‘In New York, Real Estate Is a Blood Sport’

Location: What sort of reaction have you gotten from New York brokers about the $10 fee for placing a rental ad, which you instituted more than six months ago now?

Newmark: Not too much, which is good. They asked for it. They thought it would clean up the site, eliminate all of the repostings. Since Read More

Statesmen Make Merry At John Bolton’s Funeral

At least one former member of the Bush administration’s State Department began celebrating when news of John Bolton’s imminent departure as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations broke on Monday. And, to hear him tell it, so did a lot of other people who are in the business of international diplomacy.

“I would say there Read More

Statesmen Make Merry At John Bolton's Funeral

At least one former member of the Bush administration’s State Department began celebrating when news of John Bolton’s imminent departure as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations broke on Monday. And, to hear him tell it, so did a lot of other people who are in the business of international diplomacy.

“I would say there Read More

An Inconvenient Non-Truth at the State Department

At today’s State Department briefing, a reporter commented that the room was freezing and spokesman Sean McCormack made a joke about, Is that my responsibility? People laughed. Later another reporter commented on how cold the room was. When the cameras pulled back, there seemed to be a dozen people in a room big enough for Read More

The World’s Most Valuable Booby Prize?

Goldman Sachs is becoming the revolving door of choice for high-powered Republicans with a talent for politics and money.

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, Condi’s number two at the State Department, is leaving the Bush Administration to join the Wall Street giant as a managing director and as vice chairman of its international Read More

The Real Iraq

The Washington Post today has an amazing cable from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to the State Department reporting on conditions in the capital. Based on the accounts of Iraqi staff, the cable shows that Iraq is dissolving into civil war. Different forms of sectarian dress are now required in different sections of the Read More

One Wedding Happened in Bali

GABRIELLE: It’s 3 a.m. and I can’t sleep. Other than my swelling breast size nothing seems to be going right. It’s two months until my wedding day and I haven’t purchased the invitations. My friend Jessica’s getting married in 2007 and she’s already planned her wedding down to the last petit four. I rationalize Read More