figure who stokes rage in the opposition can drive them into self-defeating practices, either through spluttering incoherence or tactical extremism. And we're seeing it during this presidency as well (go to his 5/7 article).
In fact, this bipartisan phenomenon should have a name attached to it. Call it the "Death-Ray Theory of Politics": The ability to drive your opponents stark raving bonkers is a major strategic asset. At a certain point, you can't say that Presidents Clinton or Bush are merely lucky to have such incoherent opponents. As Branch Rickey said, "Luck is the residue of design."
And as long as we're on the subject of those driven mad by President Clinton, check out Sullivan's review of Sidney Blumenthal's book The Clinton Wars. I have no intention of reading Blumenthal's book, but from the reviews I've read it seems unlikely that the book is anywhere near as insightful as Sullivan's review:

...It has the tone and manner and piety of one of those "Lives of the Saints" books most Catholic school kids were once forced to read at some point or other. It’s not a memoir, or a history. It’s a Gospel. Its facts are assembled, as the facts in the Gospels were assembled, for one purpose only: to affirm the faith, to rally the flock, to spread the further glory of the Church. It’s an allegory of eternal good and evil—a passion narrative with a scriptural past and a resurrection at the end, the first-person narrative of one saint who prevailed.
That saint is Bill Clinton. Of all the characters who have graced the office of the Presidency, Sidney picks William Jefferson Clinton as the moral exemplar. There is not a scintilla of a clue anywhere in this book that Mr. Blumenthal sees even a trace of irony in this selection.
...Mr. Clinton is and was a fascinatingly complex, flawed, intelligent, charismatic human being. Few people got as close to him as Sidney did—at moments of extreme tension and drama. The potential for a real and vivid portrait of the man is great. And yet the picture we get of Mr. Clinton from this book is strangely blank. No foibles; no expletives; no tears; no wit; not a single memorable phrase; not even a fresh insight into the man’s psycho-sexual compulsions. That’s what happens when the religious temperament prevails. The need to prove not just that Mr. Clinton’s opponents were evil, wrong, dumb, malign, gob-smackingly corrupt and duplicitous in every single respect, but that the President was noble, grand, progressive, epic and world-historical must, by its very nature, obscure nuance. Nuance, after all, could lead to doubt; and doubt to error; and error to damnation. And beyond damnation, there’s always the danger of becoming a Republican.

Read the whole thing.

Apparently there is a research project to study the motivations of those who read weblogs.
Since the research assistant to one of the professors involved is allegedly a Yankee fan, the project is hereby endorsed by the editorial staff of this site.
Any and all readers are invited to click here for the survey.
Vote early, vote often...

A few noteworthy blogs by those with whom I share tribal loyalty.
First, a certain Hasidic Rebel writes from an unidentified Hasidic community in New York. His perspective and curiosity combine to bring some fascinating diversity to the blogosphere. Read, for example, his account of a Saturday night mini-scandal (but for whom?).
Next, coming from an enterprising group of students (or, as they like to call themselves, "Elders") at Yeshiva University, is the wonderfully named Protocols blog. The writers hope to build upon the success of Paul Wolfowitz's cabal in taking over the Bush Administration, and extend the domination of the Elders of Zion over the whole world. Based on their posts, that should be an easy task. They have the right role models (if the link doesn't work, it's the post from 5/13 at 4:18 P.M.). Seriously, they have far more intellectual curiosity than most of my peers who went to YU - kol ha-kavod!
Finally, my old yeshiva study partner ("chevruta"), who is now an assistant rabbi at a major Manhattan synagogue and was always a born blogger (his old e-mail newsletters earned him a cult following long ago), has finally taken the plunge and started his own blog. As far as I know, this is the first entry by an Orthodox rabbi into the blogosphere. (And if he's reading this, the name "RabbiPundit" is still available.)

Barry Rubin details how Yasser Arafat is systematically undercutting any attempts at reform by Abu Mazen.
We have a decade-long track record of what happens when diplomats ignore such facts in the interest of pursuing a "peace process." Will they ever learn?