179 articles
As the noose tightens around Assad over the Hariri assassination, we shouldn't forget his active support of our enemies in Iraq. From a September 2005 Time piece: The Baathists, on the other hand, were more active in courting the tribes. Starting in November 2003, tribal sheiks and Baathist…
From Thursday's Journal editorial: The House took a step in that direction this month by passing another immigration "reform" bill heavy with border control and business harassment and light on anything that will work in the real world.
IN MANY WAYS, the year 2005 ends as it began: with millions of Iraqis defying the terrorists to cast ballots; with President Bush hailing the election as a milestone; with nit-pickers fretting about the sulky Sunnis; with the White House coming under fire for its homeland-security efforts; and with…
This past Saturday, the Washington Post published a letter by Coleen Rowley, former FBI Special Agent and the Chief Division Counsel for the Bureau's Minneapolis office, criticizing an editorial,"Vital Presidential Power," co-authored by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and AEI resident…
1) "What Happened to Iraq's Biological Agent Storage Tanks or the Spray Dryer Used for Turning Liquid Agent into a Dried Form? Any Update on the Document that Indicated Iraq had Built a Fermentation Plant?" -- Here 2) "What did Hans Blix say in March 2003 about Saddam's Missile & WMD-Warhead…
AL QAEDA'S STATED GOAL--to reestablish the caliphate, the political leadership of worldwide Islam embodied first in the successors of the Prophet Muhammad and most recently in the four-century rule of the Ottoman dynasty--is pure, ahistorical fantasy. One way to appreciate this is to revisit the…
DO YOU KNOW WHO PAUL Ray Smith is? If not, don't feel bad. Most Americans aren't familiar with Paul Ray Smith. He is the first and only soldier awarded the Medal of Honor for extraordinary courage in the war in Iraq. Five days before Baghdad fell in April 2003, Sergeant Smith and his men were…
ON APRIL 29, 1951, Kingsley Amis complained in a note to Philip Larkin about a slew of mediocre new novels he had been reading. He singled out Anthony Powell's A Question of Upbringing for especial contempt. "The most inconclusive book I have ever read," Amis called it. "The sort of book where you…
Sacramento
RAGING BULL has been acclaimed as a great American movie since the day it was released 25 years ago. Writing in the New York Times, Vincent Canby found it "a big film, its territory being the landscape of the soul," while Newsweek's Jack Kroll called it "the best American film of the year" and the…
Barwana, Iraq
More Reasons to Love FEMA
THE PURPLE INK on 11 million Iraqi fingers had not yet dried after an unprecedented, almost miraculous exercise in democratic freedom--and already there were querulous American critics working hard to make light of the whole thing. "Experts Cautious in Assessing Iraqi Election," ran the headline on…
ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2005, the 46-year-old Victor de Bruijn and his 31-year-old wife of eight years, Bianca, presented themselves to a notary public in the small Dutch border town of Roosendaal. And they brought a friend. Dressed in wedding clothes, Victor and Bianca de Bruijn were formally united with…
A Gift of Freedom
Los Angeles
A Spin on Torture
General Motors and the Nazis
ONE OF MY FAVORITE SCENES from The Sopranos, HBO's hit series about a New Jersey mob boss and his dual "families," happens in Season 1, Episode 8, shortly after the feds rummage through the Soprano home looking for contraband. Munching on Chinese food with his wife and two kids, Tony grumbles about…
THE ETHICS SCANDALS SWIRLING ABOUT Capitol Hill make it all but certain that the 2006 elections will be unusually focused on character. That's a good thing, of course, except that it obscures a different development, one that stands to be equally influential in determining the personality of our…
Florida
Karasuu, Kyrgyzstan
Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics explains here. ... must we reveal every method we're employing for national security to the world....
Have you noticed that the Bush administration is always duping the Democrats? Just listen to John Kerry, Jay Rockefeller, Hillary Clinton, or Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. They voted for the war in Iraq. They walked onto the Senate floor to explain their vote. Saddam possessed chemical and…
The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), explains why in today's Washington Times. During Operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, coupled with the ongoing global war on terror, the United States has collected a vast array…
BEYOND THE IRAQ of political news and of counterinsurgency is a population and a civil society, trying to right itself after decades of dictatorship, followed by war. Two Americans helping them do it are actor Gary Sinise and Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit, who found an imaginative way to…
While in Iraq, the defense secretary hinted at reducing levels by two Army brigades that would "drop the American troop presence below the 138,000 level that had been considered a baseline prior to the temporary addition of about 20,000 troops to provide extra security during the Oct. 15 referendum…
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso states the obvious. From the AP: Japan has long listed China's military expansion as a top security concern in the region but the remarks by Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso were unusually blunt and echoed U.S. concern about Beijing's military spending. ''It's a…
From today's Washington Post: Annan castigated what he called unfair media coverage of his role and that of his son, Kojo, in the United Nations' now-defunct oil-for-food program in Iraq. He scolded James Bone of the Times of London for telling him, "Your own version of events don't really make…
THE WHITE HOUSE regularly bemoans the fact that the economy is humming along impressively but the public doesn't recognize it. Just last week, President Bush told NBC News anchor Brian Williams that he's "a little bit" frustrated by the public's negative attitude. "I also think it's important to…
From the Duelfer Report, Volume 3, Biological Warfare, September 30, 2004: (Storage Tanks/Fermenters) In 1990, Iraq produced at least 39-possibly as many as 70-1,000-liter mobile tanks that could be readily converted into fermenters. Additionally, 8 mobile 800-liter tanks/fermentors were…
It's a good bet Americans may be interested in getting an answer. Sen. Rockefeller and Rep. Pelosi were briefed on the NSA surveillance program two years ago, but are quick to let everyone (particularly their party's hysterical base) know that they had serious "concerns" about it. According to…
John Schmidt, who served in the Clinton Justice Department from 1994 to 1997, wrote the following in today's Chicago Tribune: President had legal authority to OK taps Chicago Tribune By John Schmidt Published December 21, 2005 President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National…
THE REVELATION by the New York Times of an NSA program to review international communications could only cause surprise among those unfamiliar with the history and mission of the agency. The National Security Agency descended from various post-WWII military signal agencies, a centralized and…
"STAYING IN THE LIKUD means wasting time on political struggles instead of acting for the good of the state." This is how Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon explained his dramatic departure from the Likud, a party he helped establish, and his forming of a new party, Kadimah (Forward), from a…
KARL ROVE clearly is at it again. First, back in late August, the wily presidential counselor planted explosives in the New Orleans levees, so as to flood the poor and black neighborhoods just before the advent of the storm of the century. Then, he persuaded George W. Bush to react to the flooding…
IN JUNE of 1863, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Erasmus Corning, who had sent him the resolutions of the Albany Democratic convention censuring the Lincoln administration for what it called unconstitutional acts, such as military arrests of civilians in the North. This letter remains the best…
Weekly Standard contributor Tom Joscelyn points to this interesting piece from the Associated Press on his new blog (http://thomasjoscelyn.blogspot.com). December 20, 2005 Tuesday 7:55 PM Eastern Time U.S. Army Digs Up Weapons Cache in Iraq BYLINE: RYAN LENZ; Associated Press Writer DATELINE: ZUWAD…
First, America can't "win the war in Iraq" and now the head of the Democratic Party contributes this to the war effort against al Qaeda.
This is an interesting nugget from a New York Post op-ed today: In 2002, the feds (presumably the NSA) picked up random cellphone chatter using the words "Brooklyn Bridge" (which apparently didn't translate well into Arabic). They notified the New York Police Department, which flooded the bridge…
Wonder if Howard Dean signed on to this "report." Yet another reason voters aren't likely to want a Speaker Pelosi in the midst of the War on Terror. Here are some more reasons.
With the far-left impeachment train gathering steam, this may be a good time to review a December 2003 piece in Slate by Stewart Baker, general counsel to the National Security Agency from 1992 to 94. In the spring and summer of 2001, with al-Qaida's preparations growing even more intense, the…
National Review's Byron York explains here. In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has "inherent authority" to order physical searches - including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens - for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant…
A U.S. president has just received word that American counterterrorist operatives have captured a senior al Qaeda operative in Pakistan. Among his possessions are a couple of cell phones--phones that contain several American phone numbers. In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, what's a president to do?
We heard a lot of criticism from politicians and editorial page writers on the failure of U.S. intelligence to "connect to dots" to prevent the September 11 attacks. But what about connecting them post-9/11. Gary Schmitt, currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote on…
THE WASHINGTON POST reported last weekendthat strategists at the Democratic Leadership Council fear Democrats could be walking into "a trap" on Iraq. In a strategy memo to Democrats last week, they warned "party leaders not to use Bush's problems as an invitation to call for an immediate U.S.…
IF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD'S monetary policy gurus have any doubt that "possible increases in resource utilization . . . have the potential to add to inflation pressures," as they said in last week's statement accompanying their 13th consecutive increase in interest rates, they need look no…
Craig S. Smith explains in Sunday's New York Times. While French universities are open to all high school graduates, the grandes écoles - great schools - from which many of the country's leaders emerge, weed out anyone who does not fit a finely honed mold. Of the 350,000 students graduating…
From a Weekly Standard friend: "Four days after Iraq's third free election this year, and on the day Afghanistan's new parliament opens, Freedom House released its major survey of global freedom. The study can be found here. In his essay on the Middle East, Arch Puddington, director of research at…
The New York Sun has an excellent editorial today on the Democrats and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. America is in a war with Islamic extremists who are trying to defeat our country. "Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar,…
ARE THINGS GETTING BETTER IN ISRAEL? Charles Krauthammer recently observed that "the more than four-year-long intifada, which left more than 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians dead, is over. And better than that, defeated." Krauthammer believes that Israel's Gaza withdrawal was a success and…
SIXTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, Japan stunned our nation with a daring raid on Pearl Harbor, killing 2,400 Americans and crippling the Pacific fleet. That same day, Japan also attacked U.S. forces in Manila, Midway and Wake Islands, and Guam, as well as British forces throughout East Asia. American leaders…
Edmund Wilson
FOR THE SECOND TIME IN recent weeks the Department of Defense has denied a request from The Weekly Standard to release unclassified documents recovered in postwar Iraq. These documents apparently reveal, in some detail, activities of Saddam Hussein's regime in the years before the war. This second…
THE POLL NUMBER--80 percent of Iraqis want Americans out of their country--has become a staple of Democratic antiwar rhetoric. Representative John Murtha cited it in his proposed House resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Democratic national chairman Howard…
THE SIGN, in red letters on a yellow awning, reading "Moe's Maxwell Street Polish" caught my eye as I drove past. I remember the smell of those Polish sausages, and especially of the onions, grilling on a winter's day on Maxwell Street, the old peddler's open-air market in the Chicago of my…
IS RETREAT FROM--or withdrawal from--or defeat in--Iraq inevitable? Almost all opponents of the Bush administration say it is. As Rep. Jack Murtha put it in mid-November, when demanding the "immediate redeployment of U.S. troops" consistent with their safety, "The United States cannot accomplish…
Crime and Punishment, Iraqi-style
THE RECENT SHOOTING OF RECORD mogul Suge Knight at a music industry celebration has evoked the usual handwringing about mindless violence in the world of rap. The incident is merely the latest, and by no means the most deplorable, in a wave of crime that dates back to the murders of Notorious…
THIS YEAR WAS THE 200TH anniversary of the death of Friedrich Schiller, after his dearest friend Goethe, the most superb peak in Germany's literary mountain range: dramatist, historian, philosopher, poet celebrated for An die Freude, the "Ode to Joy" that Beethoven set in his Ninth Symphony.
Torture a Tonic?
DURING HIS RECENT TRIP TO Japan, South Korea, China, and Mongolia, President Bush extolled the region's wave of democratization as "one of the greatest stories in human history" and lamented the holdouts who are "out of step with their neighbors and isolated from the world." The president also made…
THE FAMOUS TURKISH NOVELIST ORHAN Pamuk has not (yet) received the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he was honored this year with the most important literary prize in Germany, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Pamuk accepted the prize in Frankfurt in October with an acceptance speech that…
LAST TUESDAY THE SUPREME COURT heard oral argument in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights. Rumsfeld, of course, is the secretary of defense. FAIR, as it's more commonly known, is a coalition of 36 law school and faculty groups, backed by friend-of-the-court briefs from…
IF THE SAHARA DESERT WENT Marxist, ran a Cold War-era joke, pretty soon it would have to import sand. Today the gag might be: If Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, elected Hugo Chávez, pretty soon it would have to import petroleum. Except it's not a gag. In December 2002, less than…
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, Charles Reich's book The Greening of America arrived like a tidal wave in the already roiled waters of American public debate. Published as a 25,000-word essay in the September 26, 1970, New Yorker, it elicited from the magazine's 463,000 readers more mail than any single…
BOOKS IN BRIEF
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding a New York Times article published last Friday: As the New York Times reported, the President of the United States has authorized, after counseling with the Department of Justice and various legal…
Robert Kagan and William Kristol explain here. THE PURPLE INK on 11 million Iraqi fingers had not yet dried after an unprecedented, almost miraculous exercise in democratic freedom--and already there were querulous American critics working hard to make light of the whole thing. "Experts Cautious in…
Funny, I never knew that Albert Brooks had such a command of Islamic culture and history.
First, it was John Kerry who caved in to the anti-war left. John Edwards soon followed -- see here. Now, it's Sen. Clinton. In the last few weeks, the prospective presidential candidate supported the Levin resolution on timetables for troop withdrawal from Iraq, penned "a letter to constituents"…
Richard John Neuhaus, Editor-in-Chief of First Things, November 28, 2005: This is an argument very much worth having. Charles Krauthammer writes in the Weekly Standard: "But if that is the case, then McCain embraces the same exceptions I do, but prefers to pretend he does not. If that is the case,…
John Burns of the New York Times continues his first-rate reporting from Iraq. On a day when the high voter turnout among Sunni Arabs was the main surprise, Ali and his posse of friends, unguarded as boys can be, acted like a chorus for the scene unfolding about them. A new willingness to distance…
FOR UNDERSTANDABLE REASONS, Christians of an orthodox stripe tend to grow suspicious when the conversation turns to dispensing with elements of the faith that may have overstayed their welcome. We've been led down that primrose path before: You start with bright talk about paring down the Christian…
MARCELLO LIPPI, head coach of the Italian national soccer team--known worldwide as the "Azzurri"--cut a dapper figure at the draw for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which took place last Friday in the east German city of Leipzig.
Turnout "at least 67 percent" reports Lebanon's Daily Star.
From the Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2005: Even as Saddam Hussein's trial and the dramatic witness testimonies about his crimes are broadcast live across the world, doubts about the legitimacy of the war continue to get a lot of media attention. But thanks to a Frenchman -- no, that's no typo…
Bill Roggio reports from Barwana, Iraq: The polls have been open for six hours in the town of Barwana, one of the three Triad cities which include Haqlaniyah and Haditha. The poll site sits right beneath the now-destroyed Barwana bridge, where Zarqawi terrorists routinely executed residents for not…
REMEMBER THE "Arab Spring"? That ephemeral blip of, oh, six or seven weeks last February and March when scattered Bush critics second-guessed their opposition to the Iraq war and the president's Mideast-democracy project? Given that most Americans now deem the war a mistake, it's easy to forget…
EUROPE WAS CROWING, and it could be heard all the way across the ocean.
ENGAGED IN A FIGHT for their upcoming elections, the Canada's Liberal party has become mired in a series of political embarrassments that now has involved a reluctant U.S. State Department, even while the Martin government grapples with yet another finance scandal.
and "soldiers talk democracy," while Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid talks baseball. The president "is 0 for 3 in his last three speeches," Reid said today. "He hasn't leveled with the American people or laid out a strategy for success." How inspiring.
The Wall Street Journal reports (sub req'd) today that the administration has been pressing Congress to fund research into a new generation of nuclear weapons. Lawmakers have twice turned down proposals to design a new nuclear 'bunker-buster' bomb.... But last month, with little debate, Congress…
Today's Washington Times reports: The Pentagon yesterday announced a landmark change in the use of combat troops, elevating "stability missions" -- commonly called nation-building -- to an equal status with major combat operations. The evolution in war-planning priorities underscores how the…
ON NOVEMBER 7, 2002, POLITICIANS AND OTHER LUMINARIES--including Boston Mayor Thomas P. Menino--gathered at the corner of Tremont Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. They held shovels and awaited a photo op to celebrate the ground-breaking of a new mosque for the…
A few war opponents on the left know Howard Dean goofed with his we can't "win the war" line -- read here, for example. Dean's remark allowed the White House and "hacks" to frame the debate between those who want to pursue victory and those (like Dean) who are conceding defeat. The trick for…
KUDOS to House Speaker Dennis Hastert for insisting that the Christmas tree on the Capitol lawn be designated, once again, the Capitol Christmas Tree. Political correctness had worked to re-dub it a "Holiday Tree" in recent years. Hastert's edict that Congress simply recognize the obvious by using…
Heritage Foundation scholars John J. Tkacik Jr. and Dana Dillon make their case in the latest issue of Policy Review. What Beijing Wants In early 2000, Condoleezza Rice wrote, "China resents the role of the United States in the Asia-Pacific Region. This means that China is not a ‘status quo'…
"The communist state, meanwhile, responded to U.S. critiques with predictably strident rhetoric -- but also took the unusual step of inviting Western tourists to visit in 2006," reports today's Washington Times.
I BROKE MY ANKLE on Thanksgiving Night, 2004. We had my sister and her kids staying with us from New Jersey, and my sister-in-law and her family from Huntington Beach in Orange County. No better joy in a house than when all its beds and couches are full.
THE DEMOCRATS' 2006 election strategy regarding the war in Iraq has begun to emerge. According to the Washington Post, key Democratic operatives and legislators "are slowly coalescing around a political plan [that] would involve setting a broad time frame for drawing down U.S. troops and blaming…
Bush, telling it like it is here. Democracy over dictatorship is the key to long-term peace and security, as Condi Rice also explained yesterday.
Find it here, and here is what a national anti-military group has been up to.
Lebanon's Daily Star reports here.
From the Associated Press: A prominent anti-Syrian journalist and lawmaker was killed by a car bomb Monday, a day after returning from France, where he had been staying periodically for fear of assassination.... Lebanon has been rocked by a series of explosions since the Feb. 14 assassination of…
Kristol editorial, "Back to Basics," Weekly Standard, October 3, 2005: Ronald Reagan used to say that the right policy is often simple-though not easy to carry out. Efforts to win the war, cut taxes and spending, and appoint constitutionalist judges will of course encounter real-world difficulties…
Nyala, Sudan
Restless Giant
On Beauty
PRESIDENT BUSH'S VISION OF SOUND economic policy has remained remarkably constant over the last five years--tax cuts, free trade, and a generous amount of immigration. And why not? Low taxes, free trade, and new immigrants have benefited our economy over the past quarter century, and helped produce…
Why Study the Past?
The Alito Vocabulary
Incoherent Dems
WE NOW KNOW WHAT WAS behind President Bush's mysterious refusal for so many months to respond to Democratic attacks on his Iraq policy--a refusal that came at great political cost to himself and to the American effort in Iraq. It wasn't that Bush was too focused on Social Security reform to bother.…
Maimonides
Isabella Greenway
Goldie
BOOKS IN BRIEF
NOW THAT THE PLAYOFFS ARE upon us, the basketball and hockey seasons have commenced, Super Bowl XL arrives in February, and baseball's Opening Day is just 17 weeks away, it is time for me to make a public disclosure, to confess the truth, and emerge from the closet, as it were:
TIME WAS WHEN THE SELECTION of a new leader of the British Conservative party was an event of some significance.
FOR A BRIEF MOMENT AT a think-tank speech here in Washington a few weeks back, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared to be unholstering the same, classic loose-lips-sink-ships argument that wartime White Houses have been firing at their critics since the Royal Marines burned James Madison's wartime…
FOUR MILLION BABIES ARE BORN in this country every year, bearing gifts of inestimable value. Foremost among these, of course, is the love they bring into the world and elicit from it. More practically, however, these infants bring with them something that we are learning has great potential to…
J. Anthony Froude
The Battle of Salamis
BIRTHS TO UNMARRIED MOTHERS ARE at a record high in the United States--almost 1.5 million in 2004 alone, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. While the rising trend is of long standing, one novel factor driving up childbearing outside marriage is the growing popularity of single…
Melville
A FUNNY THING happened to Condoleezza Rice on her way to Europe last week. Even before the secretary of State began her five-day swing through Germany, Romania, Ukraine, and Belgium, American news media started framing her trip not as an important series of bi-lateral meetings on pressing…
THE GATHERING of 189 nations in Montreal at the Climate Change Conference ended last Friday as most U.N.-sponsored conferences end these days: with denunciations of the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin sent a message to "reticent nations, including the U.S. . . . : there is such a…
Secretary of State Rice writes in today's Washington Post on "why promoting freedom is the only realistic path to security." If the school of thought called "realism" is to be truly realistic, it must recognize that stability without democracy will prove to be false stability, and that fear of…
Henry Kissinger, who supported Saddam's removal from power, explains the folly of withdrawal timetables, and why the Pentagon's "linear" thinking on the training of Iraqi forces "runs the risk of confirming the adage that guerrillas win if they do not lose." Whatever one's view of the decision to…
In 1997, UNSCOM declared that it had accounted for 817 of the 819 missiles prohibited by UN resolution 687. But the 819 referred only to the Scuds that Iraq imported from the Soviet Union, not the issue of Iraq's indigenous missile production. The report stated: However, priority requirements are:…
Frederick Kagan explains in the upcoming issue of the Weekly Standard. In his lengthy piece, he makes the following points: 1. Arbitrary deadlines or milestones for withdrawal threaten to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.t 2. US Troops do NOT Impede Progress and are NOT the primary target of…
Here's what Dean's brother had to say about the Connecticut senator. Earlier this week while discussing the war in Iraq, Senator Joseph Lieberman said, "It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he'll be commander-in-chief for three more critical years, and that in matters…
REPUBLICAN MODERATES, only two dozen or so strong, believe they now hold a pivotal position in the House of Representatives and can influence legislation and internal Republican affairs as never before. Oddly enough, House Democrats have put them in this key position.
PRESIDENT BUSH and Vice President Cheney are both members of the United Methodist Church, as are more than 60 members of Congress and 8.2 million other Americans. But the church's bishops, when they speak politically, sound surprisingly more like Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky (neither of whom is…
Prishtina, Kosovo
The New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan explains here (sub. may be req'd): The contradiction pits the liberal ideal that discourages impinging on the autonomy of others against the liberal ideal that no people ought to be governed without their consent--and that liberals ought therefore to support the…
America hater Harold Pinter doesn't let the Academy down. But hey, the Associated Press reporter says the Academy is just "rewarding writers who make a stand against authority" like they did "in rewarding the literature prize to Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1970."
A Post and Courier columnist reports that Gov. Warner was a hit at a fundraiser last night in South Carolina. In fact, he was so good that he "appears to have wrapped up South Carolina's 2008 Democratic presidential primary more than two years before voters will go to the polls and after only his…
"EVERY IDLE WORD that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment," warns the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew is referring to eternal judgment, though his words apply equally to Supreme Court nominees appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Inspired by the example of…
FOR ALL OF ITS QUIRKS, California is no different from other states in that policy debates unfold neatly along liberal and conservative creases. Except when it comes to the death penalty. It's the rare California issue on which a majority of Republicans and Democrats historically have agreed. A…
Duelfer's September 2004 report stated: ISG has substantial documentary evidence and source reporting indicating that the Regime intentionally violated various international resolutions and agreements in order to pursue its delivery systems programs. Sources with direct access have described…
Today's Wall Street Journal reports: "Congressional investigators are looking at whether the administration underplayed prewar intelligence that was correct in forecasting the post-Saddam chaos that currently engulfs" Iraq. Senate Intel. Cmte Vice-Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): "During the run-up to…
Sensible Democrats are panicked by Dean's remark that the US cannot win in Iraq, and even the DNC press folks are doing their best to backfill the big hole Dean's mouth has dug for them. The head of the major opposition party in the US told Zarqawi, Zawahiri and bin Laden that America won't be…
CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS might want to check in with their constituents before writing any more press releases, making further speeches or voting "no" tomorrow on legislation in the House to extend current tax policies. Sure, the class warfare harangues and soak-the-rich rhetoric make liberals…
THE GOOD NEWS for the Democrats is that their leadership has settled on an electoral strategy for 2006. The bad news is that they have cribbed their game plan from one of the most disastrous campaigns in their history. The Democratic leadership has decided to elevate surrender to a party platform…
As usual, Sen. Joe Lieberman acts as one of the very few adults in the Donkey party. The Kennedy-Dean crowd spend their waking hours telling the US troops that their commander-in-chief lied them into war, yet they "support the troops." Please.
When Howard Dean was gaining steam for the Democratic nomination, the party's establishment panicked -- and rightly so. Dean would have been demolished. One prominent Democrat even penned an effective anti-Dean piece in the Washington Post in April 2003 under the headline, "The Blair Democrats:…
If anyone has an example of a party chairman making remarks similar to those of Howard Dean, please send them along to wws@weeklystandard.com.
Capt. Rozelle is profiled in this small newspaper in Alexandria, Virginia. He understands how the world changed on September 11, unlike defeatists like Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi. For instance, "the week I met my new foot," he said that a reporter from CBS News followed him around. "I was proud,…
THE WAR IN IRAQ, hurricanes in the Gulf, the unsettling prospect of a change at the top of the Federal Reserve Board, a president unable to persuade the majority of Americans that he can lead them to peace and prosperity, a Doha trade round that seems more rather than less likely to fail, high…
Howard Dean, America's enemies thank you.
THE CURRENT DISCUSSION about drawing down American troops in Iraq--whether "immediately," "rapidly" or "as soon as possible"--would be amusing were it not so dangerously divorced from reality. There could be no greater mistake than drawing down the U.S. force now, at a moment when there is real…
Al Qaeda's Valedictorian
THE OUTLOOK FOR THE ALITO nomination remains favorable. Even so, there is this short essay Sam Alito wrote in 1985. Senate Democrats and their political and media allies don't like it. Indeed, they think it may provide kindling that will feed a flame that they can blow into a fire mighty enough to…
Return Fire
An International Relations Debacle
London
WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNED THE Homeland Security Appropriations Act six weeks ago, he did it in the East Room of the White House in a glossy ceremony befitting an occasion of Republican unity. Which is what it was, right up to the moment when Bush started talking about illegal immigrants. "They…
PRESIDENT BUSH MAY HAVE BEEN blamed unfairly for the hurricane that hit New Orleans, but there isn't going to be anywhere to hide when the next "natural" disaster hits--the Natural Gas Shock of 2005-06. Natural gas is now selling at $12 per thousand cubic feet, up from $2 in 2002. But that's just…
Inventing Late Night
If Benton had had an administration building with pillars it could have carved over the pillars: Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you feel guilty. . . . Many a Benton girl went back to her nice home, married her rich husband, and carried a fox in her bosom for the rest of her…
Storm Over Texas
MASSACHUSETTS IS CONSIDERING HEALTH INSURANCE reform to address the problems of the uninsured. The federal government is pressuring the state to do something or lose several hundred million dollars in Medicaid funding. Two competing ideas are single-payer health care, favored by some on the left,…
Las Vegas
IN OHIO, THE DEMOCRATS' prospects for 2006 may be worse than the Republicans'. And that's saying something, given the magnitude of the GOP's problems in the state.
Books in Brief
During the last few weeks in Washington the pieties about torture have lain so thick in the air that it has been impossible to have a reasoned discussion. The McCain amendment that would ban "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of any prisoner by any agent of the United States sailed through…
WHEN I WAS A KID, my friends and I were always starting clubs. They all consisted of the same four or five guys, but membership was not automatic. To be accepted into the Phoenix Club or The Jets or The Time Travelers, you'd have to complete a rite of initiation. This might involve riding your bike…
A Natural History of Latin
MUCH OF THE CURRENT DEBATE over what is generally known as therapeutic cloning--that is, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) cloning conducted for research purposes rather than reproduction--centers on the nature of the thing that is created by the cloning process. Until recently, this issue…
With December 7 fast approaching, WWII vets share their stories with NavySEALs.com's W. Thomas Smith Jr.
On Meet the Press today, Tim Russert and Sen. John McCain had the following exchange over what Sen. Ted Kennedy has called "a devious scheme." MR. RUSSERT: The Pentagon, in fact, was paying Iraqi journalists to publish articles favorable to the United States' position. The Los Angeles Times first…
Weekly Standard contributor Robert Kagan explains in today's Washington Post. The current discussion about drawing down American troops in Iraq -- whether "immediately," "rapidly" or "as soon as possible" -- would be amusing were it not so dangerously divorced from reality. There could be no…
If you ever get the chance, go visit this outstanding tribute to America's World War II generation.
The Financial Times has the story here. Thus there's much to play for and, to make the play more interesting, a new society was recently launched at a crowded, sweaty reception in the House of Commons. The Henry Jackson Society is named for the US congressman who insisted that US governments…
See here. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to the Defense Department's inspector general asking for an investigation into the program and the Lincoln Group contract. Kennedy called it "a devious scheme to place favorable propaganda in Iraqi…
The folks at the DLC write: Demands for an immediate troop withdrawal or arbitrary deadlines risk turning premature declarations that the United States has failed in Iraq into a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is why Democrats must reject them. If our forces leave before the Iraqis can defend…
Hanson writes in today's Chicago Tribune: But all that is precisely the risk we must take in supporting the McCain amendment--because it is a public reaffirmation of our country's ideals. The United States can win this global war without employing torture. That we will not resort to what comes so…
WHEN THE IRANIAN PRESIDENT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared last month that "Israel should be wiped off the map," Giuliano Ferrara, director of Il Foglio, a conservative Italian newspaper close to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, took immediate action. He quickly announced a public protest defending…
The House condemns the government for its arrogance in refusing to compromise with the opposition parties over the timing of the next general election and for its "culture of entitlement," corruption, scandal and gross abuse of public funds for political purposes and, consequently, the government…
The Washington Post reports that the US military will give a higher priority to preparing for post-conflict stability operations -- very good idea. But while many may agree on this post-conflict focus, there's quite a divide -- Powell, Shinseki, Rumsfeld, etc. -- on just how big the deployed force…
A friend of the Worldwide Standard emailed some material Sen. Kerry apparently hasn't read. Senator Kerry, November 30, 2005: Secondly, this debate is not about an artificial date for withdrawal. Several times in his speech today, the president set up this straw man and then knocks it down. That's…
OH, YEAH. Victory. Almost forgot about that one.
IN THE CIA's continuing campaign against the Bush administration, the agency has found the leaking of classified information to be a potent weapon. This is especially true with regard to the spinning of intelligence connecting Saddam's Iraq and bin Laden's al Qaeda. Consider, for example, the case…
AMONG HARVARD UNDERGRADUATES, the open-enrollment Harvard Extension School--whose continuing education program offers a Harvard diploma, of sorts, to anyone willing to pay a modest fee--maintains a faintly sketchy reputation, and not without reason. A homeless man who attempted, with some success,…
CONSERVATIVES are justifiably proud of the alternative they've created to the mainstream media--the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, big regional papers, TV networks, and the national news magazine. Last year, conservative talk radio, websites, and bloggers forced the…
From Hoyer press statement on the President's Iraq speech, November 30, 2005: I believe that a precipitous withdrawal of American forces in Iraq could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation's security and credibility.
Bush Attempts Hard Sell on Iraq Progress By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 30, 1:57 PM ET President Bush's depiction of Iraqi security forces as "helping to turn the tide" is difficult to square with persistent setbacks in handing control of the country back to its own people. His…