I'm grateful that Stephen Walt has been exercising his considerable intelligence on important issues that have been neglected or censored for too long in American politics.

Stephen,

I was preparing to send you a christmas greeting card, but will take the opportunity of this post to thank you instead for your considerable effort to share your thoughts on a daily basis.

You don't know how much you shape my perception of int'l relations and understanding the world around me.

Thank you!

realists. Without them the world would be a dangerous place to live.

Thank you for the guts to take on the Lobby.

A caveat: we _do_ have free-speech, but due to the lobby, there is much self-censoring going on and other troubling anti-American activities like deliberately burying evidence (witness: H.R. 867 burying the Goldstone report).

We do need to let the sun shine in: hopefully, the sun will shine in onto the congress also.

A VERY troubling report that many of our senators and congressmen are involved in a secret cult that worships Hitler and Stalin:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120746516

You may recognize these names from recent headlines: Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Bart Stupak and Rep. Joe Pitts. Stupak and Pitts have become familiar names through the media's health care overhaul coverage; their abortion funding amendment introduced an 11th-hour twist as the House of Representatives approached a vote on a landmark health care bill.

Ensign was the focus of media attention over his affair with a campaign staffer. Just last night, a Nevada man disclosed that he found out about his wife's affair with the state's junior senator — his best friend — via a text message.

The common factor among these political players is their involvement with the Family, a secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians that centers on a Washington, D.C., townhouse. Investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet has written extensively about the influential group in his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.

Sharlet returns to Fresh Air to talk to host Terry Gross about Ensign, Stupak and Pitts, and about new developments concerning the Family.

Since 2003, Sharlet has been an associate research scholar at New York University's Center for Religion and Media, where he has taught graduate seminars in journalism and the history of American religion. He has also spoken on religion, politics and media at colleges and universities across the country. At NYU, Sharlet created TheRevealer.org, a review of religion and the media.

...and I am giving thanks for your insight and courage. The book was necessary and right (and I say this as a person born and raised in Israel). I have read almost every one of your posts on FP and I hope you will continue to be an independent thinker. We need much more of your kind of discourse.

Esti Marpet

without which I would have certainly annoyed the hell out of my family and close friends. Now I can just spew my nonsense on strangers who are just as passionate about Foriegn Affairs as I am.

Thank you all!

Dear Professor Walt,

I'd agree to some extent with almost all of your entries but the one entry on Globalisation.

Yes, you, as the upper-middle-class, well-connected resident of Boston (CAmbridge? Atlantic coast?) would love the world music and the ethnic literature. I love the accessibility of almost any genre of food, fashion, and "culture" I would want within 3 miles of my London neighbourhood.

But what about the massive economic exploitation that goes along with the traveling of the music and the literature and the theatre? What about the people whose first concern is not whether or not the stories of their lives are fictionalised for posterity, but rather how to afford their dinner and health care in the face of third-world structural adjustments or first-world dogmatism of neoliberal ideologies?

Enjoy the break.

Thank you for your kind words Professor Walt.

I remember bringing up your book occasionally in my interest groups courses, when I was still in school, and the sheer discomfort it brought.... Ah, Good Times.... Along with the strange enemies I made.. LOL.

It did a lot of good. One of my professors even created a side mini-course and made the whole class study the Israel lobbies. At least conversation was being made.

When I found out you had a dedicated blog, I have not stopped smiling since. I feel proud to mention to others how you are my biggest influence so far in regards to political philosophy.

Oh and I also no longer have to bore my wife and family as much too. I can come to a place where I belong. :)

Dear Professor Walt,

I'm italian and I would like to make you a question about your present national holiday.

You - and the other americans - in this day say: "I'm thankful FOR ..." and list a LOT of things FOR which you are thankful. But TO WHOM do you give your thanks ?

I mean, in the current language (in italian, but I think that it is the same in english) when you thank, you thank SOMEONE FOR SOMETHING (in italian: ringraziare QUALCUNO PER QUALCOSA). So, there are TWO POINTS to make clear: SOMEONE AND SOMETHING, not only ONE: SOMETHING.

So, it's almost curious for me to listen, and read, a lot of smart people that thanks FOR something, but forget to tell WHO they thanks ...

I thank YOU FOR your answer.

I just wanted to add that I am thankful to Professor Walt for also not being afraid of getting criticized for his work on the methodology of political science, particularly in articles like "Rigor or Rigor Mortis?" As he noted in that piece, the point of the social sciences is to add something to the world that is empirically valid and original. I'm glad he continues to do that on FP.

It is extremely important that the international community acts together, through the UNSC, to monitor and control Iran's nuclear ambitions.

At the same time, it is equally important that there is an international accord to insist that ISRAEL SIGNS THE NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY AND OPENS HER SECRET NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARSENAL TO INTERNATIONAL INSPECTION BY THE IAEA.

The idea of a small Mediterranean state being possibly now the THIRD MOST POWERFUL NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATE ON EARTH, after Russia and the US, is an untenable and dangerous position.

The collusion of successive US administrations in covering-up Israel's secret nuclear arsenal is arguably the greatest political and military error of modern times. It must be rectified!

It is extremely important that the international community acts together, through the UNSC, to monitor and control Iran's nuclear ambitions.

At the same time, it is equally important that there is an international accord to insist that ISRAEL SIGNS THE NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY AND OPENS HER SECRET NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARSENAL TO INTERNATIONAL INSPECTION BY THE IAEA.

The idea of a small Mediterranean state being possibly now the THIRD MOST POWERFUL NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATE ON EARTH, after Russia and the US, is an untenable and dangerous position.

The collusion of successive US administrations in covering-up Israel's secret nuclear arsenal is arguably the greatest political and military error of modern times. It needs rectification urgently!