250 articles
icon.roggio2.1.gifThe city of Baghdad continues to see a drop in sectarian violence, while suicide car bombings remain al Qaeda's most deadly tool. After the car bomb offensive by al Qaeda two weeks ago, which included 11 major suicide attacks over just five days, the past week inside the city has…
The White House is waiting for the Iraq supplemental that the president has promised to veto. It was cleared for the White House four days ago. As CQ notes, Congressional leaders never intended to send it before tomorrow--although it's unclear why. Rest assured though, Congressional leaders are…
From National Review: Tenet Strikes Out, by Michael Ledeen. From the New York Post: Congress & Iraq: Declaring Defeat, by Peter Brookes. From RealClearPolitics: China's Submarines, by Richard Halloran. From Congressional Quarterly: McCain Probes Air Force CSAR Contract With Boeing, by Josh Rogin.…
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently got into trouble for saying aloud what many in his party undoubtedly believe--that Iraq is "lost." This weekend brought fresh and powerful evidence of why he is wrong. The story begins last fall when, according to a front page article in the Washington…
This goes back a little ways. You may recall that after the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives last fall, there was discussion over who would become chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Representative Jane Harman was in line for it, but she had quarreled with Speaker…
Think Progress has posted the video of Tom Brokaw's interview with George Tenet this morning. Brokaw pressed Tenet on the details of a conversation he claims to have had with Richard Perle on September 12, 2001, and which Perle denies ever took place--owing to the fact that he was not in the…
An April 24th piece in the PLA Daily cautioning against the "corrosive effect" of foreign culture has been republished by several Chinese-language newspapers and websites, including People's Daily, the immensely popular infotainment website sina.com, and china.com.cn, which operates under the…
The news from Iraq is, as usual, grim. Bombings, more bombings, and yet more bombings--that's all the world notices. It's easy to conclude that all is chaos. That's not true. Some parts of Iraq are in bad shape, but others are improving. I spent the first two weeks of April in Baghdad, with side…
Chicago
The new effort to establish security in Iraq has begun. At this early stage, the most important positive development is a rise in hostility to al Qaeda in the Sunni community. Al Qaeda has responded with its own "surge" in spectacular attacks, which so far has not revived support for the terrorists…
The Ice Museum
Even in America's fractious conservative movement, you don't often see William F. Buckley Jr. and George Will facing off on opposite sides of an issue. Much less would you expect the dispute to occur over a trustee election at a university neither attended. But Dartmouth trustee elections in recent…
Disturbia
Jews and Gentiles
Political discourse has become so rotten that it's no longer possible to tell the stench of one presidential candidate from the stink of another. They all give off the same skunk whiff. Would-be chief executives and their staffs shovel madly in the manure pile of foreign and domestic policy.…
Honest Democrats should admit that they are in a predicament: The electoral interests of their party are at odds with the interests of the country in Iraq. If the surge fails, the Democrats stand to gain enormously in 2008. A Republican could try to depict himself as the candidate best able to…
TIME KEEPS DRAGGIN' ON
The Media Frenzy
Though today's opinion does not go so far as to discard Roe or Casey, the Court, differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation, is hardly faithful to our earlier invocations of "the rule of law" and the "principles of stare decisis." That sentence comes…
You may have noticed that Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution won this year's Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary. I might not have noticed it myself, except that a waggish friend sent me an email on the day of the announcement, reminding me of the last time Cynthia Tucker,…
In every writer's secret heart, which is not without tincture of vanity, he covets the kind of letter I received out of the blue from a total stranger one day in July 1963. It suddenly lavished upon me the compliments that every writer believes he deserves and seldom hears.
Marriage and Caste in America
Arizona senator John McCain, currently a bit behind Rudy Giuliani as Republicans' favorite presidential choice for 2008, is far and away the most consistently anti-abortion of all the top contenders. During his 20 years in the Senate (plus four in the House), he has never failed to cast his vote in…
Europe's Physician
The last time a Japanese premier met George Bush in America, ten months ago, he wound up touring Graceland and serenading his host with Elvis numbers. Junichiro Koizumi won't soon be confused with the King, but the "Sayonara Summit" of June 2006 affirmed his status as one of Bush's favorite foreign…
SENATOR JIM DEMINT has led a crusade against pork barrel spending during his tenure in office, successfully blocking the omnibus spending bill last winter, pushing for various lobbying reforms, and even chastising his fellow Republicans for some of their earmark indulgences. Most recently, he…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of April 30, 2007.
The boss just posted an interesting piece on THE DAILY STANDARD about George Tenet's soon-to-be-released At the Center of the Storm. It seems that Tenet has included some misleading statements in the book, as well at least one rather serious factual error. According to Kristol's reporting: THE…
Fox News Sunday: John McCain was the featured guest on Fox News Sunday, and the Arizona senator laid out his vision for a McCain presidency in one quick sentence: "Reform government, fight this Islamic extremist element that challenges the world, and restore integrity to government." While the…
SCOTT SHANE REPORTED in Saturday's New York Times that former CIA chief George Tenet's dramatic description in his book, At the Center of the Storm, of an August 2002 presentation at the CIA by defense undersecretary Douglas Feith and his staff, is at the very least misleading. In order to suggest…
Author's Note: After a brief hiatus, the Sunday Show Wrap-Up returns for one last appearance on THE DAILY STANDARD. In the future, look for this feature to appear exclusively on THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD in the new, slightly truncated form debuting this week. If you see something interesting, click on…
Senator McCain had a conference call with a number of bloggers this afternoon, and McCain certainly made some interesting points. In response to comments yesterday by Mitt Romney that we shouldn't "move heaven and earth" or "spend billions" trying to capture Osama bin Laden, which we commented on…
Baghdad and greater Iraq has seen yet another relatively quiet day. A major car bombing in Tal Afar was reported by an unidentified police officer, however Iraqi officials and the city's mayor later denied the report. The two major stories from Iraq are the capture of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a senior…
Bush and Lula, REUTERS/Caetano BarreiraHugo Chavez is an outsized personality with a bit of Don King about him. His foolish policies, anti-Americanism and devotion to a walking cadaver earn him a tremendous amount of attention in the United States. Less noticed, however, is that his attempt to…
From RedState: Dispatches from Iraq, by Jeff Emanuel. From USA Today: Progress is Being Made, by Jerry Lewis. From Townhall: 9/11 On Stilts and Obama's "Potentially" Muscular Reaction, by Dean Barnett. From National Review: What, Us Weak on Defense? by Byron York. From Captain's Quarters: The…
For the most part, yes. Dean Barnett points to this quote from a speech the former governor gave earlier in the week at Yeshiva University as evidence: "What Jimmy Carter fails to understand is what so many fail to understand: Whether it is Hamas or Hezbollah or al Qaeda, there is an overarching…
The United States has scored a major victory against al Qaeda's global network. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, one of Osama bin Laden's senior deputies who was "personally chosen by bin Laden to monitor al Qaeda operations in Iraq," has been captured and transfered to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.…
The president headed to Camp David today with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Following an "intimate" dinner last night at the White House, where the two leaders were joined by their wives, their respective ambassadors, and golfer Ben Crenshaw, they will spend today discussing a range of issues…
We may have figured out why the Democratic policy on Iraq is so incoherent. At least some Democrats seem to think that Iraq, Haiti, and Somalia are all the same. The linked page includes video of Senator McCain advocating the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Somalia in 1993 and from Haiti…
BECAUSE OF AND in spite of Hollywood films like The African Queen and television shows like Tarzan, tropical Africa south of the Sahara and north of the Zambezi is terra incognita for most Americans. Some cling to fragments of the "noble savage" myth advanced by Jean Jacques Rousseau, who argued…
MAXINE WATERS and John Cornyn don't agree on much, but they do agree that government should not be acquiring private property for private economic development via eminent domain. They were both unnerved by the 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, which gave such takings a…
AS CONGRESS PREPARES to vote on a supplemental defense appropriations bill that includes timelines for the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the lines in the debate over Iraq strategy have become ever starker. The administration and other defenders of the present strategy insist that it be given the…
Rest assured, when the war in Iraq is no longer the most important issue facing the Republic, the Weekly Standard will return to American Idol updates. That said, since Democrats insist on repeatedly quoting General Petraeus to justify their effort to pull the rug out from under the war effort, we…
General David Petraeus, the commander of Multinational Force Iraq, completed his closed-door Congressional testimony yesterday, and has since conducted a quick press briefing and a Pentagon briefing. In this morning's Pentagon briefing, Gen. Petraeus highlighted Iran's involvement in Iraq, al Qaeda…
Senator Lieberman delivered a speech on the floor of the Senate today that probably won't get as much attention as it deserves, but it is a deep and comprehensive critique of the Democratic leadership's Iraq policy. We've posted the speech in its entirety at THE DAILY STANDARD. Click here to read.
From the AP: The Air Force's top general expressed frustration on Tuesday with the reassignment of troops under his command to ground jobs for which they were not trained, ranging from guarding prisoners to driving trucks and typing. Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, said that…
Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) today addressed the Iraq withdrawal provision in the supplemental appropriations bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
NOT MANY AMERICANS are commemorating the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War. Outside Washington, D.C., over 100 West Virginians recently assembled for their annual commemoration of their own community's role in the "war that made America." Creditably, PBS aired a documentary with that…
Right now the entire focus of public debate on Iraq seems to be on when the troops should leave. The Bush administration argues for troops to remain until the job is done, while Democrats want troops to withdraw anywhere between today and next summer. But before pulling out of Iraq, we ought to…
The violence inside Baghdad was unusually low today, with no major attacks inside the city. The pressing issue inside Baghdad continues to be the building of Adhamiya security barrier, and the upcoming modifications. The largest suicide attack occurred in Diyala province outside a police station,…
With the news that Nancy Pelosi can't find time to listen to the Petraeus briefing on Iraq, you can see why Congressional Democrats might worry about the political instincts of their leadership: As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion…
"One of the few things that helps us right now is the public distaste for violent doves . . ." --From a 1967 letter from National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy to President Johnson THE WAR WAS GOING BADLY. As the death toll mounted (an average of two dozen soldiers were dying every day) and the…
The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has ordered a halt to the building of a security barrier around the Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiya. There are obvious political implications to building such a barrier in the Arab world. "I've ordered it to stop and to find other means of…
The Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon has an excellent piece in the Washington Times today. You can read it in its entirety here, but it is worth excerpting at length. O'Hanlon compares the terrorists and Saddam loyalists we are now fighting in Iraq to the enemies this country has faced…
Since the midterm elections, Republicans have embraced the role of the loyal opposition in Congress -- doing their best to shift the debate in the House and Senate more to the center. On the war on terror, federal spending and congressional reform, there have been important victories. But at the…
From the Los Angeles Times: An Iraq success story, by Max Boot. From the Chicago Sun-Times: Talking of defeat is no way to win in Iraq, by John O'Sullivan. From War is Boring: Rescue Chopper Paper Trail, by David Axe. From Military.com: Hundreds of Taliban Forces Surrounded. From the Washington…
Here's the video, and it's a disgrace. First Reid makes the claim that saying "the war is lost," is equivalent to the statement by General Petraeus that "the war can't be won militarily." Obviously the war must be fought on several fronts, with military force, diplomatic pressure, economic aid,…
I WILL NEVER FORGET the first time I saw Boris Yeltsin in person. It was in Dallas in September 1989--slightly less than two years after he was fired from his job as Moscow's chief Communist Party boss and lost his seat on the old Soviet-era Politburo. His political revival had begun earlier that…
It attracted little attention the other day when Harry Reid said: like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief - and this is his war. In 1994, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey infamously stated on the House floor 'your president is just not that important for us.' Liberals…
"We, who are willing to support this new strategy, and give General Petraeus the time and support he needs, have chosen a hard road. But it is the right road. It is necessary and just. Democrats, who deny our soldiers the means to prevent an American defeat, have chosen another road. It may appear…
SHARE PRICES hit record highs; corporate profits are coming in at what only the greedy would consider unsatisfactory levels; jobs are plentiful; real wages are rising--and 6 out of every 10 Americans are expecting a recession.
THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT has entered into two agreements in the past seven months that promise to destabilize Afghanistan and provide a haven for terrorists to plan and train for catastrophic attacks. Under the September 2006 Waziristan Accord, Pakistan agreed that its military would no longer…
TODAY, THE HOUSE Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chaired by Henry Waxman (D-CA) conducted a hearing into "misleading military statements" that followed the death of Pat Tillman and the ordeal of Jessica Lynch. I cannot speak of the Pat Tillman incident, but I can speak to the story of…
IN THE CONVENTIONAL template of reporting on Iraq, glossy, controversial headlines often fail to reflect the reality of the situation on the ground. Take the latest reporting by McClatchy Newspapers' Nancy A. Youssef concerning the purported shift of U.S. military power away from training Iraqi…
In the conventional template of reporting on Iraq, glossy, controversial headlines often fail to reflect the reality of the situation on the ground. Take the latest reporting by McClatchy Newspapers' Nancy A. Youssef concerning the purported shift of U.S. military power away from training Iraqi…
WHEN THE New York Times broke the story in September, 2004, it seemed like an open-and-shut case: Ever since Newmont Mining Corp., the world's largest gold producer, had opened a mine in the Indonesian fishing village of Buyat Bay, villagers had complained of rashes, dizziness, and other mysterious…
For some months, Democrats have been trying to force an end to the war in Iraq without being blamed by the public for cutting off funds for the troops. Given the resolve of President Bush to continue the mission however, it's clear that eventually the Democrats will have to choose. They must either…
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." --Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Chapter 1, first line TOLSTOY, I suspect, had it wrong. Examples of unhappiness are more like each other than instances of happiness. Mass murderers, for example, tend to be all alike. As…
The New York Times has a piece today that outright blames the Bush administration for failing to prevent China's ASAT test in January of this year. The authors, Michael Gordon and David Cloud, write that the administration knew of the coming test and did nothing to prevent it: But some experts…
From THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Can Petraeus Pull it Off? by Max Boot. Friends, Enemies and Spoilers, by Frederick W. Kagan. On Democracy and Iraq, by Reuel Marc Gerecht. From the Washington Post: Make No Mistake: This Is War, by Michael Chertoff. From U.S. News: The CIA's Double Standard, by David E.…
This past Friday, the Chinese-language website eastday.com, operating under the direct supervision of the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist party's Shanghai branch, carried a commentary titled "An Absurd Logic: the Beijing Olympics and Darfur." The author, Wang Weinan, is a researcher…
Senator John McCain's speech last week on winning in Iraq earned high marks, at least from conservatives. One result was an immediate fourfold increase in McCain's online fundraising, though he'd made no special appeal. Another was that his once close ties to the mainstream media continued to fray,…
The Hoax
Conservative Conservationist
As Congress again takes up the issue of support for our troops fighting in Iraq, members should have the decency to take account of the successes those troops have fought for and achieved in recent weeks. Much of the support in the Democratic caucus for cutting off funds for Iraq comes from a…
A strange thing happened a few weeks back when I went to the Café Promenade at the Mayflower Hotel for an off-the-record interview with an unpaid adviser to the non-campaign of unannounced presidential candidate Fred Thompson.
I'm at the gym jogging on a Life Fitness Treadmill and watching the Flying Kaminsky perform--there's no other way to describe it--his exercise routine. He's a short wiry guy who looks like he's in his late twenties, though he has a bald spot near the crown of his head. He has long orangutan arms…
Beauty Junkies
Mitch McConnell's will to win, developed at an early age, fell short when as president of the Student Bar Association at the University of Kentucky law school he failed in his effort to institute a student honor code. It was a major defeat in his early political life. "I laid my prestige on the…
Even though Congress was in recess the first week of April, a number of lawmakers kept busy. A bipartisan delegation led by House majority leader Steny Hoyer paid a visit to Cairo, meeting with several Egyptian members of parliament, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a controversial…
GALLING GALLAUDET
"Solidarity Forever, Pal!"
Not long after I came to Wash ington to work as a junior editorial flunky, I went to a cocktail party at a think tank. (Attending cocktail parties at think tanks, I thought then, was one of the great perks of my job, which tells you all you need to know about the life of a junior editorial flunky.)…
Thermopylae
Andrew Klavan is a prolific crime novelist and screenwriter, author of about 20 novels (some pseudonymous). He is also a conservative, as is evident in a January op-ed that he wrote for the Los Angeles Times, criticizing Hollywood for not making films about the war against Islamist terror:
As if the United States doesn't stand out enough these days, yet another trend is making us more and more distinct in the world: the massive growth of our nonprofit sector. Some people hope, and others fear, that this might change the very nature of American society. Western countries have already…
Notebooks
Kiev
Wow. This is a stunner. After months of trying to micro-manage the war in Iraq, Democrats are trying to 'micro-fund' it: A two-month spending bill to cover the costs of the Iraq war is "very likely" after President Bush vetoes the current Iraq spending bill, House Defense Appropriations Chairman…
From Time: McCain v. Reid, by William Kristol. From the Washington Post: A Moment of Silence, by Charles Krauthammer. From Defense Tech: The Poobahs Speak, by Christian Lowe. From the Jerusalem Post: Fighting the next war, by Caroline Glick. From the Washington Times: An ABM for Europe? by Austin…
The New York Times reports that there's a lot more talk about democracy in China nowadays: Communist Party journals and the state-run news media have published a stream of commentaries by retired officials and academics on "political system reform" and the need for "socialist democracy," including…
I posted an article at THE DAILY STANDARD yesterday on the CSAR-X competition, and I think it's worth doing a little follow-up here. First off, Aviation Week has posted a video on the competition that goes a long way towards explaining why the Chinook was selected, but they don't make any excuses…
THIS MONTH, Syria has been in the headlines in Washington. First, there was the ill-fated early April visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Damascus. Then last week, American-Syrian businessman Abe Soleiman traveled to Jerusalem pitching an unauthorized plan--according to Damascus--for renewed…
The Vermont State Senate today voted to recommend the commencement of impeachment proceedings against the president and vice president...yes, both of them: Vermont senators voted Friday to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying their actions in Iraq and…
Time just posted the latest from WEEKLY STANDARD editor Bill Kristol, available here. It leads with these two quotes: "We, who are willing to support this new strategy, and give General Petraeus the time and support he needs, have chosen a hard road. But it is the right road. It is necessary and…
Here's the video from MoveOn.org--according to the press release, the anti-war group will air the ad in "early primary states"--which this year could mean just about any state in the country. As the Hotline points out, "The more liberals bash McCain, the more comfortable conservatives tend to get."…
Senator Joe Lieberman delivered the keynote speech yesterday for the National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance. Here's an excerpt: Of course all of us would like to live in a peaceful world, a world of justice… But there are forces that constantly seek to cut through the marble of our…
IN SUB-SAHARAN Africa an estimated 30 million people have the HIV-AIDS virus. Some 17 million have died so far, and the disease kills 5,000 adults and 1,000 children every day--a rate 20 times that of Western countries. The crisis is especially grievous because it adds millions of victims to those…
WELL, HOW DO you say 'Israel' in Arabic? The wrong way to answer that question is by consulting a textbook for first-year students of Arabic. Those textbooks will instruct you almost immediately how to say 'Palestine' or even 'Mauritania.' One of them even includes a handsome drawing of the young…
I know he meant well, but Al Gore might be making global warming worse: Dr Bala and his colleagues took such effects into account using a computer model called the Integrated Climate and Carbon Model. Unlike most climate-change models, which calculate how the Earth should absorb and radiate heat in…
plaquechirac2.jpgPalestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas declared last Tuesday that the West Bank city of Ramallah would soon rename one of its biggest thoroughfares after Jacques Chirac, the incumbent French President. Mahmoud Abbas called his French counterpart a "grand homme" on this…
The Huffington Post has published another "blog post" from Rep. John Murtha, indicating (again) his support for re-instating the draft: Our military has done a tremendous job with what has been asked of them. They have juggled and balanced with what they have, but what they have is not enough. The…
From National Review: A Culture of Passivity, by Mark Steyn. From the Australian: Australians are all conservatives now, by Scott Prasser. From the Chicago Sun-Times: An Arms Race America Must Win, by Ed Feulner. From Defense Update: Hezbollah is Rearming for another round with Israel, by Colonel…
MRAP vehicles--mine resistant ambush protected--are all the rage, and for good reason. The Pentagon plans to purchase as many as 8,000 of the vehicles, from as many as nine different suppliers, for operations in Iraq. I've covered MRAP here in the past on numerous occasions, and over the past few…
So the saga that is the Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental continues today, with word that Congressional Democrats--having decided the big issues--are ready to begin a conference on the legislation. Roll Call ($) reports that Democratic leaders are breaking the bad news to House liberals--the conference…
There were a few weeks there where I was getting worried about McCain, but he's back. This first video is a preview of McCain's campaign for president, which will officially kick off on April 25. The second, which is prominently featured on today's Drudge Report...well, it puts a smile on our faces.
NPR aired an interview this morning with Doug Feith, which includes an interview with one of his students at Georgetown University and clips from the ever-reliable news source the Colbert Show. You can hear the interview here. The clip from the Colbert Show has the host quoting from an article in…
We've been making a few changes here at THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD, bringing in new contributors and generally expanding our coverage. Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed the postings of the Influence Peddler, aka Brian Faughnan. Brian worked for 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives,…
With the first round of the French presidential voting coming up this weekend, Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal keeps dropping in the polls and leftist nerves are fraying. Royal's husband François Hollande, the leader of the Socialist party, has declared in a radio interview with Europe 1 that…
PERHAPS THE AMERICAN public can only digest one helicopter-related story at a time, but the Marine Corps's recent announcement that the controversial V-22 Osprey will soon be deployed to Iraq--which captured national headlines--is overshadowing a simmering scandal in the Air Force's CSAR-X…
WHETHER YOU'RE A NEW ENGLANDER who is forced to wear two pairs of longjohns in the winter to keep warm or a Londoner who has trouble ponying up bus fare for the daily commute, worry no more: You can look to the leader of the Bolivarian revolution for succor.
SIXTY-THREE REPUBLICAN members of the House of Representatives showed up at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, DC, on Wednesday afternoon to hear from Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee Senator and potential presidential candidate. Thompson spoke and took questions for a little more than an hour.
As predicted here yesterday, Congressional Democrats have given up on proposed language that would have required all troops to withdraw from Iraq by September 2008. Instead, they hope to send to the president a funding bill that 'suggests' that all troops be withdrawn by March 31 of next year:…
news_38192_n.jpgAs things stand now, it's entirely unclear whether the North Koreans will meet their first obligation set forth under the February 13 agreement--the shutdown of the country's main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. After nearly four years of Six Party Talks with the North Koreans, the…
Roll Call reports ($) this morning that General David Petraeus will return from Iraq next week to Washington to meet with members of Congress and discuss the state of affairs in Iraq. The visit coincides with Congressional consideration of the Iraq/Afghanistan funding bill. That bill will be in a…
THE LAW takes the long view, and so do its chroniclers--none more so than Linda Greenhouse, New York Times reporter and unofficial doyenne of the Supreme Court press corps. But Greenhouse's recent essay on Chief Justice Roberts exemplifies the risks of racing to write the second draft of history…
STEVE HAYWARD is no Al Gore. The former vice president's film about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, delighted environmentalists and won an Academy Award. Hayward's rebuttal of Gore's warning about a coming climate catastrophe won't thrill either the environmental crowd or Hollywood's liberal…
AFTER PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO's dramatic decision to dissolve the parliament on April 2 and schedule new elections on May 27, Ukraine has been plunged into yet another political crisis. In an address to the nation on April 4, deputies from the Verkhovna Rada have decried Yushchenko's move as a coup…
Several news outlets report on the House-Senate conference which must resolve differences between their respective Iraq/Afghanistan supplementals. The primary question is whether the conference report will use the Senate language, which calls for a suggested timetable for withdrawal, or the House…
From Slate: Sliming Wolfowitz, by Christopher Hitchens. From the New York Sun: Bolstering Moderate Muslims, by Daniel Pipes. From the Washington Times: Finding the moderates, by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. From Spiegel: Official Recognition of Islam in Germany? by the editors. From the Los Angeles…
With tax day here, you'll be glad to know that Congress is changing the way it approaches important tax questions. If you're a lobbyist, you no longer have to buy tickets to two separate fundraisers if you want to support Ways and Means Chairman Rangel and Finance Chairman Baucus. Now you can buy…
WHEN IT WAS REVEALED last week that Frank Gaffney Jr.'s contribution to PBS's "America at a Crossroads" series was not going to be aired, conservatives around the country knowingly shook their heads and clucked their tongues. Gaffney, a hawkish conservative who founded the Center for Security…
Yulia TymoshenkoYesterday, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement strongly condemning an article in Foreign Affairs magazine by former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The statement called the article an "anti-Russian manifesto" and "an attempt to once again draw…
ON EASTER SUNDAY, with the exhausting round of Holy Week liturgies completed, Pope Benedict XVI offered the customary papal address, Urbi et orbi, to the city and to the world. The atmosphere was festive--tulips and apple blossoms adorned the central loggia of St. Peter's Basilica--but reports of…
FOOD-PRICE INFLATION so severe that central banks are forced to raise interest rates to growth-stifling levels; corn prices so high that poor Mexicans can't afford their tortillas; massive deforestation to make way for more corn and palm oil; poor farmers pushed off their land to make room for…
Jerusalem
Harry Reid may have been reacting to Cheney's declaration of victory in the battle over supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when he stated today that the president will not get a clean funding bill for Iraq: President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid head to a…
From the Washington Post: Will Iraq Be the Next Rwanda? by Stuart Gottlieb. From the Boston Globe: War strategy critic to review IED office, by Bryan Bender. From the Los Angeles Times: Global leaders need to rule the seas, by Niall Ferguson. From the Australian: The UN Human Rights Crowd Drops Its…
Lost amidst the debate over Iraq and the end of the Democrats' first 100 days in control of the Congress is this piece of disturbing news. Senator Max Baucus - Chairman of the Finance Committee and one of the leading proponents of expanded trade among Congressional Democrats - announced the other…
Russia is a strange place. On Saturday, a vocal Russian opposition held a rally in Moscow led by Gary Kasparov, who became the youngest every world champion chess player in 1985 but retired from the game in 2005 to devote himself to political activism. Kasparov was arrested as soon as he arrived,…
From AFP: "Based on the international laws, embassies cannot be sold or confiscated," Reza Jafari, deputy Teheran prosecutor, was quoted as saying in the centrist Kargozaran newspaper. "The court can only confiscate property such as cars, bank accounts, buildings and firms, and cannot pass a…
If you haven't been reading Ares, go check it out. It was a good blog to begin with, but since the arrival of Bill Sweetman, it has gotten even better. And today, Sweetman puts the smackdown on the New York Times: Sunday's New York Times runs a long feature on General Atomics - Aeronautical Systems…
The Corner's Andy McCarthy has double posted in response to Thomas Joscelyn's article in yesterday's DAILY STANDARD. Joscelyn does an excellent job of debunking the consensus view on connections between prewar Iraq and al Qaeda--a view rehashed in the Washington Post last week under the title…
From the Washington Post: The Surge: First Fruits, by Charles Krauthammer. From THE DAILY STANDARD: Who's Spinning Intel? by Thomas Joscelyn. From National Review: Paying Nuclear Tribute to North Korea, by Claudia Rosett. From USA Today: 'We have reduced stress', by Thomas F. Hall. From the…
The House Republicans have released a report on the First 100 Days of the Democratic Congress, concluding that Democrats have accomplished little legislatively. Partisan Democrats will argue that this is not a surprise, given that they have narrow majorities and a president in opposition. They'll…
Al Qaeda in Iraq conducted two successful high profile suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad yesterday. The first attack occurred in a cafe at the Iraqi Parliament. The second occurred on the Jisr al-Hadeed bridge, which crosses the Tigris river. This attack destroyed the bridge and killed over…
This week's editorial from the Nation is a real doozy. Here's how it starts: Once upon a time, Republicans believed in diplomacy. They spoke with enemies. Recall Richard Nixon: As President, he negotiated with the Soviets, the Chinese and the North Vietnamese, who were shooting at US troops at the…
BerezovskyKlebnikovBookFullSize.jpgBoris Berezovsky says he's planning the overthrow of Vladimir Putin: "We need to use force to change this regime," Berezovsky, who has received asylum in Britain, told the Guardian newspaper. "It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There…
TWO RECENT STORIES from the Wall Street Journal point to a deep--and unexpected--revelation about the evolving nature of globalization, a term that we hear a lot but understand only dimly.
MY ARTICLE concerning George Polk was posted online on February 17, 2007 for the edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD dated February 26. It contained links to a set of original documents setting out my case. The article further incorporated questions to American journalism. Subsequently, a shorter…
LAST WEEK, the Washington Post ("Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted") covered the latest round in Senator Levin's ongoing struggle to prove that the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda was nothing more than a fiction. Levin has been at this game for a while, and this time the Post's…
As I've noted before, the base of the Democratic party is pushing its leaders further and further left on Iraq. In the weeks after the midterm election, it was clear that Democrats wanted to avoid the political damage associated with taking part-'ownership' of Iraq. As long as they gave the…
Frederick W. Kagan has just posted a response to Joe Biden's op-ed in today's Washington Post. Here's a sample: We are not simply "squeezing the water balloon." Violence is up in the Baghdad belts because U.S. and Iraqi forces have been aggressively attacking al Qaeda bases in those areas that have…
Senator Joseph Biden, still promoting the increasingly inappropriate notion of partitioning Iraq, declares that for every positive development in Iraq that can be reported, there are at least as many negatives. In an op-ed in this morning's (April 12) Washington Post, he identifies four examples:
From the Boston Globe: A silent springtime for Hitler? by Alex Beam. From the Australian: We cannot desert either battlefield, by Michael Costello. From Azure: Hope over Hate: A Lebanon Diary, by Noah Pollak. From the New York Sun: Bush's Ratings, by the editors. From the Wall Street Journal(Sub.…
If you use YouTube, be sure to bookmark the MNF Iraq Channel.
AL CAPONE HAD BECOME a celebrity criminal by 1931. Everybody knew what he was up to: his litany of offenses included murder, bribery, and running illegal breweries. But the government would have had trouble proving Capone's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for his most notorious activities. Instead,…
Today, al Qaeda's regional affiliate, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, conducted a dual bombing in Algiers, the capital of Algeria. One of the two targets was the office of Algeria's Prime Minister. Over 30 were killed and scores more wounded in the two bombings, which are believed to be suicide…
The old adage warns that if you like sausage, you better not watch it made. The good news is that no one likes the Iraq supplemental that Congressional Democrats are working on. The House and Senate have to reconcile their bills--particularly on the question of whether the president will veto a…
Just got off a a conference call with Senator George Mitchell hosted by the "progressive" National Security Network. Mitchell, a critic of the war in Iraq, said that while "the president's policy is essentially 'stay the course' without the slogan," the Democratic proposal "is similar to that of…
The United States is maintaining the pressure on Iran for its support of both Shia militias and Sunni insurgents. Yet again, Multinational Forces Iraq has detailed the Iranian involvement in supplying weapons and support for the Shia militias. In today's press brief, Major General William Caldwell…
From the Washington Times: U.S. military buildup urged to counter China, by Bill Gertz. From Navy Times: War of words heats up over ‘GWOT', by Rick Maze. From the Wall Street Journal: In Washington, panic. In Baghdad, cautious optimism. By Fouad Ajami. From the New York Sun: France's New…
According to VOA: The U.S. military has presented evidence that it says shows Iranian intelligence agents are providing weapons and training to both Sunni and Shi'ite insurgents in Iraq. But I thought Sunni and Shia couldn't possibly conspire to kill Americans due to "irreconcilable theological…
John McCain spoke at VMI this morning. The full text of his speech is available here. It's pretty good stuff...like the editors at the Wall Street Journal wrote today, "On Iraq, It's McCain's Finest Hour." He hits the Democrats hard: "In Washington, where political calculation seems to trump all…
Royal Dutch Shell is patenting a technique to convert shale to petroleum at a cost of only about $30/barrel. If it works, the world's single largest source of oil would be... the United States: Over the past few years, more and more apocalyptic stories have been popping up about a supposed…
PRESIDENT LULA's successful visit to Camp David on Saturday, March 31, bolstered the Bush administration's new diplomatic stratgey towards Latin America. Spearheaded by a hemispheric initiative to reduce oil-dependency, the Brazilian president's visit may also prove helpful in reviving the…
I had the opportunity this afternoon to sit in on a session at the Heritage Foundation with Dr. Ali Aldabbagh, the spokesman for the Iraqi government. Dr. Ali is in the United States to address both institutions and government officials. His message is that Iraq is making progress on reducing…
ON SEPTEMBER 13, 2006, Navy Secretary Donald Winter presented the Navy Cross, the nation's second-highest military award for valor, to the widows of two Navy SEALs killed in Afghanistan. Petty Officers Danny Dietz of Littleton, Colorado, and Matthew Axelson of Cupertino, California, had been part…
From Kommersant: Moscow in Nuclear Hot Water, by Sergei Strokan, Vladimir Solovyov, & Dmitry Sidorov. From the Australian: Stay the course in Afghanistan, by Paul Kelly. From the American Thinker: America's Broken-Down Media, by Ray Robison. From RealClearPolitics: Getting Past Me, Myself and I, by…
The former governor and presidential hopeful is set to deliver his first major address on national security issues tonight at the George Bush Presidential Library Center in College Station, Texas. Here is a link to some of the excerpts, all of which look to be red meat for conservatives frustrated…
THE PRESS has erupted in full riot mode, making wild and angry charges, running down the street smashing windows, and exuding intolerance and vengefulness and ideological bias. Or so it seems. The target of the media riot is Senator John McCain, once the hero of mainstream press. But McCain has now…
Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops battled insurgents in what is described as the largest fight inside the capital since the start of the Baghdad Security Plan. Omar, an Iraqi blogger in Baghdad who writes at Iraq the Model, stated the fighting began in the central districts of al-Fadh [of…
Tim Johnson, the China correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers, also runs his own blog, China Rises, which is a must-read for those following events in the world's most populous country. Yesterday Johnson linked to a story titled "Have All China Scholars Been Bought?" from the Far Eastern Economic…
THERE I WAS, sitting in a hotel room in Florence, struggling with an article on the crisis in the subprime mortgage market for my weekly column for THE DAILY STANDARD, rather than taking the more sensible course of reacquainting myself with the artistic marvels of that city. I leave to my readers…
Current New Mexico governor and Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson is making the rounds in North Korea this week with the blessing of President Bush. Richardson hopes to collect the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War, but his hosts are making the most of the…
From the Washington Post: The War You're Not Reading About, by John McCain. From the Brisbane Times: To get the edge in air combat, look for the gorilla, by Brian Graf. From the Washington Times: Army equipment disaster, by Robert H. Scales. From the International Herald Tribune: A military hot…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of April 9, 2007.
While the Senate returns from its Easter recess this week, members of the House won't be back until next Monday or Tuesday (unless this leads to a surprise). In the past, I've noted that because of the narrow Democratic majority, some freshman Democrats are being forced to take 'tough votes.' This…
You have to love reading the New York Times for novel coverage of the war in Iraq. In this case, the piece by the ever downbeat Alissa J. Rubin notes that there are signs the surge is working: Nearly two months into the new security push in Baghdad, there has been some success in reducing the…
Splashed across the cover of the April 6th edition of the Chinese-language weekly Yazhou Zhoukan (published in Hong Kong under the auspices of the Ming Pao Group) is the provocative caption "Another Kind of Color Revolution." The reference is not to a political movement along the lines of Rose…
As John McCain prepares to re-launch his campaign, I thought I'd offer some suggestions. First off, it's smart for him to focus on winning the war in Iraq. As the Post points out, polls show that 70 percent of Republicans support winning the war in Iraq. To promise that you will fight for victory…
Peter Steiner, whose cartoons have graced every SCRAPBOOK since the first issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD has decided to go out on top. We can't count the laughs he has provided, and our sadness at seeing him go is proportionate. In the coming weeks, we will be easing your withdrawal symptoms (and…
"I've discovered that I don't have that much talent, really," the composer Elliot Goldenthal confessed a decade ago. "If I work on something for 10 years or three weeks it's not going to make a difference. It's not going to get any better. No matter how many years I work on something I'm never…
Lancaster, Calif.
Being in the minority in the Senate is not necessarily fatal. Ask Jim DeMint of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, a caucus of conservative senators that includes most of the Republican Conference. DeMint has managed to wage and win a handful of battles since the Republican…
THE GREAT WALL
Every once in a while, something you read is so otherwise inexplicable that satire seems the safest bet. Take my accidental encounter last week with a recently released paper, commissioned for reasons inscrutable by the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, called "The 'Faculty Bias' Studies:…
The Namesake
An experienced Republican operative of our acquaintance--normally a man of sanguine disposition--said it all last week. After denouncing the amazing irresponsibility of the Democratic Congress, after lamenting the refusal of much of the media to report progress from Iraq, after noting the apparent…
Arriving at the funeral home, the chairman of the Hill County Republican party asked me whether my mother, a resident of Hillsboro, the county seat, had known how the local elections had gone. She knew, I told him. Democrats had dominated the county since Texas entered the Union. But last fall, for…
Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, took time out from his speech to the Leadership Program of the Rockies on February 24 to conduct a straw poll. His audience, assembled at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, consisted of 300 conservatives, the elite of the state's Republican party. Luntz…
Branch Rickey
The Inner Vision
Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney
In the House of the Hangman
Washington
Toward the end of his long day testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 29, Kyle Sampson offered this rueful judgment: "Looking back on all of this, I wish we could do it over again. . . . In hindsight, I wish the department hadn't gone down this road at all." The former Justice…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of April 9, 2007.
THIS PAST JANUARY, speaking to the North Atlantic Council, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laid out an admirable vision for Japanese foreign policy. "We have to elevate democracy in places where it is emerging; consolidate respect for human rights where it is suppressed; and offer hope for a brighter…
The following is an open letter from General David Petraeus to the Iraqi people that was published in the Arab media last week ahead of the fourth anniversary of the liberation of Iraq. To the Iraqi People: Monday, April 9, 2007 will mark the 4th anniversary of the liberation of Iraq from Saddam…
From the Washington Post: Britain's Humiliation--and Europe's, by Charles Krauthammer. From THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Pelosi Abroad, by Fred Barnes. From the Daily Star: When a dilettante takes on Hizbullah, by Michael Young. From the Wall Street Journal: Democrats at War, by the editors. From the AP:…
From DougFeith.com: SMITH'S MYTH The thrust of this article by Jeffrey Smith is that the Pentagon and the Vice President argued that there was substantial cooperation between Iraq and al Qaida while the CIA said there was not. That is a myth. See Myth #1 in Media Myths vs. Facts. The myth is…
Baghdad has been relatively quiet. A suicide attack on a Joint Security Station in Sadr City was foiled, and another just south of the city was also prevented. Al Qaeda employed yet another chlorine bomb in Ramadi and major operations are ongoing in the provinces. Al Qaeda in Iraq has conducted yet…
The New York Times runs this story on Dutch counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan. The key quote comes from an Afghan translator working with the Dutch troops: "The Dutch, if the fight starts, they run inside their vehicles every time," said the interpreter, who asked that his name be…
The Associated Press reports that Dick Cheney is misleading the American people regarding the existence of al Qaeda in Iraq prior to the war: Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing…
I'll be watching the debate between Newt Gingrich and John Kerry over global climate change. But I have to wonder, why didn't Al Gore take this one? I mean, Lurch is exciting and stimulating, but once Al Gore cleaned the floor with Gingrich--explained the 'consensus' and all--any 'debate would be…
SOMETHING GETS INTO political leaders when they take over Congress. It makes them think they can run Washington and the government from Capitol Hill. So they overreach, but it never works. Republicans tried it in 1995 and were slapped down by President Clinton in the fight over the budget and a…
When the Democratic leadership of the House Armed Services Committee circulated a memo on March 27 banishing the phrases "Global War on Terror" and "Long War" from all documents relating to the 2008 budget, they were only responding to the left's widespread hatred of what they saw as Bush…
For Americans, the war's most important events from August to December 2006 occurred in Baghdad. For al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamic extremist enemies in Iraq, equally important events in that same period occurred in Ramadi, the capital city of Anbar Province. Al Qaeda terrorism provoked many of…
I've flogged the Democrats quite a bit for suggesting that they will ultimately pay a price at the polls for their extreme opposition to the continued use of force in Iraq. Their willingness to escalate that opposition, despite mounting evidence that the surge is yielding results, is likely to…
Today at the American Enterprise Institute, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control before his stint as ambassador to the United Nations, slammed the February 13 agreement between the United States and North Korea. Here's the report from U.S. News: "I think this deal will inevitably…
From the Wall Street Journal: The Democrats' Surge, by Daniel Henninger. From the Independent: Putin's 'successor' picks fight with Estonia, by Andrew Osborn. From the Washington Post: Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy, by the editors. From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Pelosi was nuts to visit…
The AP reports: The original letter in which Theodore Roosevelt first used the phrase "Speak softly and carry a big stick" is up for sale from the Raab Collection in Philadelphia, with an asking price of $200,000. The two-page typed letter was written by Roosevelt on Jan. 26, 1900, and mailed to…
As Congressional Democrats continue their trek from wanting no responsibility for anything that happens in Iraq to insisting that US troops depart today, it's useful to recall that the Iraq Study Group whose recommendations they so often cite rejected such an idea. And that reminder is delivered…
The security situation remains relatively stable inside Baghdad for yet another day, while most of the major activity is occurring in the provinces. A U.S. helicopter was downed south of Baghdad--possibly by al Qaeda anti-aircraft fire--as Coalition and Iraqi forces continue to pursue al Qaeda in…
THANKS TO THE kind folks at HBO, I was able to get a sneak peek at the first two episodes of The Sopranos' final season. By the end of the second episode, "Stage 5," I could hardly believe what had transpired. Who would have guessed that Tony would cooperate with the feds after the untimely death…
MY FIRST VISIT to Washington, D.C. was as a child in the early 1930s. Holding my father's hand, I vividly recall seeing the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and the statue-cluttered Capitol Rotunda. Not yet built were the graceful Jefferson Memorial and the majestic Supreme Court building.…
YEMEN OPERATES LARGELY under the radar as a supporter of the global jihad. Both Yemeni and U.S. officials publicly tout Yemen's partnership with the United States in the war on terror. The U.S. embassy in Sana'a described the February 2006 escape of 23 al Qaeda operatives from a maximum security…
From Armed Forces Journal: Iran emboldened, by Peter Brookes. From Investor's Business Daily: With J-10, China Finally On Course In Military Export Field, by Doug Tsurouka. From the Wall Street Journal: 'The War That Must Not Be Named', by James Taranto. From People's Daily: Outer space not let to…
Max Boot, who is currently in Iraq, has a post up at Contentions about the furor over the McCain visit. "Hah!," the news corps screamed. Reporters wrote that McCain was able to visit the market only because of "heavy" extra protection and that merchants there complained that overall security…
This report from Lebanon's Daily Star: "The road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus," Pelosi told reporters after meeting with Lebanese parliamentary leader Saad Hariri at Qoreitem. Steve Schippert writes at ThreatsWatch.org: That she believes "the road to solving Lebanon's…
The professional left has made a cottage industry lately of defending Michael Ware against charges that he heckled John McCain. I did not comment on the story, and am glad I refrained--since it appears that the story was essentially false. But Rob at Say Anything has picked up on an interview…
There have been no major attacks inside Baghdad since the suicide bombing in the Shia market on March 29. The Iraqi government has eased the curfew in the capital as security is seen to have improved since the commencement of the Baghdad Security Plan in mid February. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been…
When John McCain said that "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today," CNN's Michael Ware responded "I don't know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad." Then McCain went to Iraq and…
Military Times reports that the House Armed Services Committee has banned the phrases "global war on terror" and "the long war" from all official budget documents. This isn't the first effort to rebrand the war on terror. The August 8, 2005 issue of The Scrapbook detailed an earlier attempt by…
Prishtina, Kosovo
It's hard to catch a Democrat who will actually explain the party's vision for Iraq after they complete the troop pullout they advocate. Joe Biden is universally regarded as one of the party's brighter and more sober minds, as well as an important leader on foreign policy. His comments on Countdown…
Reason blogger Katherine Mangu-Ward links to this story from RIA Novosti about a recently approved tax in Wallonia, a French-speaking region of Belgium. According to the report, the local government there, which represents some four million Belgian citizens, will now require all Wallonians to pay a…
Total WonKerr Paul Kerr continues to support the government's bizarre position that an absence of evidence that the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs are collaborating is, in fact, evidence of absence. Kerr points to this Feb. 27 exchange before the Senate Armed Services Committee: SEN.…
From the Los Angeles Times: No choice: Stay the course in Iraq, by Gen. Barry McCaffrey (Ret.). From the New York Post: WHERE'S WINSTON? by Ralph Peters. From Investor's Business Daily: One Sorry Apology, by the editors. From Military.com: Plans for an Underwater Express, by Norman Polmar. From…
The writers at the Washington Note lean decidedly Democratic. Today, Scott Paul of Citizens for Global Solutions warns that maybe--just maybe--in their zeal to bug out of Iraq ASAP, the Democrats are coming off as isolationist and patronizing: My hope over these past few years has been that…
Rome
THE KING is dead, long live the King. Ben Bernanke finally exorcised the ghost of his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, by telling a congressional committee that the former Federal Reserve Board Chairman is wrong in contending that expansions "die of old age." But he also told Congress that he thinks…
Our friend Noah Shachtman has a post up at The Danger Room about the cat fight raging between the Army and the Air Force over which branch ought to oversee the military's ever growing fleet of UAVs (I highly recommend clicking through--really helpful illustrations). The Air Force tried, a few years…
Majority Leader Harry Reid signs on to Russ Feingold's bill to cut off all funds for US troops in Iraq as of March 31, 2008. Presidential Candidate Barack Obama promises that once President Bush vetoes the Iraq supplemental, Congress will pass a 'clean' funding bill. The professional left is angry…
Just last month, the surprisingly competitive French presidential candidate Francois Bayrou threatened a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics if China continued to protect the Sudanese government from the international community's attempts to intervene in Darfur. Bayrou said that the Olympics were…
From the Chicago Sun-Times: Thompson's White House talk is no act, by Robert Novak. From Slate: B-52, Where Are You? by Gregg Easterbrook. From the Wall Street Journal: First They Came for the Jews, by Dorothy Rabinowitz. From Reuters: Expert says Iran can make nuclear weapons, by Guy…
Congressional Democrats have adjourned for Easter recess. Although the Bush administration has identified April 15 as the date by which a supplemental must be signed in order to prevent "disruption to key programs'" (in the words of Secretary Gates), Congress will not even return to the District…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 26, 2007.
Op-For has posted a lengthy interview with General David Petraeus. The general spoke with Richard S. Lowry by phone last Thursday and covered a wide range of topics. It's worth reading the whole thing, but here are a few choice quotes: On Baghdad:"Baghdad, a city the size of Los Angeles, is spread…
Xi.jpgBetween March 24th and 26th, Beijing announced new party secretaries for four provinces (Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Shandong, Qinghai) and two cities (Shanghai and Tianjin). Of the six appointments, that of political rising star Xi Jinping, 53, to be secretary of the Shanghai branch of the Communist…
Speaking before a joint hearing of two House panels on March 21, Al Gore likened the fight against "the climate crisis" to the battle waged against overwhelming odds by a band of Spartan warriors at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., dramatized in the new movie 300. "This Congress is now the '535,'" said the…
The security situation in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province continues to deteriorate. Once again, Western pressure on the government of President Pervez Musharraf has failed to prevent Pakistan from handing over territory to the Taliban, this time to a group called the Movement for the…
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek
Johannesburg
Does permitting same-sex marriage weaken marriage as a social institution? Or does extending to gay and lesbian couples the right to marry have little or no effect on marriage overall? Scholars and commentators have expended much effort trying in vain to wring proof of causation from the data--all…
The Real Fred Thompson?
Last September and October it was the 1960s all over again at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. All the elements were present from that bygone era of militant campus radicalism: the student protesters with their linked arms and picket signs, the hunger strike, the sprawling, slovenly tent…
Every generation in America grows up with its own singer or singing group. Elvis is perhaps the most notable example. All sorts of men and women now in their early and middle sixties still vibrate to his hit songs of the late fifties and early sixties. For those who came a bit after, it was The…
Monopoly
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has a theory about divided government. It's this: When one party holds the White House, and the other holds one or both houses of Congress, the chances of passing landmark legislation improve dramatically. McConnell cites two examples. The first is the passage…
Inventing English
WARM BARTH
Reconstructing the Commercial Republic
Advertisements for the Sony Reader, a hand-held device for perusing e-books, show pretty, natural settings where fans of literature might go and read away to their brain's content. The marketers of portable technology have long suggested a kind of objective correlative between the pleasure one…
Running for Congress last fall in North Carolina, Heath Shuler staked out ground as a conservative Democrat. In a district held comfortably by Republican Charles Taylor since 1990, the former all-American quarterback distanced himself from Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi. The day after…
Ronald Reagan is weeping. There, on the cover of the March 26 Time magazine, under the headline "How the Right Went Wrong," we see the old lion, a tear rolling out of his eye and snaking down sadly over the contours of his aging, but still good-looking, once-was-a-movie-star face. And what is he…
Let's give congressional Democrats the benefit of the doubt: Assume some of them earnestly think they're doing the right thing to insist on adding to the supplemental appropriation for the Iraq war benchmarks and timetables for withdrawal. Still, their own arguments--taken at face value--don't hold…
THIS WEEKEND marked the second anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death. It is widely asserted by the mainstream press, liberal activists, and some in the Democratic party that those who argued for congressional action in her case were not only wrong to do so, but acted without any reasonable…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 26, 2007.