Now then, Dmitri. You know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The bomb, Dmitri. The hydrogen bomb. —President Merkin Muffley to Premier Dmitri Kissov, 1964. Dmitri, we agreed. —President Barack Obama to President Dmitri Medvedev, 2010. “Dr. Strangelove” is a lot less scary than it used to [...]

President Obama’s first State of the Union address came at the end of the most harrowing nine days of his young Administration. On January 19th, a Republican won the Massachusetts seat that had been held for nearly half a century by Edward M. Kennedy, thereby depriving the Senate Democrats of the sixtieth vote they need [...]