Letters

Beltway Columns Feature Superficial Analysis

How much longer do you need to fill page space with Michael Lubell's rants? (“Inside the Beltway,” APS News, August/September 2006.) The APS members deserve to get some insightful and original thought about Washington political events. What we get in Lubell’s column, instead, are sophomoric opinions.

For example, in his latest “analysis” he muses that “it’s hard to see why the Middle East should be such a focus of American foreign policy–except for our extraordinary dependence on foreign sources of oil.” I guess Lubell hasn't noticed that the Middle East is also a high foreign policy concern of the entire industrial world, due to the dependence of Europe, Japan, and China on foreign sources of oil (actually, Lubell obliquely mentions this two paragraphs later). But beyond that, the Middle East is roiling with an Islamic fundamentalist movement. I should hope we focus on that.

Is this the best “Washington Analysis and Opinion” that the APS can find to inform its critical and highly educated members? If APS can’t do better than this, then it shouldn’t do a political column at all.

Thomas J. Karr
Baltimore, Maryland