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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Blob
The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for American Alliance Authority
No one in American foreign policy says he wants power over the alliance system. He says he wants deterrence, credibility, stability, and shared values. This is the core insight of Alliance Theory. Moral language is not just rhetoric. It is … Continue reading
The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle of the Blob (America’s Foreign Policy Establishment)
The American foreign policy establishment does not present itself as a coalition competing for power. It presents itself as the custodian of expertise, stability, and the national interest. That self-presentation is not merely cynical performance. The people who populate think … Continue reading
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The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Status at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Nobody at the Foreign Policy Research Institute says they want to shape American strategy because it gives them power. They say they see reality clearly. They read maps without moral distortion. They understand the system at a level that moralizers … Continue reading
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High-Brow New York Times Op/Ed By Iran Expert Destroyed By Reality
Eyal Yakoby posts: “BREAKING: Mojtaba Khamenei was reportedly severely injured, one of his legs has been amputated, and he may not even be aware that he is the Supreme Leader.” I spent my weekend reading the 2025 book “Iran’s Grand … Continue reading
Posted in Blob, Expertise, Iran, Journalism, Pundits
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Reluctant Relief That Trump Is Bombing Iran Seeps Through Elite Commentary
You can see hints of it. It rarely appears as open approval. It leaks out in tone, framing, and what journalists choose to emphasize. One signal is the grudging competence frame. Analysts who strongly dislike Trump will write things like … Continue reading
Posted in Blob, Expertise, Iran, Journalism
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MSM Symmetry In Iran Coverage
Most national security reporters sit inside the same information ecosystem as the officials they cover. Their sources are Pentagon officers, intelligence briefers, congressional staff, and think tank analysts. When a crisis hits, those relationships become the primary pipeline of information. … Continue reading
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Decoding The Iran War (3-8-26)
01:00 Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (2025), https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=17456111:20 Vali Nasr Exclusive: ‘War is being waged ‘: Vali Nasr on Israel-US campaign against Iran25:00 The First Gulf War, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=17460528:00 Understanding The Elite Frame On The Iran War, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=17462535:00 Mark Halperin: … Continue reading
Why Different Groups View The Iran War Differently
The foreign policy establishment, often called the blob, operates with a buffered identity. These planners and analysts view the world as a system of manageable, secular states that respond to rational incentives. To a buffered mind, the threat from Iran … Continue reading
When American Presidents Tell You To Rise Up
If an American president told you to suck off a dog, would you suck off a dog? I doubt it. The elite talking point goes like this: Bush was wrong after the first Gulf War to encourage Iraqis to rise … Continue reading
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Why do elites argue that Iran’s war plans are super rational and coolly calculating while Trump’s plans are impulsive and crazy?
The contrast between the “Rational Iran” and “Irrational Trump” narratives is a perfect example of what David Pinsof calls patchwork narratives. These are moral or intellectual stories created on the fly to support a specific alliance’s status. The Logic of … Continue reading