Resident Scholar Emeritus Mark Falcoff

AEI has long anticipated the end of Fidel Castro's nearly fifty-year dictatorship in Cuba. When Castro stepped down in February, Mark Falcoff wrote in the Times of London and the New York Post that no one should expect democracy to emerge immediately on the island--after all, Cuba is scarred by a half-century of privation and oppression. Roger F. Noriega puts his faith in the people there in a Latin American Outlook: "The natural talent and industry of the Cuban people is evident in exile communities throughout the world. Underestimating these people is unwise."

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels spoke about his businesslike approach to political leadership at AEI on February 29. He called his governing style "managing for results," and he has focused on cutting the size of government, privatizing programs, and eliminating deficits. Hoosiers will assess his results in November's election, which Daniels called a potential "rehiring."

In a recent Russian Outlook, Leon Aron took a critical look at Vladimir Putin's legacy. On March 10, he hosted four Russian opposition leaders at AEI, who discussed how Putin's repressive measures have limited the opposition's ability to reach the public and how Russian "elections"--like the one on March 2--have become increasingly meaningless.

Resident Fellow Dan Blumenthal

AEI's Taiwan Policy Working Group, codirected by Dan Blumenthal, released a report on February 22. The report called for ramping up U.S.-Taiwan relations and enhancing the island's global profile. Taiwanese minister of foreign affairs James Huang was the keynote speaker at the report's launch event in Taipei.

Former Federal Reserve Board monetary policy director Vincent R. Reinhart addressed the U.S. Monetary Policy Forum in New York on February 29. In addition to expressing his appreciation for AEI--"which offered the security of unconditional support for research and the lightest touch of the invisible hand of management that could be imagined"--he explained that his intention "to work quietly on issues related to the intersection of finance, global macroeconomics, and the communication of monetary policy" was disrupted by the international financial turmoil that has embroiled the Fed. Reinhart argued that "market participants do not appreciate the extent to which the Federal Reserve has changed in the past year. Those changes reflect an ambitious attempt to apply the economic profession's understanding of the science of monetary policy to improve the governance of the policy process."

Karlyn Bowman and Ruy Teixeira organized an AEI-Brookings conference on how demographic and geographic trends will affect the 2008 election and beyond. In the Wall Street Journal, they outlined key trends in political life, including the rising influence of Hispanics, the declining influence of married voters, and the shrinking of the white working class's political role.

Leon R. Kass

Leon R. Kass, M.D., and Eric Cohen took a look at issues underlying steroid use in baseball in The New Republic. "To restore the 'integrity of the game,'" they wrote, "we need to recover why sport matters to us as a society--why the games men play are a serious business, capable of shaping our characters and our souls, for better and for worse." Steroid use undermines the humanity of the pursuit of athletic excellence. In the March issue of AEI's Political Report, the editors look at the popularity of baseball and football over time.  

In March, AEI alumnus William Haraf was nominated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be California's commissioner of financial institutions. From 1985 to 1989, he was the J. Edward Lundy Scholar and director of the Financial Markets Project at AEI. While at the Institute, he edited Restructuring Banking and Financial Services in America (AEI Press, 1989).

American Banker heralded Alex J. Pollock as an "Australian Idol" in a recent news item. Pollock, who moonlights as AEI's resident baritone, won plaudits for leading the audience at AEI's Annual Dinner in both "God Bless America" and "Waltzing Matilda"--the latter in honor of former prime minister John Howard and the many Australians present at the dinner.