It seems like a strange time to be hopeful about a change in U.S. policy toward Burma, what with the regime having just sentenced a Missouri man to seven years hard labor and all. But opponents of U.S. sanctions have more reason for optimism than they've had since the embargo began 12 years back. In February, Hillary Clinton dared to point out that sanctions against the Burmese people hadn't had any appreciable effect on the regime. The Huffington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and DoubleX have all published recent pieces critiquing the West's myopic focus on Suu Kyi's release. Yesterday, to my amazement, Suu Kyi's lawyer himself published an op-ed cautioning "against focusing too heavily on her plight to the exclusion of the broader situation in Myanmar."

Today Sen. Jim Webb—a critic of sanctions and supporter of engagement—arrives in Yangon. He will supposedly be meeting with General Than Shwe, and will be the first Senior American official to do so—ever. He'll be pilloried for it, but he's there with the blessing of an administration rightly skeptical of the status quo. The suffering and sacrifice we have imposed upon ordinary Burmese has done nothing to advance our interests or theirs, and Suu Kyi's outrageous conviction is just further evidence of that inefficacy.

Photograph of crowd protesting Burmese government by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: burma, Jim Webb, Myanmar, Suu Kyi

John Edwards is apparently about to acknowledge that he is father of Rielle Hunter's baby girl. A photo of the baby in last year's National Enquirer was as good as a DNA test, so much did she look like Edwards, down to their shared dimpled chins.

Of course the confession is an anticlimax after Edwards' various assertions: from there was no climax with Rielle and it was a top aide who was the father, to maybe there was a climax with Rielle, but just one, to that one time couldn't have resulted in a child because of timing issues, to "Daddy!" Surely this guy will have the decency to finally slink off the public stage. And not because he had an affair, but because he is a sleazy, shape-shifting, phony populist, self-admitted narcissist, and liar.

As for Elizabeth, yes, you have to go easy on someone who is facing terminal cancer. But again, why did she drag her family through months of questions about this just so she could flog a book? And I always cringed when she said that even if the baby was Edwards', which she had no opinon on (Yeah, sure!), it wouldn't make any difference because the child would have nothing to do with her life. Well, sorry. If your husband has fathered a child with another woman, your children now have a halfsibling, and your husband has both moral and financial obligations to the child he has produced.

Photograph of John Edwards by Eric Thayer.

Tags: Elizabeth Edwards, john edwards affair, john edwards confession