Washington Watch Articles From 2025
Wake Up: It’s Not Your Daddy’s New York City Anymore
Analysts are still working to understand Zohran Mamdani’s decisive victory in last month’s New York mayoral race. Like the blind men in the old Indian story of the “Blind Men and the Elephant,” the explanations offered have been mostly accurate but incomplete.
Israel’s Wars Are Creating Decades of Chaos
In the days after Israel was attacked on October 7, 2023, then-President Biden cautioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to make the same mistakes the US made following 9/11. Biden never publicly spelled out what he meant, but it was understood as a warning to Netanyahu, in response to the shock generated by the attack, not to overreact or overreach, as President George W. Bush had done by invading and occupying Iraq and proposing a US-led democracy agenda that would transform the Middle East. That war lasted more than a decade with tremendous cost in lives, treasure, and US prestige. It also emboldened Iran and spawned extremist groups across the Levant and North Africa, like ISIS.
False Accusations Trying to Stop Mamdani
In the days before the election for mayor of New York City, a group of rabbis issued a “A Call to Action” attacking public figures like Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani whom they say “refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide.”
Why Mamdani Won
It was 2006 and Tim Kaine had recently won the Virginia gubernatorial election. I was at a meeting at Democratic Party headquarters with a group of party officials. One opined, “I believe that one of the lessons we should learn from Tim Kaine’s victory was that we need to talk more about our religion. Kaine did and he won. We should do it too.”
New York City’s Fascinating Mayoral Race
This week, all eyes will be on the fascinating race for mayor of New York City. One reason it’s so interesting is because New York plays such an outsized role in American life.