January 2008

Vets for Freedom has just announced the launch of their National Heroes Tour, which will take several of the group's members on a coast to coast trip to bolster support for the troops and their mission. One of the guys going is David Bellavia, who was awarded the Silver Star and nominated for the…

The Senate always moves more slowly than the House, and that is proving true on reforming earmarks as well. But for advocates of fiscal reform, there is some movement on this front. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has appointed a working group to study earmarks and recommend reforms:…

Reuters reports: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told a French magazine in an interview that if he wins office, he will hold a summit with Muslim countries to better the United States' image in the world. "Once I'm elected, I want to organize a summit in the Muslim world, with all…

McCain is now trading at 83.8. Clinton, at her most inevitable, never traded above 75. Of course, the markets got New Hampshire wrong just as badly as the polls did. chart1199884680343216545.png

A reader writes: "Where Obama has campaigned (NOT Michigan and Florida), Senator Clinton's maximum victory margin was 6 percent (Nevada). Neither Obama nor his organization was active in Michigan or Florida, so counting them as Clinton 'victories' (at least by those margins) is deceptive. According…

The dust from the Jan. 29 airstrike is settling, and it appears a senior al Qaeda leader was killed in the attack in North Waziristan, Pakistan. Abu Laith al Libi was killed in the attack, according to a posting at a prominent jihadi website. The Ekhlaas forum posted a banner praising the martyrdom…

"Today, Oklahoma Republican National Committeewoman Bunny Chambers announced her endorsement of Governor Mitt Romney." Poor Mitt. This is getting very sad.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports: Five F-117A Nighthawk jets left Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., on Tuesday bound for their original home at Nevada's Tonopah Test Range as part of an ongoing effort to retire the nation's first stealth jets and close a prominent chapter of aviation history.…

Bob Novak did some digging on reports last week that John McCain had privately expressed reservations about nominating a conservative like Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. I wrote on the subject here, and said, in relevant part: John McCain came out early in support of Samuel Alito's nomination…

I had lunch today at an on-the-record foreign policy briefing sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. The panel consisted of Gideon Rose, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs; Council on Foreign Relations fellow, Weekly Standard contributing editor, and McCain adviser Max Boot; and Council…

From Small Wars Journal: Changing the Organizational Culture, by Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell. From Contentions: More in Afghanistan, by Max Boot. From Real Clear Politics: Schwarzenegger, Giuliani and McCain Republicans, by John McIntyre. From the Washington Times: Warning Light on Kosovo, by John…

Richard Starr is even more right than he probably realizes in this post. The book review he cites to describe McCain's "guardian" characteristics puts it this way: "'Guardians' are modern versions of the raiders, warriors, and hunters who once made their livings through sorties into unknown or…

A friend sends along this link to John McCain's first-hand account of his imprisonment, first published in U.S. News and World Report's May 14, 1973, issue.

From the Tierney Lab: [T]here's one very hard piece of evidence that casts doubt on the doomsday predictions: a polar bear jawbone that appears to be at least 110,000 years old, meaning that polar bears have survived eras with considerably warmer temperatures than today. My colleague Andy Revkin…

That's what Spencer Ackerman reports, much to the delight of the lefty blogosphere. But the numbers he cites are stunning for their insignificance. Think Progress pulls out the two most compelling stats: According to "Iraq security statistics over the past 13 weeks," roadside bomb explosions in…

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Today's buzz is the showdown between John McCain and Mitt Romney at last night's Republican debate in California, and bloggers are sharply divided on the winner. The two sparred over each other's conservative credentials and stances on Iraq. Live-blogging at Pajamas Media, Bridget Johnson reports…

David Broder: "On the Democratic side, the battle is more even, but the advantage has shifted back to Barack Obama - thanks to a growing but largely unremarked tendency among Democratic leaders to reject Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former president." This is true of Democratic and…

I felt a curious sensation earlier this week when Edward Kennedy, standing before a roomful of shrieking undergraduates in Washington, endorsed Barack Obama for president. It was not the rush of emotion that David Brooks described in the next day's New York Times, or irritation at the standard…

John McCain repeated a line in the debate last night that has infuriated Romney backers more than any other, the one where he contrasts his "leadership" experience with Romney's "managerial" experience, by referring to his Navy service as something undertaken "for patriotism and not for profit." I…

Ted Kennedy took to the virtual pages of the Daily Kos yesterday to pen an inspiring endorsement of Barack Obama. Showing a surprising facility with the intertubes, Massachusetts' senior senator even managed to embed a YouTube clip into his "diary. But yesterday was a dark day at the Daily Kos,…

IT DOESN'T TAKE an Anglophile to appreciate the English way with understatement, particularly at moments of high tension or pique. Readers of the Moscow Times got a slight taste of this national characteristic last Friday, when Mr. Giles Cattermole, a resident of Sonning-on-Thames, wrote in to…

THERE WAS GOOD news and bad news for Mitt Romney from the debate last night in California: He probably won, but it's not likely to matter.

Quick observations from the debate: Huckabee was great. He's funny, he's engaging, and if he was at all qualified to serve as commander in chief, he might have won this thing. The self-aware pandering on highways, his first-strike against Anderson Cooper, and his refusal to dishonor Reagan in…

Yesterdays airstrike against a purported Taliban safe house in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal agency resulted in 12 killed just as the Taliban and the government are prepared to sign a new peace accord. But the strike may have claimed a high value al Qaeda leader, ABC News reported today.…

John McCormack does the math over at the Campaign Standard: McCain's greatest advantage lies in the states that award all of their delegates - 373 in all - to the winner of the statewide popular vote: Arizona (53), Connecticut (30), Delaware (18), Missouri (58), Montana (25), New Jersey (52), New…

Congressional Democrats remain unable to bring themselves to authorize intercepts of phone calls by terrorists into the United States. Instead, Congress has cleared legislation to extend such surveillance by just 15 days -- hoping that they can come to agreement on a long-term fix in that time. The…

Steve Forbes just appeared on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox. He sounded like he will follow his candidate, Rudy Giuliani, and become a McCain supporter, though nothing formal has been announced yet. Asked about Romney's claims that he is a tax cutter, Forbes responded that it depends on the meaning of…

Senator McCain is among those who advocate a tough regimen for restraining greenhouse gases to slow climate change. Skeptics have argued that his legislation with Senator Lieberman would do great harm to the economy, at a time when economic growth is quite fragile. Carter Wood writes about the…

For many of us, last night was full of disappointment. Nevertheless, it is not in my nature to wallow. Even when the clouds are darkest, I look resolutely look for silver linings (although my prose takes on an annoying, cliché ridden style). 1) John Edwards

Edwards adviser Mudcat Saunders says he'll do anything in his power to prevent his boss, who dropped out of the race today, from endorsing Hillary Clinton. Here's the video:

The wheel turns. In 2007, Giuliani led national polls for months and through the third quarter had raised more money from individual contributors than any of the candidates. Then a flurry of bad publicity, a stalled campaign in New Hampshire, and a turn to Florida wiped it all away. Jonathan Martin…

Thomas B. Edsall goes through the Florida exit poll numbers and concludes: "The Republican Party looks increasingly likely to pass the torch to a candidate powered by decidedly un-Republican constituencies: anti-Bush voters, the non-religious, supporters of abortion rights, and social-cultural…

Over at Contentions, here's Daniel Casse: "If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, [some] will argue, persuasively, that Romney may have been a better GOP nominee. Against Obama, McCain is the old man versus the young man, the old way versus the new. Romney, at least, can make a much stronger…

People's Daily reports: China is expected to become the world's second largest power in terms of objective national strength by 2030, a top think tank reported on Tuesday. In its report "China's Modernization 2008" that was released on Monday, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said the…

RedState's Ben Domenech on the last action hero: His support of the surge confounded the glitterati of the MSM, who gave him every opportunity to break with the president in a fashion that would've led to countless more cover appearances for the late-night self-pleasuring of pimply interns of the…

Steve Hayes's point is dead on, I think - with the emphasis on dead: Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson murdered their own campaigns with a political strategy that declared themselves the ones who could transcend politics. Of course, many candidates pose themselves this way: Teddy Roosevelt did, and…

AS FLORIDA GOES, so goes the nation? Not quite, but what happened yesterday in the Sunshine State was pretty significant. Contrary to popular wisdom, that's not because McCain will receive a bounce out of Florida that will spring him to all kinds of victories next Tuesday. Primary victories don't…

The Associated Press reports that John McCain is now leading Mitt Romney in delegates 93 to 59. Unless support for McCain dramatically drops in the next week, he's poised to amass a commanding delegate lead on Super Tuesday (a.k.a. Super Duper - Mega - Tsunami Tuesday), when 1,081 delegates are up…

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Aviation Week reports: Boeing is touting an even newer version of its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet that, paired with an advanced sixth-generation fighter in the works at the company, would give customers what Boeing deems a better package of capabilities than Lockheed Martin's combination of the F-22…

Ross Douthat writes that the only reason McCain got this far is luck: But much of what's happened to make McCain the presumptive nominee has been luck, pure and simple. He was lucky, to begin with, that George W. Bush lacked an heir apparent - no Jeb, no Condi, no Dick Cheney - who could unite the…

The boss writes over at the Campaign Standard: Reading this morning's analysis on line, I'm a little shocked by the number of people writing about the GOP race who think that "It's still competitive, it will go on a long time, they're really going to slug it out. ..." I think, to the contrary, that…

Miami, Florida

Reading this morning's analysis on line, I'm a little shocked by the number of people writing about the GOP race who think that "It's still competitive, it will go on a long time, they're really going to slug it out. ..." I think, to the contrary, that absent any dramatic developments this week,…

FOR A FEW FLEETING moments Monday night--what should have been vivid and affecting moments--television coverage of President Bush's final State of the Union address fastened on the image of a mother and daughter from Moshi, Tanzania. They sat, their faces alive with hope, in the first lady's box…

IN THE MIDST OF AN eight-day trip through Europe designed to assuage fears that his country is sliding toward chaos, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has reaffirmed that parliamentary elections will be held on February 18. Though the last year has certainly shown us that events in Pakistan are…

BETWEEN GROWING UP IN Rhode Island and later moving to New York, I've witnessed a lifetime of political corruption. It's part of the landscape, like barren trees in the winter and obese tourists in the summer. When an elected official vows to "clean up the capitol," I calmly wait for the headline…

UNLESS YOU'VE BEEN hiding in a cave somewhere or posted to a UN humanitarian assistance project site in North Korea, you know that the latest contest in the U.S. election is over who can come up with the sexiest stimulus package for the economy. Both Obama and Clinton have put forth their own plans…

Bill Kristol writes in from Fox News Channel: "Three points: "A well informed Democrat told me tonight that it was very doubtful that Al Gore would endorse Obama in the near future - but 'keep your eye on Jimmy Carter.' "Most interesting statistic in the Democratic exit poll: Obama ran even with…

"Leadership doesn't end with a single campaign." That was Rudy Giuliani tonight. Mark Halperin has reported that Rudy Giuliani will endorse McCain as early as Wednesday. I think he's right, but the McCain team would prefer to have Giuliani at the debate in California. They believe Giuliani, who…

That now according to Fox and the AP. And we also get word that Rudy Giuliani is set to endorse McCain tomorrow prior to the Republican debate. No one in either camp is disputing the report. Some interesting items from tonight... John Podhoretz had some "ridiculous early analysis" speculating that…

Interesting report earlier tonight from Fox News Channel's Bill Hemmer. He said that advisers to Mitt Romney told him that their candidate would be going after John McCain on integrity, specifically focusing on McCain's comments last week on Romney and Iraq. We saw this previewed yesterday. "I…

Last night during the State of the Union address, Barack Obama sat next to liberal lion Ted Kennedy who had endorsed him earlier in the day. The seating arrangement highlighted the merger of Camelot and Obama, something that Mark Steyn has labeled Obamalot. Although the chatterers always pay a lot…

That's the thinking behind this much-discussed op-ed on the value of F-22: There are, of course, two wars going on, and the F-22 has yet to fly a single sortie over the skies of Iraq or Afghanistan. Nor has the Air Force announced any intention of sending the F-22 to either theater. The Air Force…

Red agencies/ districts controlled by the Taliban; purple is defacto control; yellow is under threat

Stars & Stripes reports that Tennessee Rep. Lincoln Davis is pushing to ban gambling at U.S. military bases overseas: Davis, a Democrat, is behind a new congressional push to ban gambling at overseas military bases because of what he feels is its inherently addictive nature. The Southern Baptist…

There's been a lot of discussion about the effort of House Republicans to promote a one-year earmark moratorium, and of the president to force Congress to limit them. How seriously should we take this? Well, the lobbyists are scared: After a year of grappling with new transparency standards and…

With Rudy Giuliani's campaign effectively over, it's worth spending a moment on his unusual demise. The conventional wisdom is that Giuliani's strategy of focusing on Florida was foolish. The truth, as it always seems to be, is a bit more complicated. Giuliani attempted to target New Hampshire,…

Another disagreement between John McCain and Mitt Romney: John Edwards. While they both agree that Edwards is finished, Romney seems happy about it and McCain wishes he'd stick around. Romney, speaking this morning, ripped Edwards - "who I don't think we'll have to listen to too much longer" - for…

Senator Lieberman was on MSNBC today defending his buddy John McCain: CARLSON: former governor Romney has come out as a strong defender of the war in Iraq, senator McCain has said he believes that position has changed that Romney at one point was for a pull-out but changed his mind on that. Are you…

The brand new Tesla Roadster will soon start shipping, and the designers of what seems to be a pretty cool new electric car are giving test drives to publications like Automobile magazine. Autoblog Green beats them to the punch, with the first published review of the test drive (as far as I can…

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Bush's Priorities, by Fred Barnes. From the Corner: Romney and the Surge, by Robert Kagan. From Contentions: Cyberprotection, by Max Boot. From the Washington Times: Gulf Provocations, by James Lyons. From the New York Times: The Kennedy Mystique, by David Brooks.

Not likely an endorsement he'll be touting on the trail: More than 80 volunteer lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees today endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama's presidential bid. The attorneys said in a joint statement that they believed Obama was the best choice to roll back the Bush-Cheney…

Reuters reports: Canada will pull its 2,500 troops out of Afghanistan early next year unless NATO sends in significant reinforcements, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday, signaling Ottawa has lost patience with what it sees as foot-dragging by allies. The minority Conservative government…

A friend involved in national security policy writes: "As you might have seen, Bob Kagan just sent a lengthy email to National Review about Romney and his lackluster, qualified, and conditional support of the surge through 2007. There's another part of the story, however, that hasn't yet come to…

Before the assembled press horde, Patriot superstar Tom Brady, a.k.a. the best quarterback ever, urged people to be more responsible. But he wasn't just talking about sports stars. He urged everyone to go see Al Gore's tedious opus, "An Inconvenient Truth," because "it really is the truth." He then…

Earlier in the day, I suggested the Republican campaign boiling down to two men and possibly becoming a referedum on McCain would be seriously bad news for the senator. Then again... According to a mid-January Pew Poll, McCain did the best among all the candidates in favorable/unfavorable ratings…

It's only been about 15 hours since President Bush delivered his final State of the Union address, and already it's old news. Still, bloggers had a lot to say about the speech and the president's audience. As Fred Barnes noted on Fox News after the speech, Bush's line of the night was really funny…

Rich Lowry posts a note from McCain adviser and Weekly Standard contributing editor Robert Kagan on the senator, the governor, and the surge. Here's a taste: "Everyone who was fighting for the surge in the early months of last year - and that was not a very large number of people back then - was…

While the president last night touted the agreement among the White House and House leaders (both Republican and Democrat) on the framework of a stimulus package to be enacted quickly, it looks like the agreement may be delayed. That's because Senate Democrats are developing their own version:…

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Politico's Jonathan Martin writes on Florida ads, following a report from Marc Ambinder that Romney has outspent McCain 8 to 1 on television" "According to Neilsen, [Romney has] run 4,475 ads compared to John McCain's 470 through 1/22. McCain did not run a single ad until January; Romney ran more…

The mad geniuses at the Onion are at it again: "In the midst of a fiercely competitive presidential race with no clear Republican front-runner in sight, an increasingly depressed Mitt Romney shocked political insiders Monday when he released a new national attack ad targeting himself. ... "Running…

Tampa, Florida -- After days of intense fingerpointing between the two leading Republican candidates for president, Mitt Romney avoided any direct mention of John McCain during a twenty-minute speech at a rally here this morning. Romney's event at the Tampa Convention Center was held in the same…

Let's say for the sake of argument that Rudy Giuliani's supporters realize before they trundle off to the polls today that their hero's chances are as dead as disco. If they decide to wake up and smell the coffee/vote strategically, who benefits - McCain or Romney? Scott Rasmussen provides the…

Operatives hate election day. Unless you have a role in managing GOTV, there is nothing to do but sit and wait and worry. And call around to gossip about last minute news and, especially, polling rumors. I figure the loyal readers of the Campaign Standard deserve to live the life of a campaign…

Perhaps concerned by the impact of America Ferrera's constant cheerleading for Hillary Clinton, the Obama campaign announced today that Dule Hill will be leading two Obama rallies in North Dakota today. You may remember Hill from such roles as "Charlie" on The West Wing and "Gus" on Psych. But I'll…

John McCain came out early in support of Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. He worked behind the scenes to generate more support from his colleagues. He pointed to his 2000 campaign promise to appoint conservative judges as one reason he was pleased with the Alito nomination. He spoke…

Could Rudy Giuliani come in fourth? The New York Times previews the Florida contest here, with an ominous paragraph for Giuliani near the top: Mr. Giuliani, former New York mayor, pledged that he would participate in a Republican presidential debate in California on Wednesday regardless of where he…

WE NOW KNOW WHAT is far and away the top priority for George W. Bush in the final year of his presidency. It's not curbing earmarks or strengthening his No Child Left Behind education program. It's Iraq.

A FEW WEEKS ago, in the New York Post, our friend Peter Wehner had some innocent fun with a book by Jacob Heilbrun titled They Knew They Were Right, the theme of which was the damage done by the neo-conservatives in driving their besotted party and country into a calamitous loss in Iraq. The tone…

ONE THING IS certain in this uncertain world: once the currently roiled financial waters have calmed, the world of finance will not be as it was before the storm broke.

NOT SO LONG AGO, Rudy Giuliani was the clear Republican frontrunner among Cuban-American voters in South Florida. When he would arrive in Miami, Cubans treated him like a full-fledged celebrity. "It was like Bono getting off a plane," says Tom Eldon, a Democratic pollster in Florida. "It was like a…

Tampa, Florida -- So who will win Florida? Ask twenty people -- half of them will tell you Mitt Romney and the other half will say John McCain. McCain seems to have momentum. All day Monday, reporters and campaign advisers whispered about the latest tracking poll numbers -- some of them done by the…

The McCain camp sent out an email today announcing they'd be having another blogger call with the candidate just a half hour before the call was to take place. The scheduling was unusual. Given that McCain led by affirming his support for Justice Alito, saying that Alito "was a magnificent choice"…

In what can be best described as an opinion piece published on its website, CJTF-82, the U.S. military command for eastern Afghanistan, has taken Dutch politician and filmmaker Geert Wilders to task for announcing the production of a short film on the Koran. CJTF-82 begins its piece, provocatively…

Or is the war over the Iraq War over? At least for a time, it seems. This morning, after a panel discussion in Jacksonville, Florida, I asked John McCain for a response to claims that his criticism of Mitt Romney on Iraq has been "dishonest." He quietly -- and very briefly -- restated his basic…

The Washington Post reports: In November, the Democratic-led House spent about $89,000 on so-called carbon offsets. This purchase was supposed to cancel out greenhouse-gas emissions from House buildings -- including half of the U.S. Capitol -- by triggering an equal reduction in emissions…

Polls show John McCain and Mitt Romney in a photo-finish race in Florida. But there's another way to know that we are now looking at a two-man race for the GOP nomination: attack emails. The emails are flying into my inbox, and none of them mention Giuliani or Huckabee. McCain is hitting Romney on…

John McCain has responded to reports that he might not appoint judges like Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court because - and here I'm not sure whom the author of the report is quoting - Alito "wore his conservatism on his sleeve." McCain tells National Review's Byron York that I've said a thousand…

Blogger Former Spook wrote: ...the Thanksgiving intercept may have been an inadvertent gift from the Russians. The Air Force will use the mission as proof of an escalating threat, that must be met by state-of-the-art fighters like the F-22. True. But we returned the favor. The Russians got what was…

Check out the new journal edited by Lawrence Kaplan:

The new populism isn't necessarily a creature of left-wing petrocrats like Hugo Chavez. It may not be what folks like Lou Dobbs and Mike Huckabee are selling. In fact, it may be just the opposite. It may be that the new populism is the populism of ... the investor class. Robert Samuelson was the…

Robert Farley finds an interesting example from the First World War: Viribus Unitis was the first dreadnought of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. In October 1918, when it was becoming clear that the Central Powers would not prevail in the war, and that their navies would become subject to confiscation by…

A busy final Monday in the Sunshine state. McCain shivs Romney with a last minute attack ad. Romney swings the ugly stick back at "liberal" McCain in the last media cycle. Polls show some late movement to McCain off the Crist endorsement. It's close. McCain seems to have some Crist momentum, but…

Senator Barack Obama's ability to touch the better angels of America's nature lies at the root of his candidacy and might become the defining framework of this year's presidential race. It's hard, even for his opponents, not to be moved by a candidate who calls us to transcend ourselves and…

From THE DAILY STANDARD: The War Over the War, by Stephen F. Hayes. From the Los Angeles Times: Iraq's Number 1 Problem, by Bing West and Max Boot. From the New York Sun: Obama's Silly War on Fear, by Eli Lake. From Middle East Journal: The Final Mission, by Michael J. Totten. From the New York…

Is Hillary's campaign about to self-destruct? That's the buzz today. From calling for delegates to be reinstated in Michigan and Florida to the disguised smear of John McCain, the Clintons are playing dirty. And the cherry on top: Bill's racial remark in South Carolina. Today in the New York Times,…

North Korea's official press agency responds to Jay Lefkowitz's speech at AEI: Some days ago, Lefkowitz, special envoy for North Korean human rights issue of the US, was impudent enough to poke his nose into the nuclear issue, only to bring shame to himself. What he uttered is nothing but rubbish…

I missed this over the weekend, but Sen. Clinton is on the record arguing that the Michigan and Florida delegates should be seated at the Democratic National Convention. So, after agreeing to the rules, the Clinton campaign used its name power and machine - and uncontested ballot status - to win…

Daniel Casse: "After Ted Kennedy's endorsement, the only question is when Al Gore will throw his support behind Barack Obama. "Don't think for a moment that Gore isn't considering it. What happened this weekend was the most dramatic change of tenor we have seen since Iowa caucus night. A new front…

Beijing's reaction to reports that Taiwan president Chen Shuibian may be visiting the Spratlys, known in Chinese as the Nansha Islands, has been restrained. Asked to articulate China's position at a press briefing in Beijing last week, foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu gave a stock response:…

David Gergen is having fun in Davos:

This quote from the Orlando Sentinel's endorsement of John McCain irked me: "Mr. Romney's evolution in recent years from a moderate to a conservative better aligned with GOP presidential primary voters raises doubts about his core beliefs and commitment to principle." Say Romney decided to run for…

From today's Wall Street Journal: Looking for some fresh momentum of her own, Mrs. Clinton has started calling attention to the largely ignored Democratic vote tomorrow in Florida, a state where a recent poll gave her a 48 percent to 28 percent edge. All the Democratic candidates have pledged not…

John Hinderaker: "Barring a surprise in Florida, Republican primary voters and caucus-goers on mega-Tuesday will face a stark but classic political choice: do they go with Romney, whose views across a broad range of issues are more palatable to conservatives and whose economic expertise may be…

Click image to view the slideshow of the leadership of al Qaeda in the Caucasus.

An interesting piece ($) from Aviation Week on electronic warfare quotes BAE executive Rance Walleston on where the industry looks for talent: "That's because some of the best developers of attack tools are hackers that play around in the commercial environment," Walleston says. "A standing…

Delicious irony in this new Clinton crack-up. First Hillary brilliantly creates a patina of "experience" around her candidacy based partially on solid work in the Senate, but mostly on having served eight years as somebody else's First Lady; an unelected position without specified authority. But…

Daniel Gross reports from Davos on an intriguing panel concerning sovereign wealth funds - those "enormous pools of government-controlled capital that have recently vaulted to prominence." In summary: The sovereign wealth fund managers aren't concerned about the institutions with which they are…

The lobbyist for the state of Pennsylvania in China makes the case for his client's lumber industry: "Pennsylvania has very good hardwood resources, and the aboriginal people in the north Pennsylvania woods are good workers." He's talking about the Amish.

The New York Times reports today that no one inside or outside the Clinton campaign has quite figured out what to do with former president Clinton. But evidence mounts that he may be uncontrollable. Consider this quote from Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson: "Bill Clinton is going to continue to…

The American Jesuits

Bella Abzug, Superstar?

On an early November day in the skies over southern Indiana, Maj. Steve Stilwell of the Missouri Air National Guard's 131st Fighter Wing was honing his air-to-air combat skills. As he threw his F-15 into a turn, he stressed his big Eagle at two to three times the force of gravity, a relatively…

The Liberals' Moment

Anxious lower middle class families are shaping up to be the crucial political constituency of this year's election. Polls show that financial security is their biggest concern. They worry about health and education costs, about retirement, and about their prospects for getting ahead. Their…

The politics of hope? The politics of change? How about the politics of empathy? To judge from the 2008 campaign so far, a candidate could do worse than to promote herself, above all, as a person of feeling. Solicitude is--or is on the verge of becoming--the preeminent qualification for our…

Paris

John Spargo and American Socialism

Miami

The Death of Sigmund Freud

Barack Obama made quite a splash with his comment last week likening himself to Ronald Reagan. Who'd have guessed such a thought had crossed his mind? "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way Richard Nixon did not and a way that Bill Clinton did not," Obama said. Then he suggested…

It seems that political panic puts paid to partisanship. In a telephone lovefest, George W. Bush and the Democratic congressional leadership reached agreement on the need for and the contours of a fiscal stimulus package, or what the president prefers to call an "economic growth package." They…

For a reporter, going to New Hampshire in primary season is like going to the ballpark: No matter how many times you've been, you might see something you've never seen before.

Lenin's Private War

Juno

Sometime back in the 1990s, when the culture wars were the only ones we thought we had going, a cartoon showed three coworkers viewing each other with narrowed and questioning eyes. "Those whites don't know how to deal with a competent black man," the black man is thinking. "Those guys don't know…

Conservative editorialists, radio hosts, and bloggers are unhappy. They don't like the Republican presidential field, and many of them have been heaping opprobrium on the various GOP candidates with astonishing vigor.

Liberal Fascism

Berkeley, Calif.

Tampa, Florida

Barack Obama's shellacking of Hillary Clinton was obviously the big news of the weekend, and Obama showed up on This Week to discuss his victory, and Bill Clinton's race baiting. In one of the Clinton campaign's most naked references to Obama's race, the former president tried to downplay an Obama…

The website link here details the imminent and uncontrolled return to Earth of a 20,000 lb spy satellite that has lost power and can no longer be controlled. Fears are now that radioactive and other hazardous materials that are part of the satellite's configuration could cause serious problems…

There are a few things that I've never understood about the "endorsement" process. Theoretically, I guess the way it's supposed to work is a candidate wins the endorsement of an individual voter's favorite politician, actor or talk show host, and the endorsement causes the voter to support the…

On Friday, I noted the open border between Egypt and Gaza threatened not only Israel, but Egypt, allowing Islamists of all stripes to freely enter the country. Yesterday an Egyptian official explained the country's predicament to the Associated Press: Cairo was now caught between the hammer and the…

Jonathan V. Last reports from South Carolina on Obama's victory: [W]hat is troubling about tonight is that Obama was unwilling to tell people an obvious truth: that while white voters have supported him in great numbers (elsewhere, if not in South Carolina), black voters have so far been unwilling…

Columbia, South Carolina

St. Petersburg, Florida -- Charlie Crist, the popular Governor of Florida, endorsed Senator John McCain here tonight at the Pinellas County Republican Party's Lincoln Day dinner. Crist's endorsement had long been considered a major prize and, in recent days, his aides deliberately left open the…

Tonight's results from South Carolina will bring forth the fun house mirror that is modern media spin. Das Hillary Apparat will attempt to pin a racial subtext on Obama no matter what the result. If he wins big, it will be about "record" black turnout. If he wins small, it will be that his appeal…

We've been beating up the New York Times a bit over their report earlier this week of the first death of a U.S. soldier in an MRAP, the heavily-armored vehicles that offer increased protection against IEDs. See here, here, and here for background, but the problem with the Times report is that…

Tampa, Florida Two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, it was difficult to drive or walk anywhere in Iowa for more than one minute without seeing some evidence of the ongoing political campaign. Today in Tampa, Florida, two days before the increasingly important Florida Republican primary, it is hard…

Specifically, the assumption that areas in Iraq from which U.S. forces withdraw will continue to see improvements to security. Kimberly Kagan writes today in the Wall Street Journal: Coalition and Iraqi forces have not finished clearing Ninevah province, Salah ad-Din and parts of Babil. Major…

St. Helena Island, South Carolina At the risk of picking nits, President Clinton was asked a question tonight about what role he would play in his wife's administration. Here's how he responded: I will do everything I can to help her think through these problems. I will not be in her cabinet - it's…

"WHEN REPUBLICANS ACT like Democrats, America loses," Mitt Romney said last night. "You've seen that over the last several years." It was a typical Romney comment, and typical of Thursday's GOP debate, which confirmed much of what we already knew about the top contenders but did not cause any major…

The Hamas regime in Gaza scored a political coup when it destroyed the hated border wall that separated the Palestinian territory from Egypt. Established by the Israelis to halt the flow of weapons into Gaza, the wall stood as a symbol of Israeli occupation. Hamas did what Yasser Arafat, the PLO,…

The leading candidate to be elected to Germany's Constitutional Court, Horst Dreier, has come under fierce criticism by left-wing media and the Green party for supporting the concept of "rescue torture" as a means of last resort to prevent imminent, large-scale terrorist attacks. In essence, this…

For now at least, and from the sound of it until Bush leaves office: Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, will stay on the job there at least through late fall, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Jan. 24. In a move to beat back rumors that Petraeus was being considered for other…

Beaufort, South Carolina With only 15 hours left until the polls open here, the Clinton campaign has unleashed a devastating one-two punch: First, it seems that "fashion mogul, business entrepreneur, author, top model and mom Kimora Lee Simmons" has endorsed Hillary Clinton. I know what you're…

An interview from Stars & Stripes with Col. Leonard Cosby, whose unit just left rotated out of Anbar after a 15 month tour: "Things were not that good when we first got here, to say the least," said Col. Leonard Cosby, 44, of Canton, Miss., the 92nd Military Police Battalion commander. "Over time,…

Beaufort, South Carolina It had occured to me that the Clinton campaign's sudden pushing of resources into South Carolina might mean that they knew (or believed) something contrary to the polls, which had Barack Obama as a heavy, double-digit favorite here. Moments ago the Clinton campaign…

From THE DAILY STANDARD: The Magic Is Back! by Jonathan V. Last. From the Hill: Boeing, Lockheed to Build New Bomber, by Roxana Tiron. From the Washington Post: Losing Ugly, by Charles Krauthammer. From the Wall Street Journal: Foggy Bottom Apostates, by the editors. From the New York Times:…

A friend writes: "For my money the most revealing moment in last night's debate came when Ron Paul asked John McCain a question. The question was suffused in Paul's quasi-wacko, jittery-eyeball paranoia - it had to do with whether McCain would abolish something called the President's Working Group…

Do lawyers understand why the profession is held in such low-esteem? How much nerve does it take to suggest that passengers in a plane crash bear responsibility for their own deaths, since they should have known better than to believe flying is safe. That's the contention of the attorney…

Jonathan Rauch has a provocative piece today at the Atlantic. The piece centers on the politics of the eventual Iraq withdrawal -- over whatever time span that occurs. He considers the outcome if Democrats control the White House and both Houses of Congress next year: In 2009, a Democratic…

Over at Contentions, Jennifer Rubin notes that John McCain leads Mitt Romney among Survey USA respondents who said the economy is the most important issue facing the country. "Could it be that Romney comes across as too corporate or too upscale and is now attempting a slight course correction?"…

"We have strong disagreements with all the Republicans running for president." --from the New York Times's endorsement of John McCain, January 25, 2008

I just received this notice from House Republican Leader John Boehner: Tonight House GOP leaders sent Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) a letter calling on her to join House Republicans in an immediate moratorium on earmarks and to appoint a bipartisan, bicameral joint committee to reform the earmark…

E.J. Dionne's column today includes this observation: "In many ways, Obama is running the 2008 version of the 1992 Clinton campaign. You have the feeling that if Bill Clinton did not have another candidate in this contest, he'd be advising Obama and cheering him on." There's one major difference…

This from from Defense Industry Daily, a trade magazine that doesn't normally take potshots at the Times and has no ideological axe to grind: In fairness, the rest of the New York Times article is better than the title. Nevertheless, that title raises legitimate questions about the NY Times'…

Krauthammer: "It profits a man nothing to sell his soul for the whole world. But for four percent of the Nevada caucuses?"

Bloomberg reports: Paul Wolfowitz, the former World Bank president and former deputy secretary of defense who was instrumental in the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003, has been named chairman of a panel that advises the State Department on arms-control issues. Wolfowitz, now a visiting scholar at…

John Podhoretz and I had the same reaction to last night's Not-Quite-A-Battle in Boca.

As Democrats count the gains they expect in the Senate on election day, one of their top targets is Norm Coleman (R-MN). The likely candidate against Coleman -- pending a primary challenge -- is one-time funnyman Al Franken. Franken made an appearance at Carleton College the other day, and gained…

The recriminations over the security situation in Afghanistan continue, but from a new corner. Afghani President Hamid Karzai has criticized the British effort in the southern province of Helmand, where the Taliban have waged a violent campaign against NATO and Afghan forces. "There was one part of…

FOR THE 83rd time since September, the GOP candidates gathered for a debate, this time in lovely Boca Raton. Because of the unforgiving Darwinian nature of politics, fate had thinned the GOP herd to its bare essentials. And Ron Paul.

Kiev

BEGINNING THIS WEEK at the Smithsonian and elsewhere around the country, the biggest band in the world can now be seen in 3-D. At a screening last week, I took in the experience, known as U23D, at the National Museum of Natural History's IMAX theater, with a screen height of more than 60 feet.

CASUAL MOVIE FANS will be forgiven for not remembering the name Lindsay Anderson. His body of work has largely been forgotten in the four and a half decades since he first burst onto the scene, and he was never terribly prolific anyway, leaving only six features to his name. Overshadowed by his…

Barnwell, South Carolina

Boca Raton, Florida This was the nice debate - reminiscent of the earliest debates in this cycle. The debate tonight was pretty low-key considering the stakes of the primary here next Tuesday. I expected that Rudy Giuliani would come out stronger against John McCain. He did not. I thought Giuliani…

And we can thank global warming for the chance to right one of the great accidents of history--that Canada didn't end up as part of the Union. This according to a new report by the Oxford Research Group on the threat to international security posed by climate change: Climate change-related issues…

And lose a war: Under no circumstances can Petraeus be fired.... Leaving Petraeus in Baghdad -- presuming that President Bush doesn't reassign him before leaving the White House -- isn't without risks, either... That leaves an unconventional option. The president can give Petraeus a promotion he…

The new ad:

Orangeburg, South Carolina

OK, he wouldn't say he was pessimistic. Nevertheless, there are ample reason for Republicans to look forward to the election this year. The first is the significant fundraising advantage of the RNC over the Democratic National Committee: On the fundraising front, [Mike] Duncan said that the RNC…

SOME OF THE SHARPEST minds of conservative punditry have lately been whetting their knives on the candidacy of John McCain. The trend of these arguments is disturbing, because it indicates conservatism may be drifting far from its roots. The ire against McCain contains elements of two of the…

Apparently it's not enough that NASA and many other federal, state and local government agencies are operating portals in the multi-massive online role playing game (MMORPG) Second Life, now NASA is seeking to create its own such game: The day after Valentine's Day, the space agency hopes to…

Both the House and Senate Republican conferences are meeting in separate retreats this week to chart a course for the year ahead. That includes identifying both political and policy strategies, and ensuring that members are on board to the greatest degree possible. As details emerge, it's…

Tierney has another good climate post up today. The peg is new research indicating "that snow accumulation has doubled since 1850 in the western Antarctic peninsula, and that the trend has accelerated in recent decades." He also links to this analysis of the study: So while we've heard recent…

Two interesting posts on recent developments in Pakistan: Over at Contentions, Max Boot notes growing signs that the military establishment is losing confidence in Musharraf. And at The Corner, Stanley Kurtz reports on what looks like another Pakistani military offensive against pro-Taliban tribes…

BomberVest.jpg Suicide Vests: Deadly Fashion

I was abroad during the Iowa caucuses, so I may have missed reports that Romney never called Huckabee to congratulate him on his victory. Ouch! I wonder how often that happens.

From THE DAILY STANDARD: The Truth About Talk Radio, by Dean Barnett. From the Financial Times: Don't Give Up on Democracy, by Gideon Rachman. From Michael Yon Online: Men of Valor, by Michael Yon. From Siberian Light: The Battle That Shaped WWII, by Andy. From Self-Promotion: Me and Blake…

The report from Stars & Stripes: Saturday marked the Marine Corps' first hostile death in Iraq in 103 days. Lance Cpl. James M. Gluff, 20, was killed Jan. 19 while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq.... Marine Corps spokesman Eric Dent confirmed that the last Corps hostile death…

Writing in response to the Security Council's discussion on the situation in Gaza: ...The United States should oppose any UN statement or resolution that fails to condemn vociferously the terrorist tactics employed by Hamas, including its rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. For the Security…

It looks like McCain has won it:

Air Force Times: The democratic Republic of China, commonly called Taiwan - which America backs and the communist People's Republic of China considers part of its territory - frequently irritates Chinese leaders with calls for greater independence from the mainland. But while the American military…

In response to a misleading Clinton radio attack (the Clintons? Misleading? Never!), Obama fires back with a South Carolina radio spot of his own. It suggests that the Obama camp may be worried that the Clintons could erode what looks like Obama's substantial lead in South Carolina polling. The…

Chuck Todd has an interesting rundown on the state of the Florida primary. Here he is on McCain's strengths: On one hand, Florida should be a great state for McCain. It's not as much Southern as it is Sunbelt, like a really big Arizona. In addition, the state boasts lots of veterans - mostly…

Democrats Abroad, an association for Democratic expats, plans to hold a global primary in which Americans abroad can cast votes for the Democrat they'd like to see nominated. A lot of the votes will be cast on the Internet, though there will be some actual polling places scattered throughout the…

This morning on Fox and Friends John McCain picked up on Hillary Clinton's comment the other night that she would rather withdraw from Iraq than win there. McCain's critique is forceful and passionate. It may be a preview of the general election campaign. Here's the clip:

Florida is looking tight on the GOP side. Romney is now 100 percent on his economy message, which has promise. McCain, Inc. cut a new spot to cover McCain's flank on the economy; a smart move and done just in time. McCain appears to have respectable TV buys in key I-4 markets: Tampa and Orlando.…

IT WAS ROUGHLY SEVEN months ago that the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill went down to ignominious defeat. At the time, many pundits blamed or credited talk radio for the bill's demise. While guest-hosting for nationally syndicated talk show host Hugh Hewitt at the height of the hubbub, I…

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Consensus: Rising ocean temperatures linked to global warming could decrease the number of hurricanes hitting the United States, according to new research released on Wednesday. The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, challenges recent research that suggests global warming could be…

Jonathan Martin notes that "none of McCain's GOP rivals are airing negative ads against him." Now, McCain clearly has been attacked by plenty of people over the last week or so. And one assumes that Giuliani and Romney will attempt to draw contrasts with the Arizona senator during tomorrow night's…

There's a wonderful piece in the Christian Science Monitor today about the decisionmaking process by which ordinary Iraqi communities decide to oppose al Qaeda. The article looks at one sheikh who led the effort to create a Concerned Local Citizens group to oppose the group: Shortly before the…

National Journal reports that Democrats in Congress have hit on a new formula for 2008: less legislation enacted, and more investigations conducted: Waxman, D-Calif., at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and other chairmen are promising to keep up the pace in 2008. They'll…

Why would France need a base in the Gulf? Is it to foster stability? Protect an ally? Project power into the fight in Afghanistan? On the surface yes, but according to Aviation Week, the answer may really be none of the above: France is carving out a permanent base in the United Arab Emirates that…

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From THE DAILY STANDARD: The New Russia, by Reuben F. Johnson. From Real Clear Politics: Is McCain Inevitable? by Jay Cost. From the New York Post: Bad News Bear, by Peter Brookes. From Investors Business Daily: The Other Stimulus: ANWR, by the editors. From the Long War Journal: Press…

WHEN FRED THOMPSON dropped out of the presidential race Tuesday, he did so in a way that was completely consistent with his candidacy.

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It's a nice endorsement for McCain, but I'm not sure it does much besides give us all an opportunity to trot out video from those Desert Storm briefings. He was great at those...

From today's Washington Post: "In a news conference before she left Washington on Tuesday, Clinton argued that it is 'absolutely not fair' to say that she is ceding South Carolina to Obama, who is campaigning there most of this week. After traveling to California and Arizona on Tuesday, she was…

Jay Cost: McCain is staunchly opposed by a vocal group of conservatives who view him as an unreliable maverick. You can hear their most prominent advocate on the radio every weekday from noon to three eastern. You can see them in the exit polls, which show that McCain has not yet won a…

For the past week or so we've been following the fallout from Jay Lefkowitz's criticism of the State Depatment's North Korea policy (see here, here, and here). The criticism itself went something like this: Using unusually sharp words, he said North Korea "has not kept its word," was "not serious…

Norman Schwarzkopf endorses McCain.

EXCLUDING THE LITTLE more than symbolic access to the political process granted to a few small opposition groups, the pro-Kremlin United Russia party has assumed a monopoly on the Russian political sphere much like that enjoyed by the old Communist party of the Soviet Union. It is widely expected…

As a Romney guy, most of me wants to applaud the new ad his campaign unveiled today. I'm pleased to see Romney staying with a positive message and within his comfort zone. Given the five people running for president who still have a chance (I'm counting Rudy and Huckabee as half a person each to…

Thoughts on the economy from WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor Irwin M. Stelzer: Perspective, please. Share prices are down about 5-7 percent compared with this time last year, hardly something to panic about; bank losses are 0.7 percent of GDP compared with 2.5 percent in the S&L crisis; and…

I think John Podhoretz captures it: Given this record, Thompson has effectively proved what skeptics have been saying all along. He didn't want to be president. He doesn't like running for office. He doesn't have either a killer instinct or a ravenous hunger. And he really doesn't have a sense of…

Fiscal conservatives are crying in their beer over the word that the president is unlikely to issue an Executive Order directing agencies to disregard non-binding earmarks. As if to soften the blow, Stephen Moore reports today in the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary (subscription only) that…

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The RNC has concluded its winter meeting, and a fix for the nominating process was high on the agenda. As they have done before, committee members looked at several plans to establish a better process for selecting a presidential candidate. Congressional Quarterly has a good summary of the…

It's official: Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson quit the Republican presidential race on Tuesday, after a string of poor finishes in early primary and caucus states. "Today, I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from…

From the Wall Street Journal: Now McCain Must Convince The Right, by Fred Barnes. From Commentary: The Case For Military Action Against Iran Still Stands, by Norman Podhoretz. From the New York Sun: Heroic Lefkowitz's Korea Mission, by Donald Kirk. From Reason: African Superbugs to the Rescue, by…

Fred Thompson has left the presidential arena. He didn't endorse in his withdrawal statement.

Fareed Zakaria writes in the new issue of Newsweek: The Democrats are having the hardest time with the new reality. Every candidate is committed to "ending the war" and bringing our troops back home. The trouble is, the war has largely ended, and precisely because our troops are in the middle of…

Michael Medved writes: It's obvious that the big winner in South Carolina was John McCain (grabbing 33% of the vote in a hard-fought win and 19 of the 22 awarded delegates), but it's also worth pausing for a moment to identify the primary's biggest loser. That loser wasn't Mike Huckabee (who ran a…

The problem with Fred Thompson's campaign is that he didn't actually follow his strategy - which was based on the idea of his receiving an enormous boost by riding in late, as the white knight, just at the point when we were all sick of these guys. Instead, he came in before the divisions were…

The New York Times reported today an attack on the MRAP, or Mine Resistant Armored Vehicle, resulted in the first death of a U.S. soldier inside the vehicle. This is categorically false. Three U.S. Army soldiers were killed in an IED attack in Ramadi and Karmah in early 2007, and other soldiers…

Max Boot reacts to yesterday's New York Times story that raised the possibility of General Petraeus taking over as Supreme Allied Commander Europe: Would it have made sense to replace Eisenhower in early 1945 or Grant in early 1865? Only someone who thinks the answer to those questions is "yes"…

... is the Democratic candidates' campaign embargo of Florida breaking down.

The New York Times runs a surprisingly ill-informed story today on MRAP. From the blast and the high, thin plume of white smoke above the tree line, it looked and sounded like any other attack. The bare details were, sadly, routine enough: a gunner was killed and three crew members were wounded…

No word yet on the Thompson campaign's future. Still, a friend noticed this morning that Thompson adviser Rich Galen, appearing on Fox and Friends, floated the idea that the former Tennessee senator would make a fine choice for veep, someone who could appeal to conservatives who might otherwise be…

Romney asks, Who let the dogs out?

Back when this violence occurred daily, I thought I understood al Qaeda's strategy: dominate western newspapers with negative headlines and eject Coalition forces from Iraq by riding the wave of the resulting domestic outcry. Now, with the success of the surge, it just seems like AQI is clinging to…

IN 2007, much of America's political oxygen was consumed by the two I-words: Iraq and immigration. If the former was supposed to boost John McCain's GOP primary campaign, the latter was supposed to torpedo it. Not only did the Arizona senator favor a relatively liberal immigration policy, he had…

The Telegraph reports: Saudi Arabia is to lift its ban on women drivers in an attempt to stem a rising suffragette-style movement in the deeply conservative state. Government officials have confirmed the landmark decision and plan to issue a decree by the end of the year. The move is designed to…

Notice how Clinton refers to Huckabee as a fellow Arkansan and "competitor" for the presidency - as though he, not his wife, is the one running for president:

Barack Obama finally has counterattacked Bill Clinton. The spectacle of Obama facing down both Clintons has become the most interesting story of campaign 2008 (so far!). What Obama needs to do now is challenge Bill Clinton, not Hillary, to a debate. Whatever happens, it would definitely be a…

A not-disinterested observer writes in to point out that the Gainesville Sun and Orlando Sentinel both base their endorsements of John McCain on the Arizona senator's ... least conservative positions. McCain's challenge is to expand the number of conservative Republicans who support his candidacy.…

Drudge just posted a link to this story from the Daily Princetonian: All Princeton faculty members who have given to 2008 presidential candidates so far have donated to Democrats, according to federal records of donations to presidential campaigns from Princeton University employees. Shocking,…

Good for her: If anyone has wondered what can make a battle hardened Marine act like a love-struck high-schooler, the answer is simple-a meet and greet with Scarlett Johansson. The 23-year-old bombshell met with nearly 600 service members at Camp Buehring, Kuwait Jan. 20 during her five-day United…

After a summer and fall in which the press was filled with accounts of Muqtada al Sadr's power in Iraqi politics, Sadr and his Mahdi Army have essentially dropped off the radar. Other than brief mentions about Sadr's declaration of a cease fire and its impact on the security situation, there has…

There's been lots of talk from leaders of both parties about the importance of working together to enact a 'stimulus package' quickly. The early impression is that there's enough common ground to move quickly on a package centered on a one-time tax rebate for individuals. Democrats are pushing for…

In the wake of Fred Thompson's disappointing finish in Saturday's South Carolina primary, speculation centers on whether he will remain in the presidential race or drop out. To this point at least, most observers seem to agree that Thompson's campaign has been a big help to the candidacy of John…

The United Nations has backed a $100 million film fund. The idea behind the project, Variety reports, is to combat stereotypes in movies. "For a lifetime, it seems, I have agonized over the way stereotypes, reinforced by popular culture and the media, can set the emotional and political stage for…

Finally, we see some persistence from Rudy Giuliani. MSNBC's First Read reports on a Giuliani campaign stop at the Daytona International Speedway: 'Can I drive a car?' [Giuliani] asked. When told he did not have the proper NASCAR license, he asked to drive a pace car. NASCAR aides told him that he…

John Podhoretz: The logic of the McCain and Giuliani candidacies has always pretty much been the same - a strong leader in the War on Terror who is able to secure the votes of independents. But with Giuliani's political life on the line, he has no choice but to try to uncouple McCain's recent…

Chinese defense minister Cao Gangchuan wrapped up a five-day visit to Indonesia yesterday. While in Jakarta, Cao and his Indonesian counterpart, Juwono Sudarsono, agreed to expand military ties between the two countries. Chinese press reports on the development carried the heading "Cao Gangchuan…

According to the Miami Herald: Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani promised aerospace leaders Friday that he will work to close the looming gap in the nation's manned space program, if he lands in the White House. "A strong NASA and a revitalized space program will be a priority for a…

That's the rumor at the Pentagon according to the New York Times: The Pentagon is considering Gen. David H. Petraeus for the top NATO command later this year, a move that would give the general, the top American commander in Iraq, a high-level post during the next administration but that has raised…

Afghanistan-helos-training-April2007.jpg Afghan Air Force helicopters during training in April 2007.

From the New York Times: Thoroughly Unmodern McCain, by the boss. From the CS Monitor: A Tale of Two Allies, by A. Wess Mitchell. From the New York Times: Yon Covers War in Iraq With a Soldier's Eyes, by Richard Perez-Pena. From Military.com: Higher, Faster, Farther: Ospreys in Iraq, by Christian…

Hollywood's favorite dictator, Hugo Chávez, is a big deal in the blogosphere today. First, the Miami Herald reported yesterday that "Chávez has revealed that he regularly consumes coca -- the source of cocaine." The article continues: It was not clear what Chávez meant. Indigenous Bolivians and…

This from Jim Webb last week: Echoing comments Tuesday by the Navy's top officer, Adm. Gary Roughead, Webb called for increasing the size of the Navy's fleet beyond its current target of 313 vessels and strengthening maintenance and modernization projects by encouraging more free-market competition…

In between her travels with Sarkozy, Carla "Not Understanding the Concept of Monogamy" Bruni found time to film this spot for Italian automaker Lancia. Enjoy!

The Washington Times reports that 12 of the 13 open House seats the Cook Political Report rates "competitive" are held by Republicans. The Times further points out, however, that there are 26 freshmen House Democrats who are similarly vulnerable.

The Wall Street Journal runs an editorial on the State Department's Lekowitz problem: Listen to the U.S. State Department, and the six-party talks with North Korea are working: Pyongyang has agreed to abandon its nuclear program, China and South Korea are stepping up their diplomatic roles, and all…

The Republicans aren't the only ones counting delegates, Ben Smith reports.

America's "empathy" is quickly becoming the sleeper issue of 2008. Barack Obama: I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper;…

Haaretz prints an interview today with John Bolton, who was in Israel to attend the Herzliya Conference. Bolton offers this startling glimpse into how U.S. policy shifted during Israel's war with Hezbollah: the main reason for America's retreat from its initial position was U.S. Secretary of State…

America's Three Regimes

Looking back over the nearly 40 years since I first found myself immersed in a Flashman story, perhaps the single most striking thing about the experience is the date. It somehow didn't seem to "fit," amid all the feverish enthusiasms of the late sixties, that one should be so thoroughly absorbed…

The Peaceable Political Kingdom

Write It When I'm Gone

You live, they say (usually accompanied by a sigh), and you learn. They say it; I don't. You live, I say (with an even deeper sigh), and you yearn. And I generally make it a point to yearn for things that I am certain to be unable to obtain. What's the point of yearning for the merely possible? "I…

Jena, Louisiana

As pundits begin to write their obituaries of the Bush presidency, much ink will be spilled over foreign policy. As always, the victors will pen the history. And in the case of the Bush administration, those victors are the permanent bureaucracy at the State Department--the Foreign Service.…

City of Laughter

Peterborough, New Hampshire

For those who thought that Hillary Clinton was through because Barack Obama won the Iowa caucus, or because the polls supposedly proved she would lose in New Hampshire, or because they let the personal, ideological, or partisan wish be father to the thought--and for those who made proclamations…

It's a good thing for Rudy Giuliani that he believes in the power of optimism. These days his campaign needs some. For most of 2007 the former New York City mayor led the Republican field in national polls, some state polls, and money raised from individual contributors. He appeared to have…

The match is almost perfect. As the surge in Iraq has succeeded, the presidential campaign of John McCain has risen from the ashes. This is no coincidence, and the message is simple and unmistakable. The surge is now a powerful force in American politics. In the jargon of the 2008 presidential…

Manchester, N.H.

There Will Be Blood

The Abstinence Teacher

"Your torch has been lit!" read the email I got last summer. And now my torch has guttered out! Yours too, maybe.

There Is a God

IT TOOK A WHILE--for the duration of the Iowa campaign, to be exact--but the Clintons have figured out the most productive way to use former President Bill Clinton in Hillary Clinton's campaign. Their division of labor is very simple: he criticizes Barack Obama while she mostly stays positive. It…

It took a while - for the duration of the Iowa campaign, to be exact - but the Clintons have figured out the most effective way to use former President Bill Clinton in Hillary Clinton's campaign. Their division of labor is very simple: he criticizes Barack Obama while she mostly stays positive. It…

Republicans obviously have a vested interest in the Democratic presidential primaries, and nothing warms their hearts more than the brewing identity politics battle on that side of the aisle. As David Brooks pointed out last week, the first viable female candidate for president and the first viable…

The architects of the surge, Frederick Kagan and General Jack Keane, and the man whose judgment of it seems to carry the most weight with the media, Michael O'Hanlon, share a byline in today's Washington Post. The three start with the passage of the de-Baathification bill in the Iraqi Parliament:…

Click to view the slideshow of the leadership of Somalia's Islamic Courts and Shabab.

Via Op-For, a killer ad from the Royal Marines:

My previous post lacked clarity, which is a writer's besetting sin. ("Be clear, be clear, and yet again I say, be clear," said the columnist of a generation ago, James J. Kilpatrick.) Here is the essential point I meant to convey: That while Huckabee said in his concession remarks that he still…

On Friday we noted a a speech at AEI by Jay Lefkowitz, the U.S. special envoy on North Korean human rights. AFP described the speech as a "rare public break with the [administration] strategy": Using unusually sharp words, he said North Korea "has not kept its word," was "not serious about…

I received this yesterday from a Lt. Col. in the California National Guard: Hi John- I'm one of those a$$hole battalion commanders mentioned in "The Army's Other Crisis." Speaking only for myself, from talking to my guys - National Guard cav troopers - it's pretty clear that the main retention…

From the New York Times: "'I don't want to say it's embarrassing, because I'm here, but I do see why people would think it's strange that we are voting in a casino,' said Tiffany Romero, 31, a barista who participated at Wynn Las Vegas. 'It's not normal from what our country is doing, but this is…

Looking back at the last 17 days of the primary season, it occurs to your Cardinal that despite all the talk to the contrary, every major candidate has exactly the same strategy, which is to say no real strategy at all. Each has tried to win every big primary, and failing that, scrambled like mad…

In conceding South Carolina to John McCain, Mike Huckabee nonetheless declared his intention to keep on in his quest to be our 44th president. (He was the 44th governor of Arkansas, by the way.) But it's far more likely that Huckabee will be our 47th vice president. It's obvious he likes McCain,…

In his victory speech last night, McCain said: But nothing is inevitable in our country. We are the captains of our fate. Kathleen Parker called it "McCain's best moment." But apparently it didn't sit well with Spencer Ackerman: That's a misquotation of a line from William Ernest Henley's poem…

It's a solid enough win for McCain, and he should get a nice bump out of it going into Florida. From the exit polling it seems that McCain's perceived electability played a major role and watching the speeches, it's not hard to see why Republicans might find McCain the most compelling of the lot.…

So rules the AP and Fox. Huckabee in second, with Fred Thompson in third. Looks like Romney may have to come up with a new alloy from which to forge his fourth-place South Carolina medal ... copper, perhaps?

Markos Moulitsas has issued an interesting proclamation regarding Barack Obama's defeat in Nevada: Remember those who mocked Jerome Armstrong's predictions that Obama wouldn't win the nomination? Remember how I said, 'it's a solid theory' and people laughed at my stupidity for taking it seriously?…

A look at the entrance poll crosstabs should be worrisome for the Obama camp. Compare it also to the results in New Hampshire: Clinton won NV women 51 percent to 38 percent. Clinton won voters over 45 in NV by a slim margin. But she won voters over 60 by a 2-to-1 margin. Think about how that…

Las Vegas Underneath the headline that Clinton won the Nevada caucuses are two other notes: (1) Edwards finished with 4 percent. That's right. Granted that number is an over-performance compared with the caucus site I attended where only 8 of the 495 voters were for him. At what point does Edwards…

"I'm actually very normal." --Woody Allen in Time magazine's January 28, 2008, issue.

Those Culinary Union members didn't show up to vote - for Obama, anyway. Clinton wins. The Restoration looms.

Jonathan V. Last has just filed a report from the Bellagio where he saw a casino caucus in action. He writes: During the initial sort, Clinton supporters massed in the center of the room; the Obama supporters off to the left. Their numbers close to even, both groups chanted loudly. Eight lonely…

Las Vegas

Our "clear vision for the future" post of the day comes courtesy of the United States Navy. CNO says Littoral Combat Ship will be the "workhorse" of the Navy: "The Navy has a gap we need to fill in the littoral and that is what LCS is going to do for us," [Admiral Gary] Roughead said. "This ship is…

As any Boston Celtic fan will tell you, Rick Pitino couldn't coach professional basketball worth a damn, but he could turn over a nice quote every now and again. During the third year of his disappointing tenure with the Celtics, fed up with the fan base's endless nostalgic pining for the recently…

Romney wins Nevada, with what looks like a strong second-place showing from ... Ron Paul. Romney's delegate count grows larger still. Meanwhile, polls remain open in the state that all the GOP candidates (minus, of course, Giuliani) actually contested.

Clifford writes to say he thinks my South Carolina post missed the point and any Romney supporters will go to fellow conservative Fred Thompson, not to McCain, "a serial, barbed thorn in Republicans' sides." He predicts a Fred Thompson win tomorrow in South Carolina. Well, Cliff, can't say I agree.…

It's a doozy, and contains some interesting ideas. He out-tax-cuts McCain on the corporate rate and includes a plan to eliminate payroll taxes for seniors. Hey - aren't there some seniors in Florida?

From the New York Times review of Larry Diamond's The Spirit of Democracy: Oil is a major part of the story of Russia's democratic retreat, as it is for many other nations. None of the 23 countries whose economies are dominated by what Diamond calls 'the exceptional curse of oil' are democracies.…

According to the AP, Obama outspent Clinton in Nevada by a small margin. Here's the breakdown: Obama: $1 million in television advertising in Nevada. Clinton: $700,000 in television advertising there; plus $100,000 spent by an outside group supporting her. Recent polling shows Clinton in the lead,…

This Washington Post story clues us in to the GOP candidates' closing arguments: Candidate ads clogged South Carolina television screens during local newscasts Friday, as they have all week. McCain stressed his long record of service to the nation as a Navy pilot and a senator, and said he is most…

The weather in parts of South Carolina may affect today's turnout.

Bush pledges to give the economy a "shot in the arm." But will it work? Here are some views from conservative opinionmakers: Irwin M. Stelzer: When all is said and done, it is not clear that a stimulus, even one totaling about $150 billion, will provide much of a lift to the sagging economy. Data…

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Las Vegas

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This morning on CNN, Mike Huckabee said that the Constitution is "a living, breathing document." If you read the full transcript, you'll see that Huckabee wasn't embracing the view of liberal theorists - that judges should adapt the Constitution - and thus make it "live" and "breathe" - in order to…

Noonan has an excellent post below on the retention crisis in the Army ( I think "crisis" might overstate it a bit, but no doubt a serious and pressing problem), which was most recently highlighted by the announcement that COIN expert Lt. Col. John Nagl would be leaving the service to work at a…

USA Today criticizes the three Democratic presidential contenders for pandering to Nevadans opposed to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility: In a singularly disingenuous bit of political jiu-jitsu, Edwards (who twice voted for Yucca Mountain) said he opposed using the site and then…

The McCain campaign has a new, clever web ad:

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Clinton campaign is attacking Barack Obama for voicing concern over legalized gambling's social and economic costs: 'There's a fundamental question here,' said the Rev. Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. 'Until…

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Now that McCain has recaptured frontrunner status, or at least the appearance of frontrunner status, quite a few conservatives are gnashing their teeth over his perceived heresies on immigration, campaign finance, global warming, etc., etc. Dean Barnett has an excellent piece up at THE DAILY…

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The Economist on China's inflationary issues: [F]ears of social unrest have made inflation one of the government's top concerns and has led it to impose various price controls over the past week. The accumulation of vast foreign-exchange reserves has fuelled domestic money growth and the inflation…

There may be a revolution brewing among House Republicans. For several years outside groups such as Porkbusters, the Club for Growth, the National Taxpayers' Union and others have lobbied for a real crackdown on pork-barrel earmarks. When Representative Roger Wicker was recently appointed to the…

From THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Prepare to Be Stimulated, by Irwin M. Stelzer. From the New York Post: The New Lepers, by Ralph Peters. From the Washington Post: Fight in Afghanistan, by the editors. From USA Today: 75% of Baghdad Now Secure, by Jim Michaels. From Ace of Spades: God to Bobby Fischer:…

May I recommend Ian Bremmer's tour d'horizon focusing on the global "political risk" outlook for 2008. It's a long article that defies attempts to summarize it. But here's a taste, from Bremmer's analysis of South African politics: Now that [ANC President-designate Jacob] Zuma has been formally…

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An interesting piece up at Slate on the efforts of environmentalists to have polar bears designated as an endangered species: In the short term, populations are at reasonably high levels and holding steady. In the longer term, designating polar bears for protection won't stop climate change and…

Jay Lefkowitz, the U.S. special envoy on North Korean human rights, has publicly questioned the Bush administration's approach to dealing with North Korea: Lefkowitz charged late Thursday that North Korea used its nuclear arsenal to "extort" aid, was "not serious" about disarming, and would likely…

The boss looks to tomorrow's contests and concludes: If McCain wins South Carolina: Thompson's probably out. Huckabee presumably stays in and continues to get delegates, but it's hard to see how he can be the nominee (if he can't win South Carolina, how many other states can he carry?). McCain…

Krauthammer: The analogy Clinton was implying was obvious: I'm Lyndon Johnson, unlovely doer; he's Martin Luther King, charismatic dreamer. Vote for me if you want results. Forty years ago, that arrangement - white president enacting African-American dreams - was necessary because discrimination…

At the risk of stating the obvious: Tomorrow - South Carolina for the Republicans, Nevada for the Democrats - is an important day. On the Republican side. If McCain wins South Carolina: Thompson's probably out. Huckabee presumably stays in and continues to get delegates, but it's hard to see how he…

In the current New Republic, the editors have this to say about Mitt Romney: "He's unbearably unctuous - the Arnold Horseshack of the race, furiously waving his hand to grab the teacher's attention." An intriguing reference to the suckup student on one of my favorite sitcoms from the 1970s, Welcome…

Michelle Malkin on the "stimulus" debate: I'm all for the government giving me back my money. But why not drop the economic stimulus pretense? Just give me back my money. If the government can spare these 'rebates' and send them back now, why did they take the money in the first place? Forget this…

The Washington Post comments on Iraqi progress toward political reconciliation, and notes that the recently-passed de-baathification law may create some problems while solving others. Nevertheless, the editors argue that the U.S. should not withdraw precipitously: Limited and over-promoted as it…

The "president of Florida" is up in the West Palm Beach market with another ad. The mayor's ads keep getting stronger:

They both need someone other than McCain to win in South Carolina. Jay Cost explains why: Following Pew, it does not seem that Romney is the second choice of a plurality of Huckabee voters or McCain voters. The situation in Florida might be different than what Pew finds on the national level, but I…

The greatest movie star in history was born today. (HT: Instapundit.)

Is retention. In December's Washington Monthly, Andrew Tilghman tries to find out why: In Philadelphia, I met Zeke Austin, a twenty-eight-year-old former captain at Fort Hood, Texas, who left the Army after five years to look for a private-sector job. Austin first explained that he quit because his…

IN HIS REVIEW of 1998's Godzilla, the New Yorker's Anthony Lane mocked the media blitz preceding the film's premiere: "The marketing machine has been chugging away for months, its strategy being to seduce us with details--the wink of an eye, a cheeky tremor of foot. The true, overwhelming…

JOHN MCCAIN HAS COME UNDER HEAVY FIRE from conservatives critical of his alleged apostasies. To be sure, several of his stances--on tax cuts, illegal immigration, campaign-finance reform--stand at odds with the current mainstream of American conservatism. But his opponents on the right are…

JOHN MCCAIN'S STRIDENT opposition to drilling in ANWR provides a belated opportunity for clarity. Republicans would be better off viewing McCain as a Scoop Jackson Democrat living under the Republican "big tent." They should consider any typical Republican positions he takes aside from his…

Las Vegas

One other point about Thompson's criticism of Huckabee's willingness to support a federal ban on smoking in public places: It was one of several Thompson made in an effort to illustrate "the direction" Huckabee "would take us in" as president. Others included Huckabee's willingness to bring enemy…

For those of us waiting for a worthwhile poll on the Republican race in South Carolina, the twenty-four hours after Michigan were frustrating. The only pollsters to release numbers were ARG and Zogby, and their efforts typically bear only a coincidental resemblance to reality. Finally, as the…

The other day Karl Rove spoke at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting. Coverage of the speech has been pretty much concerned only with Rove's criticisms of Democrats. But Rove also had plenty to say about what Republicans needed to do to hold the White House in 2008. First, the GOP…

As reported by The Hill (and oddly ignored by other media), Mike Huckabee has modified his position on the advisability of a federal law outlawing smoking in public places. Back in August, during a forum on cancer, the former Arkansas governor said he would be willing to sign a bill to that effect.…

Las Vegas Nevada District Court Judge James Mahan has ruled that the 9 at-large caucus sites in Nevada casinos are just fine. The attorney for the state teacher's union says he "probably won't" appeal the decision. So everything stays the same except that the Clinton organization probably made some…

The CS Monitor has a story today on the tensions within the military over the pace of the drawdown in Iraq: The tension between ground commanders and those who provide the forces is age-old. But as Congress and the US public see tangible security gains in Iraq, they now expect the benefits they can…

Rasmussen Reports the latest: McCain 24 Huckabee 24 Romney 18 Thompson 16 Paul 5 Giuliani 3 Yes, that's right - Paul is running ahead of Giuliani in yet another early state contest. Also: Note that the race in South Carolina is extremely tight, with eight points separating the leader from the guy…

Vote often and early for Mitt Romney! Turns out our Mitt is listed twice on the ballot in Belmont, Massachusetts. The Republicans' absentee ballots have gone out, and you'll find on them Romney listed both for president and for town committee. It's not just Mitt, for that matter: Taggart, Jennifer,…

Daniel Drezner points to this amusing mashup from Slate:

Ari Richter has a great column in the Concord Monitor on the Democrats' problem with the Second Amendment: For Barack Obama, lawfully owning a gun seems to begin and end with hunting: "We essentially have two realities, when it comes to guns, in this country. You've got the tradition of lawful gun…

David Leonhardt: "For much of the last 35 years, the incomes of most workers have been growing far more slowly than they once did. In the current expansion, which started in 2001, the median weekly paycheck of workers has actually fallen 1 percent, once inflation is taken into account, according to…

Las Vegas One of the bigger stories here is a lawsuit that's been filed against the caucus which seeks to shut down the caucus locations in nine Nevada casinos. The back-story is classic: Harry Reid was the leading force in moving Nevada's caucus up on the calendar to give it meaning for the first…

Sure, the economy seems headed in the wrong direction. But American Public Media's Marketplace reports on signs that things may not be as horrible as you (and I) think: Applications for new mortgages jumped 28 percent last week. So says a report today by the Mortgage Bankers Association. ... There…

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The Florida primary may be just under two weeks from now, but both Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have put up new television spots in the Sunshine State. Here's Romney's:

Hot off the presses, the USAF just released the much anticipated (though clumsily named) Roadmap to the Future. I'm including the link to the Air Force's press release, though I won't bother quoting from it, as the Zoomies are notorious for churning out awful canned statements that do nothing but…

Earlier this week, Steven C. Clemons posted a video at the Washington Note called "Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People." TAPPED blogger Matthew Duss said the film showed "offensive images and representations" of Arabs from popular--and old--films, including True Lies, Back to the…

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Maintaining A Base, by Reuben F. Johnson. From the Politico: Antiwar Groups Retreat, by Ryan Grim. From Pajamas Media: The NYTimes Hits Vets Yet Again, by Bob Owens. From the New York Times: The Endless Fear of Terrorism, by John Tierney. From Defense Tech: Navy Cleared to…

It seems as if Massachusetts Republicans have found a promising challenger to square off against America's favorite: And after losing a much-closer-than-expected special House election in the state's 5th district in October, Republican Jim Ogonowski is now strongly considering a bid against Kerry…

Aren't we supposed to be increasing our focus on 'soft power?' The Bush administration is fighting congressional efforts to slash the amount of emergency food aid the United States provides around the world, saying the cuts could hurt as many as 8 million people in dire need. Members of Congress…

Las Vegas First the Clinton campaign gave us the "Middle-Class Express" bus. Then there was the "Hill-a-Copter." Yesterday the campaign unveiled a a 737-800 they're calling "Hill Force One." Make it stop.

Judging by columns like this, talk radio, some right-wing blogs, and reader mail, John McCain still faces considerable opposition from conservatives. That opposition may be strong enough to deny him the GOP nomination. But, if he won the nomination, would such opposition be strong enough to deny…

I had never heard of her before catching a sneak preview of Cloverfield last night - it's good! - but she plays the main love interest, Beth, and I can predict with confidence that she will become very famous, very soon. At least among geeks who like movies like Cloverfield. Including myself.

The International Monetary Fund reports that the improved security situation in Iraq is leading to significant improvements in oil production, and along with it, higher economic growth: Mohsin Khan, the IMF's director for the Middle East, said Iraqi oil production was forecast to climb by 200,000…

While we've covered it here, the attempt by Congress to defer implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative has gotten surprisingly little attention. The WHTI requires all citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Bermuda to have a passport or other accepted ID that…

The flyaway cost of any aircraft is dependent upon the number procured in any given fiscal year, because the facilitization costs are amortized over the number of airframes. So, if DoD tells the builder to facilitize to build 40 per year, and you only build 20, all those costs are divided over half…

Judging from his campaign schedule and media reports, it appears the Romney campaign has decided to cut paid media, dial back any last-minute campaigning in South Carolina, and try to survive a likely third-place finish there by winning Saturday's Nevada caucus. It's an understandable move, but a…

Hong Kong I'm not the only Heritage Foundation guy in Hong Kong this week. Heritage President Ed Feulner was in town to release the 2008 "Index of Economic Freedom." A joint project of the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, the index grades every country on the openness of their…

John Ellis: "If someone asks you: 'Can Mitt Romney win the GOP nomination?' Ask them: 'Is he willing to write the check?' Read the whole thing, as they say.

HERE'S AN ODD LITTLE Hillary Clinton proposal: She wants a government blogging team.

Henderson, Nevada

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Even the local Republican party wasn't ready for Mitt Romney's win in Michigan, sending out a congratulatory victory note to John McCain. O hateful Error, Melancholy's child, / Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men / The things that are not? For political junkies, the Republicans are making…

McCain put off his defeat in Michigan to low turnout and Romney's status as a "favorite son" in his home state. He also said he's excited about "job creation" in places like Detroit based on green technologies that give him "great optimism" about the future in that economically depressed state.…

NBC's First Read blog reports that Mitt Romney is lowering expectations before Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary: 'I'd like to do better than my current place, which is fourth, but even a strong fourth is better than what some of the other guys saw in Michigan last night,' Romney told…

According to a new poll reported by the Moscow Times: Presidential hopeful Dmitry Medvedev has a long way to go to be viewed as an independent politician, with many Russians saying his authority is due to his closeness to President Vladimir Putin rather than his own skills and accomplishments,…

It seems that Congressional Democrats really have decided to completely change their approach to Iraq. For now at least, the operating principle seems to be to ignore it: As Congress opens the 2008 session, it's hard to find Iraq anywhere on the official agenda. The Senate Foreign Relations…

You expect to run into 9/11 Truthers at Michael Moore screenings and Daily Kos conventions, but I never expected to see one elected to the Japanese Diet, grilling the prime minister: Yukihisa Fujita of the Japan Democratic party, made a 20 minute long statement at the House of Councillors, the…

aafb_1.JPG Michael Yon's Dragon Skin armor.

The August collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis (the result of design error according to an investigation) has drawn attention to the state of America's infrastructure. Reports about the need to address crumbling roads and bridges abound and will increase the attention given to the…

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Dems Double Down on Iraq, by Jonathan V. Last. From the American Spectator: With Friends Like These..., by Robert VerBruggen. From the Philadelphia Inquirer: In Iraq, Reasons for Fear and Hope, by Trudy Rubin. From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Terror Suspects Waging Lawfare…

My friends - all three of them! - are writing in from all over today. Here's another, reacting to McCain's latest endorsement: "Although predictably overlooked by the mainstream media, Senator Tom Coburn - Republican of Oklahoma - just came out to endorse John McCain for president this morning.…

Las Vegas For those of you wondering why there's no good polling on the Nevada caucus, it's because pollsters aren't sure what's going to happen here on Saturday when the caucuses take place. This is the first time Nevada has had meaningful caucuses, and no one knows how to model the turnout. The…

Reuters reports: The United Nations envoy to Baghdad said on Wednesday he would present a positive picture of progress in Iraq in a report to the Security Council despite earlier having serious misgivings about reconciliation efforts. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said the passing of a key law…

South Carolina will get all the attention for the next few days, but the real showstopper in the GOP race will be Florida on the 29th. SC will narrow the field; pity the poor candidate who finishes third there and winds up in the political electric chair. If McCain drops to third, he'll be labeled…

We've had a lot of coverage here of the problems with the Air Force's F-15 fleet, which has left has many as 40 percent of the service's front line fighters permanently grounded. In light of these problems, the Air Force is pushing for more funding for F-22, a program which is nearing the end of…

Roll Call carries an interesting article today about an earmark requested by Indiana's Grace College and the Ventura County Office of Education (VCOE). The interesting thing about the earmark is that neither institution thought of the project; it was dreamed up by the lobbying firm that both…

Thomas B. Edsall looks at the Michigan numbers and sees some troubling patterns for the Clinton campaign. Among them: Clinton split the male vote with Mr. Uncommitted; Clinton lost the black vote overwhelmingly to Mr. Uncommitted; Clinton lost the under-30-years-old vote to Mr. Uncommitted; And…

There's some great stuff over at Contentions, Commentary magazine's group blog. May I recommend: DANIEL CASSE on the politics of sovereign wealth funds. JOHN PODHORETZ on McCain's Michigan failure. DANIEL CASSE on the "quadrennial religious right bust". And those are just some items from the last…

In depressing financial news, inflation is the worst it's been in 17 years. And yet the Fed still seems likely to cut rates, Congress contemplates raising fuel prices even more with a gas tax, and the Bush administration seems content to watch the dollar plunge to new lows. Watch for the price of…

Hong Kong Americans tend to read the South China Post over their morning coffee when visiting Hong Kong. Yesterday's paper carried an unhappy story: a mainland cargo ship sank in high waves off Western Taiwan, leaving 12 seaman missing. There is no question the sea is a harsh mistress. Bad things…

Las Vegas One of the most interesting post-Iowa developments in the Clinton campaign has been watching Bill Clinton take on the traditional role of running mate/hatchet man. Of course, traditionally "running mate" means "vice president," but this is an important time in our nation's history. Our…

Rudy goes up on the air in Florida with a new ad touting his proposal to create a "National Catastrophe Fund" to bail out homeowners who build too close to the ocean, possibly lowering insurance rates in the process:

Joe Carter excerpts Mexico: An Object Lesson in order to arrive at Waugh's conservative semi-manifesto. An aside: My copy of this book is appropriately titled Robbery Under Law. In related news, be sure to check out this David Skinner essay on "Wodehouse Conservatives." In my opinion - not that it…

Here's a priceless Powerline post from Scott Johnson on the uncontested Michigan Democratic primary: Yesterday 'Uncommitted' pulled a stunning 40 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary in Michigan. It's hard to imagine 236,723 Democratic voters trudging to the polls to pull the lever for…

A friend writes: "In his bottomless desire to pander, President Clinton used to propose what some of us came to call 'policy nonsequiturs.' These were ideas that combined two wholly unrelated policies simply because each had proved popular with focus groups. A favorite example was Clinton's…

Mitt Romney had a light home field advantage in the Michigan primary since he grew up in Detroit and his dad was a three-term governor. But that's not why he won. Romney defeated John McCain because the economy is emerging as the overriding issue in the 2008 presidential race, and Romney's message…

I often wonder what the pollsters buy, one half so precious as the goods they sell. How did it get so bad? Obama a lock in New Hampshire, McCain rising in Michigan - it's some sad curse to be beloved by the pollsters with their clipboards. The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes - or…

IN 2004, John Kerry was puttering anemically along in the polls until he broke through with victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. All the old paradigms held true as those triumphs trampolined the haughty senator to the Democratic nomination.

PRESIDENT BUSH MARKED "Religious Freedom Day"--celebrating the 1786 adoption of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom--by acknowledging that the right to worship freely is fundamental to America's democratic creed. "My administration continues to support freedom of worship at home and abroad,"…

Las Vegas

MITT ROMNEY HAD A light home field advantage in the Michigan primary since he grew up in Detroit and his dad was a three-term governor. But that's not why he won. Romney defeated John McCain because the economy is emerging as the overriding issue in the 2008 presidential race, and Romney's message…

Fox News Channel is calling the Michigan primary for Mitt Romney. The final vote tallies aren't in yet, but clearly Michigan Republicans read today's New York Times and realized Romney isn't so bad after all. Another factor: Romney's expert symbolitics, through which he convinced Michigan…

Las Vegas The Clinton campaign has been circulating emails on two lines of attack against Obama that will probably be on display at tonight's debate. The first is that Obama voted "present" 129 times while serving in the Illinois state Senate. The Clinton camp use these votes to pain Obama as…

Various staffers at the Democratic debate have told me that Dennis Kucinich will be allowed into the debate in a few minutes, but the Nevada Supreme Court has yet to speak and no one will say anything officially. Meanwhile, the Kucinich camp sends out the following release: LAS VEGAS, NV - Still…

The Miami Herald reports: The Navy is considering restoring the Fourth Fleet in the Atlantic Ocean, a bureaucratic change that would raise the prominence of Pentagon maritime activities in Latin America and Caribbean. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the disclosure…

Las Vegas In even-less-serious news, it's a big day on the 'tween front. The Clinton campaign announced that America Ferrara and Amber Tamblyn have endorsed the senator from New York. Can you feel the excitement? Ferrara is the star of Ugly Betty. You might know Tamblyn from such TV shows as Joan…

Las Vegas No matter how many jokes you want to make about how strange the Nevada caucus is, they can't really approach the reality of the thing. Exhibit A on our tour of the bizarre is the fact that the Democratic caucuses will be held here on Saturday, and 9 of the 1,700 caucus sites will be in…

Hong Kong Last year, Congress congratulated itself for passing a law that purported to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The act included a requirement that overseas ports scan 100 percent of containers shipped to the United States. Before applauding, let's review a few facts:…

The Wall Street Journal notes a stunning transformation--practically overnight--in the Democratic party. Where only weeks ago the deficit was a tremendous threat to the economy, it's now essential that we balloon the deficit to get the economy moving: Mr. Rubin's successor at Treasury, Larry…

Christian Lowe reports at Military.com: RAMADI, Iraq -- In perhaps the most tangible recognition of the improving security here, top Marine commanders are on the verge of allowing grunts in the field to pare down their body armor, giving on-the-ground commanders new authority to strip certain…

The New York Times reports: The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq's borders from external threat until at least 2018. Those comments from the minister, Abdul…

On Sunday, the New York Times printed a massive front-page story about a supposedly alarming homicide rate among Iraq and Afghanistan vets. The Times reported 121 cases of homicide or homicide charges and attributed them to post-traumatic stress disorder--presumably an attempt at making another…

Big stakes today in Michigan. The Cardinal's confessional has been open all morning and I've heard from both Romney and McCain fuglemen. The latest polls give a slight edge to Romney, but both sides are tense. The McCain people don't like the polls and the Romney people don't like the unpredictable…

From the New York Times: Driving Mr. Romney, by Dean Barnett. From National Review: Death Blow to Defeatists, by Pete Hegseth. From the New York Post: Smearing Soldiers, by Ralph Peters. From the Washington Times: Iran Continues to Provoke, by James Lyons. From Slate: The Nano Challenge, by Anne…

Eighteen years after its maiden flight, Russia is starting full production of the Su-34. Russia's Air Force will receive at least five advanced Su-34 fighter bombers in 2008, the Sukhoi plane maker said on Monday. Russia has started this year the full-scale production of the Su-34 Fullback fighter…

The fracturing of NATO over the Afghanistan deployment becomes more apparent each day. The United States has pleaded for NATO allies to deploy an additional 7,500 combat troops to Afghanistan to blunt an expected Taliban spring offensive, but with no relief available, the Washington Post reports…

Dean Barnett takes to the New York Times's op-ed page today and diagnoses what went wrong with the Romney campaign. Which reminds me: Driving home his "it's-personal-to-me" message in Michigan yesterday, Romney said he has "cars in my blood." Maybe he should get that checked out.

Apparently if you are, you're a coward: "The distance between the Chinese and U.S. militaries is big. If you fear China's military build-up you don't have much courage," said Chen Bingde, chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army. "We don't have the ability to make you afraid of us,"…

Given the suddenly painful and prominent debate over race relations currently going on among Senators Clinton and Obama, and among Democratic leaders, it's worth noting that there's one Republican presidential candidate who has demonstrated an ability to win African-American votes: Mike Huckabee.…

Hong Kong Throughout my 25-year Army career, I usually focused on national security as a "blood-and-bullets" concern. So it feels odd to be spending so much of my time nowadays worrying about food security. But it's just another side of the national security coin. You never know when terrorists…

A friend sends along this NPR commentary by Deborah Bolling debunking the idea that Bill Clinton was the first "black president" of the United States of America. Bolling's left-wing critique is fascinating to listen to, if only because it portends where the Democratic party is headed if it…

As John McCain looks more and more like the frontrunner (for now) in the Republican presidential race, criticism of his views has intensified. And no one has been more critical of the Arizona senator than his former colleague Rick Santorum. Santorum has taken to talk radio shows in recent days to…

"WHAT IS TO BE DONE?", asked Lenin in 1902. He couldn't have been thinking of capitalism's problems circa 2008, but he was asking a question that is on the lips of America's policymakers as the U.S. economy slows. Indeed, more than slows if economists at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill…

As Rich Lowry suggests, the voting so far has buried at least one early-primary-season cliche. Namely: the pre-voting national polls are accurate measures of support. Instead they are little more than reflections of name i.d. That was the case before voting began in 2004, and it was the case before…

This weekend the New York Times published a troubling report chronicling what appears to be an epidemic of violent crime by soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The paper "found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were…

Hong Kong Forget Will Smith. In his new movie a global plague kills off all but the tiniest percentage of people. If the setting had been Hong Kong instead of the Big Apple, the screen would still be crowded with people. Here in Hong Kong I have plenty of company. But one fellow visitor really…

IN A PAGE-ONE STORY published Sunday, January 13, 2008, "Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles," the New York Times reported on homicides by veterans of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Seven Times reporters contributed to the lengthy story, which was co-authored by Deborah…

From Christopher Caldwell's Financial Times column: In any technocratically run country serious politics may simply be too boring to hold the attention of an electorate accustomed to non-stop entertainment. Electoral programmes are less exciting than allegiances. The country wants heroes and…

Today, the blogosphere is in a tizzy about Hillary Clinton's appearance on Meet the Press. Most bloggers are buzzing about Hillary's insinuation that she is responsible for the surge's successes--and most are outraged that she would even suggest such a thing. What did Hillary say on Meet the Press?…

Fred Thompson has filmed a closing argument for South Carolina Republicans. In the ad, Thompson stresses his opposition to "amnesty" and his long-held conservative record. Recent polling has Thompson in fourth place in South Carolina. An unexpected outcome in Michigan - say, Romney winning and Huck…

Roll Call reports that the White House is considering a bold move to cancel billions in wasteful pork-barrel spending in order to boost the economy: The White House may link a possible executive order eliminating thousands of earmarks with a call for reprogramming the funding, perhaps through a…

ARKROYAL.jpg From Shipping Times: Royal Navy's Flag Ship HMS Ark Royal in

From the New York Times: The Democrats' Fairy Tale, by the boss. From Slate: The Case Against Hillary Clinton, by Christopher Hitchens. From the Wall Street Journal: The Lessons of Iraq, by Erik Swabb. From the Washington Post: Cloudy Fortunes for Conservatism, by Jonah Goldberg. From Hot Air:…

Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin provide a summary of the latest Michigan polling data. To summarize their summary: Things look good for Romney, but Michigan is "certainly still up for grabs." Say a combination of a strong showing among Republicans and - bizarrely - Democrats influenced by…

That's Fred Siegel's term to describe the increasingly nasty fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Here's Siegel: The Hillary/Obama race vs. gender dustup has just given the country a taste of why the Democratic Party spent so many years in the…

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Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds and his wife Dr. Helen lured Rudy Giuliani into their podcasting lair for an extended conversation this weekend. Rudy offered a warm embrace of the 2nd Amendment, but didn't seem totally up to speed on flex-fuel vehicles. ("Up to speed." Get it? Ha!) Sadly, Rudy didn't…

Editor's note: The Heritage Foundation's James Jay Carafano is in Hong Kong this week interviewing government officials and studying how they screen cargo and travelers for terrorist dangers. He will be filing reports for WWS. Hong Kong Lest we obsess over our presidential primaries, remember that…

CQ Politics is assembling a list of possible questions for al Qaeda number two Ayman Al Zawahiri. The questions are in response to an offer made by Zawahiri about a month ago. Questions may be submitted to an al Qaeda-friendly website through January 16, and Zawahiri will answer some of them. (It's…

I've been arguing with friends for the last couple of weeks that Clinton's campaign is cooked once John Edwards drops out of the race and stops splitting the "change" vote with Barack Obama. Jay Carney made a point on This Week that is worth considering, however, noting of Edwards's supporters that…

As Cliff May points out at the Corner, the New York Times reported yesterday on Iraq's adoption of a de-baathification law--a critical benchmark for progress on reconciliation: The Iraqi Parliament passed a bill on Saturday that would allow some former officials from Saddam Hussein's party to fill…

As I was flying across the country yesterday, I was treated to Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton having a not-so-amiable chat. Ten minutes into it, I made a little note to myself--"Mudd Slide?" Ted Kennedy incinerated his 1980 bid for the presidency when he sat down with Roger Mudd for an extended…

Bill Kristol's New York Times column this week is on this election's real fairy tale: The Democratic idea that the surge would do nothing to change things in Iraq, that the surge is not responsible for the positive changes that have occurred in Iraq since the surge began, and that the appropriate…

Let's leave aside for the moment whether the attacks launched by Hillary Clinton and her campaign surrogates against Barack Obama are racially insensitive or not, and whether discussion of Obama's past drug use is a subject of legitimate political debate. Because this is hilarious: At a campaign…

Money trouble in Rudy land. His senior staff has taken suspended pay. (Kudos to them for doing it.) The big question now is what's left in the Giuliani war-chest. Note the following item from the St. Petersburg TImes: "Also Friday, Giuliani campaign manager Michael DuHaime said they began January…

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells. Fred Thompson has roused himself for the battle in South Carolina, and his sparkling performance at last week's Republican debate promises - um, well, mostly it promises what might have been. Why did it have to be this way? There was a moment when…

With a weekend of football to remind us of what is truly important, it's worth a moment to think about those places where America's national pastime and politics overlap. We all remember John Kerry's "Lambert Field" reference in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That gaffe alone was enough to disqualify him…

There is an old joke in Hollywood about the brilliantly talented but famously disliked drummer Buddy Rich. Ten thousand people attended his funeral, the joke asserts, but only to make certain he was dead. Barack Obama may be enjoying his own Buddy Rich moment now that he is back in a real race with…

In his trips to Iowa last summer, Mike Huckabee often joked about how he was actually the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, notwithstanding polls showing his support in the low single digits. "None" was polling higher than Giuliani, Romney, or McCain, and Huckabee would…

Charlie Wilson's War

It began with a trickle. That's why I didn't notice anything at first.

Air Castle of the South

Anglican and Evangelical?

For one elderly woman in Massachusetts, events in Russia--where a brief experiment in freedom is foundering under a rising tide of authoritarianism--have both personal and political resonance. She is Elena Bonner, the 84-year-old widow of world-famous Russian nuclear physicist and dissident Andrei…

A Lurid New Year

Crossing the Sierra de Gredos

WISDOM OF THE WARRIORS

THE WEEKLY STANDARD is a magazine of its word. Three weeks ago, we made the case that the country deserved to be liberated from the Clintons and their brand of politics. We promised to be the first to say something we are not accustomed to saying to the Democratic party--thank you. So, to the Iowa…

Des Moines

For Love of Politics

Cradle of America

According to the Clinton campaign's narrative of choice, Senator Clinton is the most sensible choice for president because of her "experience." This "experience" obviously doesn't refer to her single full Senate term--even John Edwards has one of those. The "experience" that separates Hillary from…

J.M.W. Turner

The wrappings are off and the Christmas gifts stand exposed to the light of day. Did you get what you wanted? Christmas is under attack not only for materialism, not only for multicultural failure, but now also for lack of utility. Economists as ambitious as they are cagey--perhaps bored with…

A truly overpowering cocktail of narcissism and intellectual dishonesty mixed up by Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press this morning. Depressing to think that such slipperiness has apparently become the essential talent required of a wannabe president, but after watching Tim Russert try to wrestle…

Dan Senor had a piece in the New York Post this week that didn't get nearly enough attention, buried as it was by all the Hillary-NH-Comeback coverage. Senor notes that while Republicans were debating the roots of Islamic extremism last weekend ("The candidates, for example, discussed Sayyid Qutb's…

Hans-Juergen Papier, president of Germany's Constitutional Court, has sharply criticized plans by conservative CDU interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble to amend the country's Basic Law to allow for the downing of hijacked terrorist planes over German airspace as a measure of last resort. According…

A couple items before retiring for the evening... A great photo from Iraq at FP Passport. An excellent item from John Tierney that I never got around to writing up. The gist: nobody knows precisely what the earth's mean surface temperature has been for the last few years, let alone in 1850 (the…

Jim Geraghty reports on the addition of Jim Pinkerton to Governor Huckabee's team. James Pinkerton, a columnist for Newsday, fellow at the New America Foundation, and veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush campaigns, has signed on with the Huckabee campaign. Regular readers will recall that Jim…

The stakes are increasing in the Nevada Democratic caucus. A resurgent Hillary Clinton has put her sensible pumps down and decided to contest Barack Obama there on January 19, despite Obama's formidable support from the all-powerful local culinary union. Clinton has led in polls and the union…

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The American Spectator's James Antle on last night's debate: For the first hour of the debate, I watched the debate. During the second hour of the debate, I drank beer. I very much preferred the second hour of the debate and consider myself the winner overall. Remember: We're all winners. (HT: The…

The AP reports on the president's trip to Israel: At one point, Bush viewed aerial photos of the Auschwitz camp taken during the war by U.S. forces and called Rice over to discuss why the American government had decided against bombing the site, Shalev said. "We were talking about the…

The news item of the day: Lots of people on the right think that the liberal group MoveOn.org is a joke. Well, now they'll have a bit more ammo in their argument. The powerful liberal activist group has wooed Peter Koechley away from the satirical newspaper The Onion, where he was managing…

The inability and/or unwillingness of Congressional Democrats to end U.S. involvement in Iraq has been frustrating for the antiwar left, to say they least. They've threatened and pleaded, and sent out thousands of 'action alerts,' all designed to force Democrats in Washington to do something to end…

This Detroit News rant against the major parties' treatment of Michigan contains an interesting - and depressing - fact: There are more unemployed in Michigan (370,000 people) than there were voters in the Iowa caucuses (334,000).

John McCain is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. He may falter, since many conservatives remain opposed to his candidacy. But important national figures soon may back him: California is shaping up as a player in a presidential contest for the first time in decades. Gov. Arnold…

Sunshine

Jay Cost looks at the numbers and sees an incredibly tight Democratic race: [I]f Clinton can replicate the voting coalition she enjoyed in New Hampshire ... she will all-but-clinch the nomination on Super Tuesday. I would expect her not just to win most states, but to win them by a wider margin.…

Defense Tech editor and frequent DAILY STANDARD contributor Christian Lowe is back in Iraq and files this report from Karmah, in the heart of Iraq's largely pacified Anbar province: It's a new kind of fight these Marines weren't exactly counting on. And it might be the toughest one they've had to…

From the Wall Street Journal: North Korea's True Colors, by John Bolton. From the Washington Times: Needed: strategy for space protection, by Terry Everett. From THE DAILY STANDARD: The Dhaka Dilemma, by Maneeza Hossain. From Ares: Australia Foreshadows F-22 Request, by Bradley Perrett. From the…

The Politico reports this morning that the 'Abramoff Effect' is still hammering the GOP. The occasion for the piece is the announcement by Representative John Doolittle that he will not seek re-election, largely due to the 'ethical cloud' brought on by the investigation, which has been going on for…

I'm back to agreeing with Ralph Peters (sans his use of "mini-surge," blech): As you read these lines, our troops are in the midst of Operation Phantom Phoenix, a "mini-surge" to squeeze al Qaeda and its fast-dwindling band of allies out of their few remaining safe havens in Iraq. Iraqi troops…

LTG Odierno launched a major Corps-level offensive this week, Operation Phantom Phoenix. The aim is to drive al Qaeda from its remote sanctuaries and to prevent the organization from reconstituting. Roggio has been covering events as they happen over at the Long War Journal, and the story blew up…

Click image to view the slideshow of the Taliban Leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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Looking at the Air Force decision to ground a significant portion of its F-15 fleet, it's important to keep in mind that it was always part of the USAF's long-term plan to retain a "golden fleet" of about 185 F-15C/Ds that would supplement its original requirement of 380+ F-22s. These birds would…

I'm suffering from debate fatigue, but there were a few good moments in tonight's debate, and none more impressive than this sudden awakening by Fred Thomspon (video below), who I think emerged as the evenings clear winner. I hadn't noticed Thompson using cue cards in the earlier debates, so maybe…

For the third time in six days, the Republican candidates gathered for a presidential debate in South Carolina on Thursday night. They say the presidential campaign isn't a sprint but a marathon. This week, it felt like a triathlon. The pre-debate agendas for each candidate were clear. Rudy, Fred,…

Debate Awards

TODAY MARKS THE first anniversary of the momentous events of January 11, 2007, when Bangladesh's constitutional government was replaced by military rule. For 365 days, Bangladeshis have lived under a state of emergency: their constitutional rights have been suspended, civil liberties limited, and…

Beirut

THE ASSASSINATION OF former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is a great tragedy for her country, but also for pro-democracy Muslims, and especially for Muslim women, worldwide. For all her shortcomings, Bhutto was pro-democracy and adamantly opposed to extremism. Because of her beliefs and…

For what it's worth, here are my awards for tonight's debate: 1. Best Debate. Tonight's. It featured more good answers - substantively intelligent and/or politically shrewd - than any other debate. 2. Best exchange. Thompson-Huckabee. Thompson launched a powerful attack on Huckabee from the right.…

Clear winner? Fred Thompson. He was commanding, funny, articulate. His rat-a-tat-tat answer deconstructing Mike Huckabee's record was incredibly effective - a good actor can certainly memorize his lines. But Fred was good off the cuff, too. He does, at times, seem uninterested, especially when…

I had hoped Brit Hume's first question of Ron Paul in tonight's Republican presidential debate on Fox News would be this: "Where were you last Sunday night, Congressman Paul? We saw your supporters running around outside the studio in New Hampshire with cops chasing after them. We missed you in the…

Watching the Fox debate, it strikes you that Ron Paul's inclusion in candidate forums helps those Republican candidates with strong national security backgrounds - in this case, John McCain. Paul's foreign policy may have strong support among a vocal few, but the center of foreign policy gravity in…

This is interesting: In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state's Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters (PDF) in the…

We've had a lot of discussion here about the recent incident in the Gulf. The informed conclusions have been uniform on at least one point: the U.S. Navy showed impressive restraint in the brief standoff. But as more information has come out, it now seems less clear that the explicit threat against…

As Dave Barry suggests, it seems like Mike Huckabee plans to appear on every television show in production. It's a good thing the writer's strike is going on, because otherwise Hucakbee's campaign schedule would soon fill up with appearances on The Office and Prison Break. The other day Huckabee…

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Is it just me, or is Romney taking his cues from the wrong party? The Times reports: 'We're going to make sure this state gets on the move again,' Mr. Romney said. 'I care about Michigan. For me, it's personal. It's personal for me because it's where I was born and raised.' Earlier in the day,…

Senator Fred Thompson just concluded a conference call with a number of bloggers. Before the call began, we were alerted to expect a "major conservative endorsement" of the Senator tomorrow. Thompson opened with a brief statement, mentioning that he has been in South Carolina since Monday,…

Andrew Ferguson has a fantastic essay on the insanity of the college admission process, which reminds me of one of Hillary Clinton's most appealing campaign lines: Whenever she talks about making college easier and more affordable for the middle class, she promises to do away with the FAFSA, or…

There are two Blackwater stories in the news today. First, from the New York Times, a report that personnel working for the firm used CS gas in Iraq in 2005: The helicopter was hovering over a Baghdad checkpoint into the Green Zone, one typically crowded with cars, Iraqi civilians and United States…

So much for NATO. From Fox News, Request made to send 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan: A request has been made by top commanders in Afghanistan to send 3,000 Marines to the country, FOX News has learned. The goal would be to have the Marines in the region by April, the time of year when offensive…

The senator put out the following statement today: "A year ago today the president announced that five additional brigades would be deployed to Iraq, which Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant called a central battlefront in al Qaeda's war against us. I had long argued that a change in course in Iraq…

Still fighting the important battles, I see. To coincide with the six-year anniversary of the arrival of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, the American Civil Liberties Union today announced its Close Guantánamo campaign. The ACLU is hosting more than 20 events across the country this week from…

From the Atlantic: The $1.4 Trillion Question, by James Fallows. From the Washington Post: New Estimate of Iraqi Deaths Is Lower, by David Brown and Joshua Partlow. From the Wall Street Journal: Iran's Provocation, by Walter Russell Mead. From the Los Angeles Times: Air Force may shrink its F-15…

Scandal plagued Republican Rep. John Doolittle has been fighting off retirement rumors for the past 24 hours, first with this piece in the Hill and now a newsflash from Roll Call: Embattled Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) is set to announce Thursday that he will not seek a 10th term in November, a…

The recent scandal over the offensive views expressed by Ron Paul (or by others in his name) has deservedly attracted a great deal of attention. But however much outrage the revelations may cause, they're unlikely to have any significant effect on Paul's presidential campaign. He wasn't going to be…

There's hardly a dime's worth of difference among the Republican candidates when it comes to the judiciary. Or, at least, when it comes to what they say they'll do about the judiciary. Originalism, plain meaning of the Constitution, textualism - even the non-pro-life Giuliani uses these words.…

They share another byline in today's Wall Street Journal: The question we face, on the first anniversary of the surge, is no longer whether the president's decision a year ago was the right one, or if the counterinsurgency strategy developed by Gen. Petraeus is working. It is. The question now is…

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Congress Daily reports on a recent conference call with Democratic Senator Ben Nelson and former Kerry campaign foreign policy adviser Rand Beers. The call focused on Nelson's effort to push for a change in mission for our troops in Iraq, and the failure of the surge to promote political…

Lately I've made it a habit to read the New York Times editorial columns (don't ask!). Today's editorial on the economy makes an important point: In the meantime, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has tough calls to make. Wall Street is insisting that lower rates are necessary, despite inflationary…

The best political analysis of the year (so far!) comes from - who else? - Dave Barry: [L]et's take a moment to look back on both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries, and ask ourselves if these two non-representative states - which have, between them, roughly the same total minority…

The Prince of Darkness cites girl power as the cause of Clinton's upset: The exit polls were so wrong because they grossly understated the female vote in New Hampshire. Had the turnout of women there, which constituted an unprecedented 57 percent of the actual Democratic vote, been plugged in to…

Today's Harold Meyerson column articulates the many divides in the Democratic party. As Meyerson points out, the gender gap, which traditionally has divided the Democrats from the GOP, opened among the Democrats in New Hampshire. But that's not all: [B]eneath the profound novelties of the…

The Romney campaign had a national call day yesterday that was reminiscent of the call day last winter whose blockbuster success heralded Romney's arrival as a candidate to be reckoned with. Yesterday's haul was also pretty impressive - an estimated $5 million. But the numbers aren't quite as…

At the moment we may be looking - unbelievable as it may seem to many conservatives - at a Huckabee / McCain race for the GOP nomination. But today's George Will column suggests that more surprises may be coming. Consider: The Clintons' decision to cast the election as a bridge back to the 1990s -…

While lots of theories are being tossed around to explain Hillary Clinton's poll-defying New Hampshire win, this Concord Monitor story chronicling Clinton's last-minute attacks on Obama's record on abortion provides evidence for one more partial explanation of her comeback: The back-and-forth over…

I reviewed the tape--if we had had video this good at the Gulf of Tonkin, the world might be different today. I tend to agree with Michael's earlier post that our naval force responded correctly to the incident by capturing it all on tape and maintaining a defensive posture. However, that tactic…

They come so frequently, it's hard to get worked up, but there's a dead giveaway this time. The teaser for the piece reads, "At the risk of sounding like an apologist for the Islamic Republic..." The author is Hooman Majd, who accuses the Pentagon of manufacturing the incident with Iran in the Gulf…

Hillary won last night, which, needless to say, is good for Hillary on many levels. For starters, she doesn't have to worry that, as the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, Hollywood "will defect to Barack in droves." "It is not a question of loyalty; Barack is simply too close to making history…

Mickey Kaus offers four theories to explain Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire upset. I'm leaning toward a combination of theories number two (the "Rick Lazio effect") and three (the "Feiler / Skurnik effect"). Here's Kaus on Feiler / Skurnik: What's stunning is the ferocity and speed with which…

McCain started saying he was "very pleased" with the outcome last night, which has to be an understatement. And he gushed about the people of New Hampshire, which I have no doubt is genuine. But he quickly got back to his favorite issue, the war in Iraq and his role in implementing the new…

Jonathan Martin reports that Mitt Romney has not re-upped his television ad buys in South Carolina, suggesting that Michigan will make or break his campaign. Michigan is an open primary. Independents and Democrats can vote in the GOP contest. And since the Democratic primary is uncontested, more…

From THE DAILY STANDARD: The Clintons Soldier On, by Fred Barnes. From Slate: McCain: Too Tough to Die, by John Dickerson. From National Review: Back from the Dead, by Byron York. From Contentions: O'Hanlon's Courage, by Max Boot. From the New York Times: We Still Need the Big Guns, by Charles J.…

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Federal Trade Commission is starting to examine whether buyers of carbon offsets may be getting a bill of goods: The offsets are said to represent emissions avoided through projects such as installing wind turbines or planting trees, often in the developing…

No. And I'm surprised that Ralph Peters--who is a razor sharp strategist--argued otherwise. If the U.S. Navy is to be in the statement-making business, as Peters suggests, better we choose a battle on our own terms rather than Iran's. While I normally enjoy Peters' writing, I found the following to…

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the expenditure of billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize production of ethanol in the U.S. Now there's one more. A swiss study, summarized and analyzed in the journal Science by the Smithsonian's William Laurance, finds that ethanol production…

With all the campaign hullabaloo this week, you might have missed even more important news about U.S. relations with Iran (unless, of course, you are a regular WORLDWIDE STANDARD reader and caught John Noonan's and Goldfarb's posts). On Monday, Reuters reported: Iranian boats aggressively…

In the last few years, Republicans in Washington have tried to act--or if you're a cynic, appear to act--to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. Shortly before the 2006 midterm election, the Republican-led Congress approved 700 miles of double-layered border fence, only to…

With the New Hampshire victories of Senator John McCain and Senator Hillary Clinton, the leading contenders for both the Republican and Democratic nominations appear to be sitting Senators. Certainly that's true on the Democratic side: John Edwards seems nearly an afterthought this morning, as the…

The great irony of the Clinton upset in New Hampshire is that none was more surprised by it than the senior Clinton staff, yet I predict thousands of trees will be chopped down to provide enough newsprint to cover all the "we knew our micro/macro turbo-targeting strategy would work the whole time"…

THAT WAS QUICK. The Clinton era was over for a grand total of five days. It was nice while it lasted--from the Iowa caucuses to the New Hampshire primary. But now Bill and Hillary are back in full force, with Bill doing the dirty work of trashing Barack Obama and Hillary stressing how much she…

Each party has an "in" candidate and each has an "out" candidate (not that there's anything wrong with that!). The "in" candidate draws his or her support from traditional, inward-looking partisan constituencies: For example, the Democratic "in" candidate, Hillary Clinton, won the New Hampshire…

In 1992 at the tender age of 25, I ran for state representative. I knocked on almost ten thousand doors. I whored myself out to raise money. I went into senior citizen homes where aged New Dealers heckled me. I even kissed a few babies, but I have to confess that I kissed babies because I actually…

How bad a day was it for Fred Thompson in New Hampshire? Here's how bad: He finished among Republicans in a worse position than Dennis Kucinich managed among Democrats - in sixth place, with 1 percent of the vote, and no delegates. The glamour / Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast /…

A friend jokes: Clearly, Obama's going to drop out of the race. I give him 48 hours to get his affairs in order, give back all that money, and then he's gone. He's 'dead in the water' - that's my new phrase. McCain has a ten to one chance of being the new president. Clearly. Nearly every reporter,…

That was quick. The Clinton era was over for a grand total of five days. It was nice while it lasted - from the Iowa caucuses to the New Hampshire primary. But now Bill and Hillary are back in full force, with Bill doing the dirty work of trashing Barack Obama and Hillary stressing how much she…

Wow. Hillary pulled it out, and quite handily. But it's hard to see how she's the front-runner. And I can't imagine that Edwards voters won't mostly end up in the Obama camp. But the big story today is how wrong the media was, including our nearly infallible Cardinal, who offers his apologies here.…

A tough, tough night for Mitt Romney. He has to win Michigan now. If he pulls that off in a big upset, he may recover and do fine in the Saturday, January 19, Nevada caucuses. Don't forget Nevada's large LDS population. But the McCain media bounce from winning New Hampshire will be very strong and…

1) I was way wrong. Kudos to Hillary. I didn't think she could do it. Egg on my face. 2) It must have been the tears. God, I hope this doesn't mean squadrons of crying candidates in the future. 3) It's true. She is a Bond villain. It has now been proven. She's impossible to bump off. 4) The race…

Defying polls and media hype, Hillary Clinton has eked out a win in the New Hampshire primary. Chalk it up to girl power, union households, and Catholics, as well as New Hampshire Democrats / Democratic-leaning independents seeing Clinton as the best potential commander in chief and the Democratic…

In other news, independents helped propel John McCain to victory in the nation's first primary. Mitt Romney came in second, losing independents by a significant margin while basically splitting the Republican vote with McCain, 35 to 34 percent. Romney speaks so fondly of Wyoming you start to think…

According to exit poll data, Mitt Romney did well among New Hampshire Republicans and Republican-leaning "undeclared" voters who say immigration is their number one issue, trouncing McCain 56 percent to 19 percent. Unfortunately for Romney, only 23 percent of the Republican primary electorate said…

Tensions within the Taliban ranks in South Waziristan have risen for the second time in a year. The powerful Taliban commanders Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Nazir are close to clashing after two of Nazir's offices were attacked. Nazir is blaming Baitullah's forces for the attacks, which claimed the…

A letter in response to my earlier post: Like many members of the Foreign Service, I've been embarrassed by the statements of a few of my colleagues regarding service in Iraq. I'd also agree that the latest poll continues to put our diplomats in a bad light. Nevertheless, I'd point out that the…

From Bret Stephens: When foreigners assail Americans for being naive, it is often on account of contrasts like these. A nation in which the poor are defined by an income level that in most countries would make them prosperous is a nation that has all but forgotten the true meaning of poverty. A…

The BBC reports: Data on tropical forest cover is so poor that we do not know if the forests are declining, a study has found. Alan Grainger from the UK's University of Leeds examined UN analyses going back almost 30 years, and found that "evidence for a decline is unclear". Writing in Proceedings…

The AP reports: Nearly half of U.S. diplomats unwilling to volunteer to work in Iraq say one reason for their refusal is they do not agree with Bush administration's policies in the country, according to a survey released Tuesday. Security concerns and separation from family ranked as the top…

That's one of the questions Letterman asked Mike Huckabee during the presidential candidate's appearance on the Late Show last night. Here's the video:

Dean Barnett captured the Ron Paul phenomenon best with this analysis, appropriately titled "The 'Don't Tase Me, Bro' Candidate." But now the New Republic's Jamie Kirchick has finally found the documents that prove what most of us knew all along: Dr. Paul isn't just kooky, he's deranged. (You may…

The reports of record turnout for the New Hampshire primary brought to mind this post-Iowa post by John Podhoretz: More voters. That's the key detail from Iowa last night. The Republican caucus electorate was 20 percent larger than in 2000 (from 86,000 to 103,000); the Democratic electorate was…

That's what Ralph Peters says: We should've sunk every one of them. Not because we're warmongers. But because the Iranians had made threats, verbal and physical, that amounted to acts of war. When will we learn that resolute action taken early saves vast amounts of blood and treasure later? Oh,…

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There was an interesting back and forth yesterday over at the Corner on McCain's global warming policy. McCain backs a "cap-and-trade" system for carbon emissions rather than a direct tax, and Ramesh Ponnuru writes: There is a debate between proponents of each approach, but for the most part people…

One thing we've learned about Hillary Clinton, her husband, and the entire Clinton campaign team is that they're sore losers. Not that anyone should be surprised by this. But how you respond to a defeat is a test of a presidential candidate. Respond poorly and you suffer. Nobody likes a sore loser.…

Concord, New Hampshire Today is, paradoxically, a quiet news day in New Hampshire. The candidates jet from spot to spot and, aside from the rumors of internal staff shake-ups, there's nothing really to report until the results start coming in this evening. So, for your entertainment, here are the…

The editors ask, "Why do the Democratic candidates refuse to acknowledge progress in Iraq?": All of them vehemently opposed the troop increase when President Bush proposed it a year ago; both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama introduced legislation to reverse it. Now it's indisputable that…

Some interesting reading from Defense News: China is having success in its diplomatic and economic campaign to weaken international support for Taiwan, the self-governing island's de facto ambassador to Washington said. Joseph Wu, whose official title is representative of the Taipei Economic and…

IN THE HOURS BEFORE Hillary Clinton's Iowa comeuppance, standout blogger Tom Maguire aptly described the future of the Clinton campaign: "Whether Obama wins by a little or a lot, Hilary will be the Terminator candidate. She can't be bargained with. She can't be reasoned with. She doesn't feel pity,…

E.J. Dionne's column today likens Hillary Clinton to not one, not two, but three different politicians - all of whom lost.

A column by Steven Roy Goodman in the Boston Globe questions whether Harvard may have snookered Congress by enacting a seemingly altruistic financial-aid plan for the middle class that actually saves the university over $200 million each year. Senator Grassley and others proposed that Congress…

It may seem unbelievable, but there's a strong chance that the Democratic primary race essentially will be won if Obama beats Clinton tonight. I spent some idle time yesterday (yes, I have nothing better to do) spinning a scenario in which Clinton comes second in New Hampshire, then wins the…

Republicans McCain 33 Romney 27 Huckabee 17 Paul 12 Giuliani 6 Thompson 4 Democrats Obama 47 Clinton 25 Edwards 20 Richardson 7

Let's see: Bill Kristol's first Times column raising the possibility that Huckabee could go all the way appeared online around midnight Monday. At 5 p.m. Monday, USA Today / Gallup released a new poll showing Huckabee leading the Republican field nationally by 5 points. Just sayin'.

"There's just only so much you can do against a tidal wave." That was Bill Clinton talking about his wife's chances of winning today's New Hampshire primary. That can't be helpful. In what can only be described as a full meltdown, Clinton teed off on the media, on Barack Obama, on his questioner,…

Concerning the Democrats, the big question is how large the margin of Obama's victory will be. I have him at 50 percent, Hillary at 28 percent, and Edwards at 16 percent. If the 50-28 part is right, then there is a second big question: How long before Hillary bows out? On the Republican side,…

POLICY STRUGGLES BETWEEN the Executive Branch and Congress often arise because the perspective of presidents differs greatly from that of lawmakers. Presidents and vice presidents are the only national "officers of the Constitution." In the words of Joseph Story, an early Supreme Court justice,…

Manchester, NH

IS THE "COLD," "calculating," and "shrill" Hillary Clinton tapping into her feminine side? During Saturday's Democratic debate in New Hampshire, moderator Scott Spradling asked Hillary to react to survey results that show she is less "likable" than Iowa winner Barack Obama. This exchange followed:

Dover, New Hampshire

THE NEW YEAR has begun not with a quiet whimper, but with a very loud groan, emanating from Wall Street. Economists and analysts are rushing to revise their 2008 forecasts, and journalists are competing for page one placements with scary stories about evicted homeowners sleeping in the streets, and…

Nashua, New Hampshire Barack Obama will glide to an overwhelming win here in New Hampshire tomorrow, certainly by double-digits maybe by twenty. He is on such a roll that nothing, even a rather foolish gaffe on his weakest issue (national security), will do very much to slow him down. Like this…

Of course the Iranians are calling it a simple "miscommunication," which is BS. Unless you think that I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes doesn't translate clearly from Persian to English. Nothing is official yet, but it sounds like an obvious jab at our naval perimeter.…

Time to adjust some final predictions from my barstool here in New Hampshire. I thought Huckabee would get something going here. He has, but not much. Romney gave him a good beating in the first minutes of the Fox debate last night, and the Huck's schedule here has been light. No…

AFP (who else?) reports on the surge from the other side of the street: The Islamic Army, the main Sunni insurgent group in Iraq, is adamant it will not make common cause with the Sunni militias tackling al-Qaeda with U.S. support, and will instead fight the Americans "to the end." "The Islamic…

CNN reports that this afternoon Duncan Hunter announced he would not drop out of the race and "criticized debate organizers at FOX and ABC for not extending him an invitation when 'guys with zero delegates' like Rudy Giuliani and John McCain were allowed to participate in the events, saying they…

New Hampshire is visually vibrant during the final hours before a hotly contested presidential primary. Signs are everywhere, as are sign wavers. Everyone is sporting stickers or apparel for their candidates. The major hotels are full of media or fixers or staffers still hustling for candidates who…

GovernmentExecutive.com reports that surging oil prices are hitting the military hard: The military spent $11.6 billion on petroleum in 2007, up from $7.8 billion in 2005, although the services purchased roughly the same amount of fuel -- 132 million barrels -- both years. The standard price in…

Faced with the possibility of an economic slowdown or outright recession, Congressional leaders are considering legislation to spur economic growth. There's no specific plan yet, but Representative Barney Frank is leading the effort to come up with a proposal: "We're looking at a variety of things,…

Above is footage of Hillary Clinton misting up over the likelihood of her impending defeat in New Hampshire. You'll want to have a tissue handy before clicking on the "play" buttone. This woman cares so much about the future of America, the subject just reduces her to tears. Of course, in her mind,…

Two global warming stories that are worth noting. The first comes from Science Daily: A Duke University-led analysis of available records shows that while the North Atlantic Ocean's surface waters warmed in the 50 years between 1950 and 2000, the change was not uniform. In fact, the subpolar…

Chinese media kept a close watch on the violence in Kenya following the December 27 elections that resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people and the displacement of at least 250,000. China has substantial investments in the east African nation, including telecommunications projects,…

From the New York Times: President Mike Huckabee? by Bill Kristol. From THE DAILY STANDARD: They Can't Handle the Truth, by Fred Barnes. From the New York Post: Well, They Were Right, by Peter Wehner. From the Wall Street Journal ($): Obama and Iraq, by Michael O'Hanlon. From the Washington Post:…

Mickey Kaus notices that one of the participants in Frank Luntz's post-debate focus groups on Fox seems to have appeared twice. Scandal? Time will tell. In the meantime, it's an excuse to link to an 11-year-old Andrew Ferguson essay entitled "The Focus Group Fraud." It's a classic: Focus groups…

Pundits and bloggers think so. In the wake of Hillary's devastating loss in Iowa and her dwindling support in New Hampshire, it seems the Clinton dynasty isn't drawing the crowds and enthusiasm it once did reports the New York Times. And Hillary? She's just downright dull. In today's Politico,…

Mitt Romney has filmed a two-minute closing argument, set to air on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. Here it is:

A new generation of Americans has never known a world without the Internet: Interestingly, based on U.S. Census Bureau statistics, 25 percent of all Americans alive at this moment have never known a world without the Internet and Internet access. That represents 75 million Americans who consider…

The mystery of the dismissal of two European diplomats from Afghanistan appears to have been solved. The Times of London reports the UN and European Union diplomats were expelled by the Afghan government for negotiating with none other than Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, the Taliban's southern commander.…

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Fans of Jorge Luis Borges will want to read this fascinating story from Sunday's Times on how the Argentinian author's writings strangely prophesied the Internet: Among the scores of Borges stories, a core group - including 'Funes the Memorious,' 'The Library of Babel' and 'Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis…

The primaries are (finally) underway, and the Sunday talk shows were chock full of interviews, analysis, and inter-campaign squabbles. Mitt Romney showed up on Fox News Sunday, making a last-minute pitch to the voters of New Hampshire as to why he should be nominee instead of John McCain: "He's…

Osama bin Laden escorted by the Black Guard. Click image to view.

The newest political cliche is the call to "change." Everyone says "change" is what we need: Obama says it, Edwards says it, Romney says it. Of course, as Fred Thompson pointed out the other day, every election means change, unless you vote for the incumbent - and since there's no incumbent in the…

Watching the Fox News Republican forum last night, you couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani. Both often sat in silence for long stretches of time as Huckabee, Romney, and McCain went at it. For their part, however, Thompson and Giuliani handled their outsider…

Bill Kristol's first New York Times column is about Mike Huckabee: Some Democrats are licking their chops at the prospect of a Huckabee nomination. They shouldn't be. For one thing, Michael Bloomberg would be tempted to run in the event of an Obama-Huckabee race - and he would most likely take…

Salem, New Hampshire Whatever else there is to be said about Hillary Clinton, she shows up on time. Almost always. Barack Obama is . . . less punctual. We'll leave it at that. There's a basketball game in the Salem High gymnasium, so Obama's event is in the auditorium next door. It seats 750 and…

This debate wasn't as entertaining as last night's. Perhaps the candidates are burned out, perhaps Chris Wallace was a bit too aggressive in his questioning, or maybe it was the awkward intimacy of the roundtable format, but the result was at times boring and often light on substance. And most…

THERE'S A TRUTH THE Democratic presidential candidates can't handle: the success of the "surge" in Iraq. The addition of American troops and the adoption of a new strategy of protecting the civilian population has now dramatically reduced the level of violence in Baghdad and pacified other parts of…

Nashua, New Hampshire Well, first the big news: Viggo Mortensen is campaigning here with Dennis Kucinich today. ("If by my life or death I can protect you Dennis, I will. You have my sword . . .") Then there's the more mundane campaign stuff. There was some talk yesterday contrasting Barack Obama's…

Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press reports that Hillary Clinton is attacking Obama with a mailer in New Hampshire that accuses him of being soft on "abortion rights" because he voted "present" seven times on abortion bills while serving in the Illinois State Senate. Pickler notes that Obama's…

Something rather odd is happening in New Hampshire, and for once it has nothing to do with my Nashua based in-laws. While bearing in mind that what follows may be a Romney guy struggling to keep hope alive… Rasmussen's polls show the race tightening. In their numbers from yesterday, Romney…

John Edwards will not be the Democratic nominee and he will not be president. We saw one reason even the far-left he has courted so assiduously might have reservations about him. His positions are sometimes, well, absurd. But in a small way they illuminate the differences between Democrats and…

Before last night's debate, I talked briefly to an old friend who lives in New Hampshire. He describes himself as a "movement conservative," and I think that's an accurate description. My friend told me that he was genuinely undecided and would likely make up his mind over the next few days. He…

All in all, this is a bad night for Hillary Clinton. She wasn't able to damage Obama and she weakened her own case for being the mature, serious candidate. Let's take a look at what happened: * Clinton tries to gently attack Obama at first, seeking to label him a flip-flopper. She then becames a…

Stephen Hayes files this report on the Republican debate. He gives good scores to all but Romney, who he says "struggled," but "offered a smart defense of the role of pharmaceutical companies when John McCain foolishly said they were bad guys." He also highlights this exchange between the two: In…

This was a helpful debate for the man who probably had the least to gain from it: John McCain. He was funny, spirited and seemed well-informed. Even in the squabbles in the group he seemed like the adult in the room. In what had to be one of the most important moments of the night, Mitt Romney gave…

The STANDARD has several of its crack reporters in New Hampshire, including Jonathan V. Last, who just filed this dispatch: Romney is the story (of the first half) of the night. He got hammered for 90 minutes straight. His camp is already making the case that this must mean the others are worried…

Manchester, New Hampshire A little secret about tonight's debate at Saint Anselm College: The press doesn't even get to be in the same hall as the actual event. We're in a gymnasium a few buildings away watching the broadcast on giant-screen TVs. If you're watching from the comfort of your own…

Charlie Gibson is a class act--it was a nice touch having all the candidates, Democrats and Republicans, come on stage following the first segment of tonight's debate. And if there's cause to complain about any aspect of this first portion of the debate, I must have missed it. The discussion was…

A couple of new polls out today, none more interesting than this one from WMUR/CNN: Dems: Clinton 33, Obama 33, Edwards 20, Richardson 4, Kucinich 2. GOP: McCain 33, Romney 27, Giuliani 14, Huckabee 11, Paul 9. McCain's favorable-to-unfavorable rating: 81%-13%. Rasmussen had McCain in the lead as…

First it was McCain, who said that Romney could "spend his whole fortune" running attack ads over McCain's role in immigration reform and it still wouldn't change the fact that Romney supported it at the time. But now it's Giuliani who, pointing out that Reagan, the "hero of our party" (sounds kind…

The Cardinal has landed in New Hampshire. While the media pack stayed in Iowa for caucus night, I left Des Moines early to avoid the crowds and get a jump in the Granite State. (And I've known for a year that Obama would win - OK, that'll be the last insufferable "told you so" posting on the blog.…

John Podhoretz is liveblogging the debate over at Contentions: My word. Mitt Romney not only mentioned meeting with Fred Kagan, one of the architects of the surge and a COMMENTARY contributor, but even brought in the name of radical Islamic theorist Sayyid Qutb. So one can believe him when he told…

I'm half-checked out of this thing as we move into the domestic policy portion of the debate, though it is lively with Dr. Paul placing the blame for all this country's ills on how much money we print. Still, I think the line of the night (so far) came when Thompson called Romney out on his bizarre…

Further muddling his views on George W. Bush's conduct of foreign affairs was Mitt Romney's answer to the first question in tonight's debate. Asked about the Bush Doctrine, Romney said President Bush was not arrogant, was not subject to a bunker mentality, and that we owe him a debt of gratitude…

Nashua, NH Is there a difference between an "arrogant bunker mentality" in diplomacy and an "our way or the highway" attitude in foreign policy? Mitt Romney thinks so. In late December, two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Mike Huckabee accused the Bush administration of having an "arrogant bunker…

Durham, New Hampshire After a jarring moment last night where she was booed by sizable crowd of Obama-supporting Democrats, Hillary Clinton got back on the trail this morning at a rather odd venue: a tiny bagel shop next to the University of New Hampshire's Durham campus. About 50 voters have come…

The consensus picks from Fred and Mort: Democrats: 1) Obama 2) Clinton 3) Edwards Republicans: 1) McCain 2) Romney 3) Huckabee

USA Today is tracking how Wyoming's county conventions will award 12 delegates today. With 8 counties reporting: Romney has 6 delegates; Thompson, 1; and Hunter, 1. I wrote yesterday on THE DAILY STANDARD about why no one has paid much attention to Wyoming.

Mike Murphy, who will be joining us for our cruise this spring (you better book now!), gives some excellent quotes to the Observer, which catches him at his hotel in Manchester, New Hampshire. On Hillary: "President Clinton? Never gonna happen," he said. "She loses here, but she keeps trying. She…

Jonathan V. Last has his story of dinner with the Democrats up at THE DAILY STANDARD: He's followed by Hillary Clinton, whose supporters are flagging signs shouting "READY," which may be the new "change" (the Dixie Chicks' song "Ready to Run" is her new theme song). She gets a long standing ovation…

Milford, New Hampshire

olmsted.jpg Major Andrew Olmstead.

Writing over at the American Scene, Reihan Salam shares a note from Baghdad: have you heard about the US army chuck norris fixation? he's literally on the walls of every port o john in iraq. at a base in kuwait, i peed into a urinal that said "chuck norris is watching you." here in Baghdad, I've…

"AS WYOMING GOES, so the nation"--that's an aphorism that will probably never describe American politics. But tomorrow, Wyoming Republicans will play a more significant role than ever before in determining their party's presidential nominee, when they elect 12 delegates--the same number allotted to…

I know he has his hands full in Iraq, but it looks like we have a little rebellion on our hands right here at home. Here's the new map of the American west featuring the "free and independent Lakota nation." Better bring your passport if you want to visit Mt. Rushmore this summer. basemapmedia.jpg

Concord, New Hampshire After dominating the youth vote and expanding the voter base in Iowa, Obama is out to do the same in New Hampshire, holding a lunchtime event at Concord High School. Banners here suggest that (boys tennis aside) CHS athletics aren't particularly notable. But the school did…

Anyone familiar with the inner workings of THE WEEKLY STANDARD would know that it is--with few exceptions--an all-Macintosh organization. And here we are, vindicated by Cracked.com: "No producer of goods in the history of man has sold so much while caring so little. The combined love and…

How do they stack up? Or, more specifically, which candidate wants to undo 16 uninterrupted years of cuts to our Armed Forces? All of them, actually (sans weird Ron Paul). An overview of their defense proposals follows, but I think the best prescription comes from Fred Thompson. All of the…

Matt Stoller is one of the left's most insightful and influential bloggers. Thus, the comments he made regarding Barack Obama's victory in Iowa deserve some attention: "I have deep reservations about Obama, as readers of this site know. I spent time discussing with exuberant Obama supporters and…

Olbermann Watch surveyed the reactions at DailyKos to Keith Olbermann's apparent belittling of Barack Obama's win last night. Some of the printable comments include: Half of Keith's audience watches him on Crooks and Liars. He's got to stay in good with the netroots types, even if it means rooting…

Redstate reports on the McCain conference call this morning, where one commenter, who was also on the call, writes: The Senator is right now saying that Lieberman should "play a role" in national security issues. That sounds like a possible SecDef to me. Despite all the talk of Lieberman as a…

It's safe to say that there are many conservatives in the blogosphere who are less than thrilled with the results of the Iowa caucus vote. Conservative bloggers may prefer Huckabee to Ron Paul, but even that's not clear. Soren Dayon looks at the results on the Democratic side, however, and sees the…

Across the Bay, an excellent blog covering events in Syria, points to this report from AFP: Syrian official media poured scorn late on Tuesday on comments by a visiting US Congressman that he had secured an undertaking from President Bashar al-Assad to free seven jailed dissidents. Syria "denies…

The Washington Times reported this statement from General Petraeus's spokesman yesterday: "We are ready to confirm the excellence of the senior Iranian leadership in their pledge to stop the funding, training, equipment and resourcing of the militia special groups," Col. Boylan said. "We have seen…

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There's a report in National Journal today that demolishes the credibility of the 2006 Lancet survey of Iraq war casualties. According to the report, the failures are threefold: 1) possible flaws in the design and execution of the study; 2) a lack of transparency in the data, which has raised…

Giuliani on his plan to expand the military: ...[one]voter asked Giuliani what spending he would cut to make up for the increase in the military budget. He explained his plan to trim the federal workforce by not replacing workers who retire and to ask most federal agencies to scale back their…

Portsmouth, N.H. It's 5 degrees outside, the intersections near the Pan-Am hangar where Obama's first event is this morning are plastered with placards urging us to "Stop Global Warming," and I'm parked next to two Priuses. Welcome to Obama Nation. A lot's being said about Obama's youth bulge in…

From the New York Times, January 4, 2007: "Now that the price of crude oil has crossed the $100-a-barrel threshold, and then retreated slightly, what direction will it take now? Many experts say it will go up, then down, and then maybe up again."

The Quote of the Day (So Far!) comes from our own Fred Barnes: "Fred Thompson, with a third place showing in Iowa, is a walking dead man, politically speaking. Duncan Hunter isn't even walking." It doesn't get pithier than that, does it? Also, does that make Hunter a stationary dead man,…

We all know the news by now: Huckabee and Obama won the Iowa caucuses last night. Bloggers can analyze the outcome endlessly, but that doesn't mean you need to read all of it. In fact, Jack at Ace of Spades reminds us that horserace coverage can get a little silly. Here's some entertaining--yet…

Des Moines, Iowa

This New York Times news analysis of Huckabee's rise is informative, but also a little odd. Mike Huckabee just won a 9-point victory in the Iowa Republican caucuses without spending much money, having little organization, and possessing vulnerabilities on a variety of issues (taxes, foreign policy…

As Obama begins to break away from the pack, it's worth taking a trip down memory lane. The WEEKLY STANDARD published two great pieces on Obama in 2007: Andrew Ferguson's "The Literary Obama". Stephen F. Hayes's "St. Barack of Iowa. And though it wasn't technically published in the STANDARD,…

Huckabee wins. With 25 percent of precincts reporting, Huckabee's margin of victory is an impressive 11 points over Romney. What do they put in the drinking water in Hope, Arkansas? Meanwhile, Obama is breaking out. ...

You can watch the Iowa numbers in real-time here. It's gonna be a close one.

Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating has written an interesting post identifying, in his opinion, the "top ten foreign policy gaffes from the campaign trail." Overall, it's pretty thin gruel. Keating's "gaffes" include Obama reading during Gen. Petraeus's congressional testimony in September - no big…

From the Wall Street Journal's "Washington Wire" blog: An appearance by former President Bill Clinton created a stir at Brubaker Elementary School in Des Moines, Iowa, where hundreds of mostly elderly voters gathered to caucus. Scores of caucus-goers left their assigned classrooms as word spread…

In this fun-to-read post on reading lists, author David Frum reveals his inner geek: When I was in law school, I devised my own idiosyncratic solution to the problem of studying a topic I knew nothing about. I'd wander into the library stacks, head to the relevant section, and pluck a book at…

Here (you'll have to scroll down). Apparently he's standing by his contention that the United States spends ten times what China does, despite the fact that the director of the organization that compiled the data he's using said "anybody who thinks there's a meaningful number for China's defense…

Fighting between the Taliban and the Pakistani military has been reported in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan and the settled district of Swat. In South Waziristan, the military is attacking Baitullah Mehsud's Taliban after the kidnapping of four soldiers, while in Swat, the army…

From the CBC: There's more to the recent dramatic and alarming thawing of the Arctic region than can be explained by man-made global warming alone, a new study found. Nature is pushing the Arctic to the edge, too.... "Think of it as a boxer that's almost going down for the count … and that one…

Where will Rudy Giuliani be spending Iowa caucus night, five days before the New Hampshire primary? Why, Miami, of course. Mark Murray of MSNBC's First Read reports that "Giuliani will be focusing almost exclusively on Florida for the next three weeks, heading there on Jan. 9, the day after the New…

Fred Barnes writes: Mitt Romney is often accused of being a mechanical candidate, a guy whose looks are perfect and who has thought about every issue and has standardized statements on each one. But he does have a sense of humor that sometimes breaks through, as it did today--caucus day--in Iowa…

Mitt Romney is often accused of being a mechanical candidate, a guy whose looks are perfect and who has thought about every issue and has standardized statements on each one. But he does have a sense of humor that sometimes breaks through, as it did today--caucus day--in Iowa after Mke Huckabee's…

Josh Marshall reports: As of right now, at Intrade, John McCain has just moved ahead of Romney and Rudy as the most likely GOP nominee. To which Scott Lemieux responds: a McCain win would be very bad for the Dems: despite his moderate reputation he's a fiscal and cultural reactionary with nutty…

The editors of TechPresident.com has compiled a list of the best 'voter-generated' campaign videos of 2007. Some are superb, and I've only seen a few of them before. I'm not sure which is my favorite--'Barack OBollywood', or this one from Swiftkids for Truth:

THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD tends to leave the campaign news to our colleagues at that other STANDARD, where you can read the best Iowa predictions on the web. But today is Caucus Day in Iowa, and we can't ignore the roaring blogosphere buzz on the campaigns. Already it's a crazy day in Caucusville. The…

From the Chicago Tribune: For Marine's Sendoff, His Car is Keyed, by John Kass. From the New York Post: Iran's Dangerous Nuke Game, by Peter Brookes. From the Wall Street Journal: The Pre-Election Paradox, by Daniel Henninger. From the Washington Times: Press, political pressure helped 'lose'…

Over at the Campaign Standard, Terry Eastland, Stephen Hayes, and the Cardinal have all posted their predictions for tonight's caucuses. And Dean Barnett's predictions are here. They all agree that Obama is likely to come out on top, which will be devastating for the Clinton campaign, but there is…

It will be an Obama Iowa, with Hillary second and Edwards third. Obama's appeal to independents proves critical. Biden stays in the race by finishing fourth. The numbers: Barack, 32 Clinton, 26 Edwards, 25 Biden, 11 On the Republican side, if you'd asked me on Christmas Eve, I'd have said Huckabee…

Yesterday I got a little exercised about this bit of foolishness from Glenn Greenwald. A couple more points to add. First, Ramesh Ponnuru responded with this: The analogy isn't perfect, but: We'd expect the police department to have a budget many times that of all the criminals combined, wouldn't…

But, "we know that, like any boxer, they can come back up off that canvas and lend a big, right-hand punch." That from an interview General Petraeus gave to Foreign Policy, which can be found here. I think the key point is made here: FP: So having to ally with past enemies is not a failure but a…

Your Cardinal has been busy converting the wicked in the bars and political back-rooms of icy Iowa, and offers a few final thoughts and predictions. 1.) Obama is going to win and could do so by a strong margin. Hillary and Edwards trail, with 60% chance Hillary comes in third. One interesting item:…

Some important thoughts on the caucuses tonight: Voter turnout will be key. So will the youth vote. And the senior bloc. Women could well determine the winner. The on-the-ground organization will be crucial. So will the get-out-the-vote efforts. Blah, blah, blah. Wouldn't it be great if political…

With almost all political attention focused on Iowa and then New Hampshire, it attracted little notice when Ralph Nader sent out a new year's greeting endorsing (apparently) any candidate but Hillary: "Do you really believe if we replace a bunch of corporate Republicans with a bunch of corporate…

Larry Kudlow says the worst possible outcome of the Iowa caucuses would be wins by Mike Huckabee and John Edwards: The key point is that Edwards and Huckabee are the left-wing populists in the campaign on economic policy. Their victories would send up a red-flag warning signal to a stock market…

"They are fecklessly pouring gasoline on a roaring fire," was how a western intelligence official in Islamabad described the actions of the Pakistan government in its handling of the inquest into last Thursday's assassination of former prime minister and political candidate Benazir Bhutto. This…

"We want to be the smart team out there today, and a smart team doesn't turn the ball over or commit penalties. We want to be the most physical team today. Knock them off the line of scrimmage! Today, play for each other and play for Michigan. Play with great poise, great pride and great toughness.…

Glenn Greenwald has a post up today on military spending. The peg is a new chart on world wide military expenditures released by globalsecurity.org. Greenwald, of course, looks at the numbers and expresses shock and bewilderment at the size of the U.S. defense budget relative to our competitors:…

I see my friend the esteemed Monsieur Kristol is fighting his way through the deep snow of Iowa like the despised usurper Bonaparte slinking back from Moscow. Though we agree that even if Mitt Romney wins, he'll get sniffs and snark from much of the mainstream media pack. No matter what the flavor…

At the end of 2007, the Afghan Taliban made a radical leadership change which has sparked controversy in the ranks of the terror group. On December 29, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed issued a statement that Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, the commander for southern Afghanistan, was relieved of his…

The above clip is a Romney campaign internet spot that highlights the differences between Mike Huckabee and his favorite surrogate, Chuck Norris. Credit where it's due - at least Norris, unlike other "team members" that Huckabee erroneously laid claim to like John Bolton and Frank Gaffney, is…

From the Middle East Journal: A Plan to Kill Everyone, by Michael J. Totten. From the New York Post: Terror on the Run, by Ralph Peters. From the Wall Street Journal: Tribes of Terror, by Stanley Kurtz. From the Long War Journal: The State of Jihad, 2007, by Bill Roggio. From the Washington Times:…

In a fantastic profile of John Smeaton, the Hero of Scotland, from the Sunday Herald: He has spent months pointing out that he was not the only hero on the day; that he actually didn't do very much. That was the gist of his acceptance speech for a CNN Heroes award on December 6 in America, and…

John Tierney had an excellent column in the Times yesterday. He writes: I'd like to wish you a happy New Year, but I'm afraid I have a different sort of prediction. You're in for very bad weather. In 2008, your television will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to…

WWS pal Stephen Trimble has an entertaining post up at his always entertaining blog, The DEW Line. It seems that just a few weeks ago the Pentagon quietly released the supercruise speed of the F-22: The US Air Force appears to have declassified the supercruise speed for the Lockheed Martin F-22A…

The boss has posted some observations from Iowa over at the Campaign Standard: I've been here sixteen hours (half of them asleep), and obviously have only the skimpiest anecdotal evidence and impressions. For what it's worth, they are: Hillary won't win, and could run third; Ron Paul will…

Cardinal Richelieu asks, if Romney wins in Iowa, "will the snarky and contemptuous tone of most Romney coverage continue?" I don't know if that was intended to be a rhetorical question (do Cardinals ask rhetorical questions? and how do you say "rhetorical question" in French?). But my answer to our…

With the Iowa caucuses hours away and Barack Obama in the lead in many polls, is John Edwards making a last-ditch effort to woo the left-wing, anti-war base? Or does he really not think the surge is working? Bloggers are discussing this New York Times report: John Edwards says that if elected…

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In every presidential primary the elite political press corps picks one candidate to thoroughly (and rather unfairly) despise. What triggers this is hard to calculate, but the usual ingredients are strong funding, perceived pandering, and a conservative stance on most social issues. Think Phil…

The Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib sets the stage for the 2008 presidential election: Record numbers of voters are choosing to declare themselves politically independent - and thus open to moving either left or right. Both the Republican president and the Democratic Congress are receiving…

The Times's David Leonhardt has an interesting column on the differences between Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's economic philosophies: The easiest way to describe Senator Clinton's philosophy is to say that she believes in the promise of narrowly tailored government policies, like tailored…

Blogger and former Huckabee staffer Joe Carter provides an excellent list of 2007 best-of lists. And he goes the extra mile and embeds Time magazine's top television advertisement of 2007. Enjoy:

You gotta love the title of this Byron York post: "No, The Governor Did Not Have Bariatric Surgery." That's a spokesman for the Huckabee campaign telling York that the governor did not have his stomach stapled (not that there's anything wrong with that!), but lost his weight without surgical…

Eighty million dollars can buy you 80 $1 million mansions, more than 100,000 shares of Google stock, more than 1,300 Porsche Limited Edition Boxter 5s, and a 2006 extension on LeBron James's contract. But it doesn't necessarily buy you the presidency, or even the nomination of the Republican party.…

Here's the Times's write up of the final Des Moines Register poll. Two thoughts: First, looking at poll averages, the race in Iowa in both parties has tightened to the point where it is now too close to call. Predictions are meaningless - though, for what it's worth, Intrade has Obama and Edwards's…

The Des Moines Register reports: Huckabee, campaigning in western Iowa, said he had "no regrets, no regrets whosoever" to his handling of the situation. But a few hours later, in Cedar Rapids, said he sort of regretted showing the ad to the media. "I know there's a lot of people who are cynical…

Dean Barnett has his analysis of the DMR poll here. And Terry Eastland offers his thoughts on Huckabee and going negative here.

Weekly Standard publisher Terry Eastland emails his take on the Huckabee campaign: What Mike Huckabee's odd press conference demonstrated is that Mitt Romney has succeeded not merely in putting Huckabee on the defensive on various issues but also in making a mess of his campaign. Huckabee and his…

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AMERICANS DON'T APPROVE of their president (approval rating 36 percent), even more heartily disapprove of their congress (approval rating 18 percent), say their confidence is in free fall, believe their children will be no better or possibly worse off than they are. Three out of four think their…