January 2009

From today's AP piece on the Iraqi elections: This version CORRECTS APNewsNow. corrects short hedline to NO major violence, sted major violence.)

Ramesh Ponnuru makes the case for a bipartisan compromise on Social Security reform. Charles Krauthammer: "it is both false and deeply injurious to this country to draw a historical line dividing America under Obama from a benighted past when Islam was supposedly disrespected and demonized." A war…

Politico's Manu Raju and Jonathan Martin write: Republicans in Washington and New Hampshire are mounting a full-court press to keep Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) in the Senate and out of the Obama administration, aides and senators said Friday. But if he does take the commerce secretary job, they want a…

In his first press conference as RNC chairman, Michael Steele called his election "just one more bold step the party of Lincoln has taken since its founding." A reporter pointed out that Barack Obama, while campaigning for Steele's Democratic Senate opponent in Maryland in 2006, called Steele an…

In one of their famous analysis pieces, the AP declares that the stimulus bill is "not all stimulating." They call it "stimulus" legislation, but the economic measures racing through Congress would devote tens of billions of dollars to causes that have little to do with jolting the country out of…

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan goes after Israeli President Shimon Peres at a panel in Davos:

Here's a disturbing bit of agit-prop from President Obama that's not gotten enough attention: "There will be time for them [Wall Street Bankers] to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses," Mr. Obama said during an appearance in the Oval Office with Treasury Secretary Timothy…

Here is my real-time transcript of his speech. I may have missed a few sentences, but it's almost all there: As a litte boy growing up in this town-this is awesome. It is with a great deal of humility and a sense of service that I accept and appreciate and thank all of you for the opportunity to…

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) appeared on Fox News this morning to discuss his concerns about the 'stimulus' bill that the Senate will take up next week, and his effort to suggest changes that could lead to a stronger bipartisan vote. From his tone, it sounds like there may be a number of Democratic…

I was unhappy to see the New York Times report today that, despite decades of hysterical reports to the contrary, the Amazonian rain forests are actually doing quite well. My displeasure is a result of reading an early galley of David Grann's fantastic book, The Lost City of Z, which is about Col.…

After three rounds of balloting, Mike Duncan withdrew his bid for another term as RNC chairman. Michael Steele had just pulled ahead of Duncan after the third round: Steele 51, Duncan 44, Dawson 34, Anuzis 24, Blackwell 15 On the second ballot, Duncan and Steele were tied: Duncan 48, Steele 48,…

Joe Lieberman's speech on Afghanistan receives praise from the Huffington Post and the Corner. You can read the speech, delivered at the Brookings Institution yesterday, here. Perhaps most striking about the current debate over Afghanistan, aside from utterly predictable efforts on the far left to…

Andy McCarthy makes the key point in response to the refusal of the judge presiding over the military commission of the man accused of bombing the USS Cole: [Obama] is, moreover, the President of the United States and the commander-in-chief of our military forces in a time of war. These…

Well that was fast. Now, what's the over-under on the date of his Nobel Prize? Let's set the opening line at 2011.

The New York Post's Charles Hurt reports: Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms. The very heart of the widely applauded Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is a cap on the…

Somewhere a war is raging between a government and a terrorist group that pioneered the use of suicide tactics, which it uses often against the civilian population. The terrorist group claims it has a right to land and is oppressed by the government. The government, tired of years of suicide…

Track the RNC chairman vote, happening now, right here. RNC communication FAIL. CNN: Hey, let's not worry about judging Obama's "First 100 Days," huh? Shouldn't Obama also be lecturing Congress for giving itself a raise? Here's to transparency! Now, sign this bill you haven't even read. Quick!…

When German architect Mark Aretz planned on renovating a Leipzig apartment building, he knew there was much work to be done. But when he opened the door to one unit, he was completely taken aback. Apparently, no one had lived there since 1988. The former occupant was a 24-year-old on the run from…

Earlier this week, the Pakistani government claimed it took control of the radical Markaz-e-Taiba, the headquarters and campus for the Jamaat-ud-Dawa in the city of Muridke. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is the front group for Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group that was behind the November 2008 terror assault in…

The silliest line of attack against Republicans for voting against the House stimulus bill is that they did so for no good reason. The pro-Obama echo chamber must be so loud as to drown out all of the many reasonable critiques of the House plan -- most of which point out that there's nothing…

As Washington remains engulfed in discussion over expected foreign policy shifts on hot-button issues like Iran and Afghanistan, one critical policy area that is primed for far-reaching modifications, yet receiving little attention, is the future of U.S. space security.

The new American Treasury secretary uses a Senate hearing room to accuse the Chinese of manipulating their currency, and the Chinese premier uses the Davos gathering of the moguls to accuse America of wrecking the world financial system. Not an auspicious beginning for Sino-American relations in…

Tevi Troy exposes the threats to American health care lurking within the "stimulus" bill. Military judge denies Obama request to suspend hearings at Guantanamo. Waxman wants to take up a national health care bill this year. Blago convicted, 59-0. Obama's gambit for a filibuster-proof Senate?

I'm pretty sure with every interview, she's chipping away at public support. Below, her stellar explanation of why STD prevention education is stimulative. Because it just is:

Matt Labash's opus on the death of Detroit spent a lot of time with Detroit News reporter Charlie LeDuff. Today LeDuff has another Detroit story almost too terrible to believe: A body found encased in ice in an abandoned warehouse. The body had been there for at least a month. Plenty of people saw…

From what I can confidently describe as the most self-absorbed blog post I've ever read, Steve Clemons writes about how fate keeps bringing him and David Corn together at the absolute swankiest parties in Washington: And then I saw this note in "The Sleuth" column of The Washington Post…

I and others noticed last week there were no press briefing transcripts on the WhiteHouse.gov website, despite the Obama's administration's promises of increased transparency. It seemed like a deliberate omission considering WhiteHouse.gov looked like a finished product when it switched on…

C-Span is carrying a live feed of Blago's final argument before the Illinois Senate. David Freddoso provides an earlier snippet of Blagojevich's swan song: It's really an embarrassing spectacle. "I didn't go to Harvard," he says. "I applied on a Monday, got my rejection letter back on Tuesday . . .…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently chose to reconstitute the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (the Ethics Committe) with new members. That means that the panel investigating Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel has to start from scratch. While one of the new members --…

In a spending plan that will ultimately cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion, it's not surprising that significant details are only emerging now, while many more are unlikely to come to public attention for weeks or months. One such detail, which has received almost no attention, is that the bill…

Perhaps it's the weather that's confusing President Obama. After all, anyone could be thrown for a loop when Al Gore is testifying on the Hill as to the impending doom of the planet Earth due to global warming while the Hill is blanketed in snow and ice. Maybe that's why Obama was ridiculing…

Joe Lieberman is delivering a big speech on Afghanistan today over at Brookings that should be worthy of careful reading. Lieberman has proven a prescient observer of Afghanistan. Nearly a year ago, he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for a massive expansion of the Afghan National…

A web video from my friend Justin Germany, who produced some of last year's most memorable ads (including this classic).

The House of Representatives has already approved, and the Senate is pontificating on -- er "taking up," -- the first major legislative package of the Obama administration. When considering the $900 billion monster, leave aside for the moment the two obvious questions of whether we can afford this…

Rasmussen: Forty-two percent (42%) of the nation's likely voters now support the president's plan, roughly one-third of which is tax cuts with the rest new government spending. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 39% are opposed to it and 19% are undecided. Liberal…

Ouch: Goracle gored by Dana Milbank. Bring on the Rangel Rule for delinquent taxpaying citizens. RNC race is wide open as members gather to vote. Not the Charmer-in-Chief: Obama gets the big, fat goose-egg after wooing Republicans for days. Been there, done that in Iran. Palin and Obama: Together…

Be prepared for the inevitable backlash to the House GOP's unanimous rejection of the stimulus package. Goldfarb has already noted the Huffington Post's response. A savvy observer writes this morning that the vote may turn the GOP into the "party of no" when "hard-working, God-fearing families are…

Limbaugh: "Fifty-three percent of American voters voted for Barack Obama; 46% voted for John McCain, and 1% voted for wackos." Seriously, though, Limbaugh's stimulus compromise is a novel idea. (Though he ought to propose a payroll tax cut rather than cuts in the capital gains and corporate tax…

Lawrence Lindsey: And what of the plan being put forward now? As crafted, it is unlikely to produce the desired results. For a similar amount of money, the government could essentially cut the payroll tax in half, taking three points off the rate for both the employer and the employee. This would…

Conservative economist Martin Feldstein made waves last year when he declared his support for a fiscal stimulus bill to combat the recession. Last December, Feldstein wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "a temporary rise in DOD spending on supplies, equipment and manpower should be a significant…

Like any new president, Barack Obama needs some early legislative victories. And he started down that path last night with House passage, by a vote of 244-188, of his economic stimulus bill--albeit without any support from the Republicans.

Having rejected anti-Israel divestment of its pension funds last year, the 7.9 million United Methodist Church is courting new controversy involving anti-Israel bias again this year. Starting February 3, the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, from which the denomination conducts its political…

As far as bias goes, New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes is an artist: Some Democrats seemed surprised that no Republicans voted for the measure. "Not one person felt his or her district needed to have any of this assistance?" Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, asked of the…

President Obama has hired at least 21 federal lobbyists. Did Holder and Senate Republicans make a backroom deal? Putin pans U.S. stimulus packages: "There is a temptation to expand direct interference of state in economy. In the Soviet Union that became an absolute. We paid a very dear price for…

Republicans voted unanimously against the stimulus. The response at the Huffington Post, fast degenerating from a hotbed of partisan opposition into a government propaganda outlet that would make the editors of Pravda blush, is the headline "toeing the party line" along with a picture showing the…

Change you can believe in: All U.S. taxpayers would enjoy the same immunity from IRS penalties and interest as House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Obama Administration Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, if a bill introduced today by Congressman John Carter (R-TX) becomes law.…

From the Washington Post: With no Republican support, the House approved an $819 billion stimulus plan that will serve as the cornerstone of President Obama's efforts to resuscitate the economy, an early victory for the new president but still a disappointment because of the lack of Republican…

Republicans looking for a fresh, young face to help guide the party out of the political wilderness don't need to look any further than new Representative Aaron Schock of Illinois. At age 27, Schock is the youngest face of all in the House of Representatives, where the Constitution requires members…

The House of Representatives will today pass President Obama's $900 billion stimulus bill, despite the beliefs of many economists that it will do nothing to help the economy, and despite concerns that it's nothing more than an aggregate of the spending wish lists of Washington Democrats, saved up…

Eli Lake reports: President Obama's executive order closing CIA "black sites" contains a little-noticed exception that allows the spy agency to continue to operate temporary detention facilities abroad. The provision illustrates that the president's order to shutter foreign-based prisons, known as…

Last weekend, a U.S. raid in a region north of Kabul led to the killing of 15 Afghans. The local villagers and the Afghan government claimed all of those killed were civilians, while the United States said Taliban fighters, including a target leader, were among those killed. The incident, like many…

While analysts continue to debate whether America is a center-right or center-left country, Rasmussen shows that the American people still pretty much agree with Ronald Reagan: Paul Krugman, last year's winner of the Nobel Prize for economics and a regular columnist for the New York Times, recently…

Deficit hawks need to take a deep breath and stop squawking. The national debt is in bad shape, true. And it's going to get worse, thanks to TARP and the stimulus bill and other baseline spending. But, for the next two years at least, the national debt will remain within its historic boundaries.…

Reading through the clippings on Iceland I came across a London Times piece on David Oddsson, the former Icelandic prime minister who is now chairman of the central bank. Oddsson did more than his share to contribute to Iceland's economic catastrophe and is now the most hated man in the country. So…

In the Washington Times, national security analysts William Hartung of the New America Foundation and Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute argue against increasing defense spending in the stimulus package: Decisions on how many Humvees to buy, or how many bases to refurbish, should rest on…

Much has been written about Barack Obama's interview with Al Arabiya. One comment the president made has not gotten enough attention. "America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago,…

Voting in Iraq's provincial elections has begun: In the Karrada district of Baghdad, soldiers and police streamed steadily into the Furat (or Euphrates) Middle School, a worn, dusty building where posters encouraged voting: "Register. Vote. Make the Change." By late afternoon, more than half of the…

That's David Leonhardt's description of America's economic troubles: "[T]hink of the debt-fueled consumer-spending spree of the past 20 years as a symbol of an even larger problem. As a country we have been spending too much on the present and not enough on the future. We have been consuming rather…

Douglas Holtz-Eakin joins Larry Lindsey and John H. Makin in supporting a payroll tax cut: [A] 1-year, 6.2 percent reduction in the payroll tax should be at the center of discussion. It is a tax that impacts all Americans. Cutting the payroll tax will target the labor market and have real impact on…

Good news: The 2009 Virginia governor's race already has ads on TV. You know what they say: If you give an anti-Semitic mouse a cookie... Good news: The 2010 race for Harry Reid's seat already has ads on TV. If Gaza became the next Dubai, would they throw Fatah party members off the top of the…

Chris Cillizza asks if Rush Limbaugh is the new face of the GOP. It's not a crazy question. When the leader of the free world singles someone out as the leader of the opposition, he goes a long way toward making it so. In the last few days, Obama and his advisers have done just that, holding…

Recently the Scrapbook reported the following: To mark the Czech Republic's turn at the rotating European Union presidency, artist David Cerny told officials in Prague he and other artists from the EU would create a sculpture of Europe, in which individual countries would be represented by national…

AFP: The Taliban welcomed President Barack Obama's order to close Guantanamo but said peace would only come if he reverses the "satanic policies" of his predecessor, George W. Bush. In a message posted on online jihadist forums, the Taliban also called on Obama to close all "evil" US detention…

Palin launches SarahPAC. Republicans press Obama on his pledge to keep earmarks out of the stimulus package. Franken-Coleman trial gets off to a slow start. Chuck Schumer says Kirsten Gilibrand's "views will evolve" as senator. Democrats subpoena Karl Rove. Biden apologizes to John Roberts for…

WEEKLY STANDARD alum Sonny Bunch scored an interview with Benicio del Toro about his new movie Che: Mr. del Toro doesn't deny that Guevara's persona had some darker aspects. "We have to omit a lot of stuff about his life," he said, "but we're not omitting the fact that he's for capital punishment,…

The Obama administration has talked of an intention to put the stimulus bill online for the American people to read before it's voted on, which is commendable. But where is it? Apparently in the same place as the press briefing transcripts. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about when the bill…

On January 21, President Obama signed an Executive Order requiring ethics commitments for officials of his administration. As has been covered here, that commitment has already been compromised. Interestingly however, the 'Ethics' section of the White House website went down that day, ostensibly to…

Jimmy Carter: "Of course Hamas can be trusted." As I've said before, John Conyers would hold a fake impeachment hearing at the Chuck E. Cheese with the animatronic band as witnesses. Most tech-savvy White House in history has e-mail meltdown in Week One. Jon Favreau writes mediocre speeches and…

While Barack and countless other Washington Democrats have spoken repeatedly about the need to depoliticize the Department of Justice, it looks like the president is handing a top job there to a former senior aide for Senator Chuck Schumer. Matthew Miller, who spearheaded the communications…

A reader sends along this quote that appeared last week in the Guardian: Ahmed Tafwiq, 27, a civil servant from Shujaih, said: "I am totally against the so-called resistance, because it proved a total failure. We used to hear these slogans of how strong our resistance is. I believed the slogans.…

Tim Geithner was confirmed as Treasury secretary by a 60 to 34 vote in the Senate last night. Because 30 of the 34 senators who opposed him were Republicans and 50 of the 60 who supported him were Democrats, Politico declares that the vote signifies that "partisanship is officially back." But, if…

From Obama's interview with Al-Arabiya: Q Will the United States ever live with a nuclear Iran? And if not, how far are you going in the direction of preventing it? THE PRESIDENT: You know, I said during the campaign that it is very important for us to make sure that we are using all the tools of…

The environmentalists, or at least some of them, have fired a warning shot across the bow of Obama's mighty ship of state as it sails "to the shores of need, past the reefs of greed," as Leonard Cohen's perversion of Wordsworth would have it. They have expressed extreme unhappiness with the failure…

Editor's note: This interview originally appeared in the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche.

The New Yorker's Jane Mayer reports on Barack Obama's executive order on interrogations. She writes: Across the Potomac River, at the C.I.A.'s headquarters, in Langley, Virginia, however, there was considerably less jubilation. Top C.I.A. officials have argued for years that so-called "enhanced"…

Automakers concerned that Obama's decision to allow stricter emissions standards will harm business. Joe Biden says he doesn't see himself as "deputy president." Thanks for the clarification, Joe. Limbaugh responds to Obama. Citigroup takes bailout money, buys $50 million corporate jet. Nancy…

We're constantly told that the U.S. airstrikes against Taliban and al Qaeda operatives and leaders taking refuge in the tribal areas angers the Paksitani people and is creating more terrorists. The sentiment below repeatedly creeps up in press reporting: "The people know that there is a tacit…

There have been several miscues by the Obama team since Election Day, not that you'll hear too much about them in the press. The Richardson nomination falling apart, the handling of the Blago investigation, the Geithner nomination, the new lobbying rules followed quickly by the issuing of waivers…

All House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee voted against the "stimulus bill" reported out of their panel last week. This portion of the stimulus legislation will be combined with the tax provisions (reported from the Ways and Means Committee last week also on a party-line vote, with all…

Late last week the Hill put out a list of the top 20 lobbying firms in Washington. The list detailed year over year performance for each firm. Most of the firms on the list saw revenue decrease in 2008 by between 5 and 15 percent. Field leader Patton Boggs saw a drop of 8 percent from $42.7 million…

Bill Lynn, former Raytheon lobbyist and current nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense, received a "waiver" from the Obama administration in order to qualify for a post at the Defense Department. Still, his confirmation is in jeopardy as some Democrats balk at Obama so flagrantly violating his own…

Last October, Iceland's financial system collapsed. The broader economy went bust as a result. Infrequent riots began occurring in November and soon became a weekly event in Reykjavik's main square, in front of parliament. Last week, the riots became daily, with police using force to break them up.…

From Zakaria's latest column: Obama's rhetoric suggests that he understands this issue. But does Congress? Can the American political system rise to the challenge? The United States will have to enact extraordinary measures, many of them unpopular, run up huge deficits, then just as quickly start…

I believe the folks over at The Democratic Strategist write some of the most insightful analyses of contemporary American politics. Ed Kilgore's recent post on Obama and Values-Based messaging continues that tradition. Many conservative pundits and Republican activists criticized President Obama…

The elitist chef constituency is very excited about Obama and what he might tell all of us to eat, which strikes me as odd considering there's a fair amount of evidence that he doesn't eat much of anything: Phrases like "real food" and "farm-to-table" may sound like elitist jargon tossed around at…

Barack Obama's administration may be promising the "greatest ethical standard ever administered to an executive branch," and increased transparency over his predecessor, but it seems to be forgoing at least one transparency practice that was routine in the Bush White House- transcripts of the daily…

Obama's opportunity: "Over the next three decades, it was modern conservatism, led at the crucial moment by Ronald Reagan, that assumed the task of defending liberty with strength and confidence. Can a revived liberalism, faced with a new set of challenges, now pick up that mantle?" Step one for…

Original Sin

Kieron Smith, boy

Teng Biao, a Chinese lawyer, is a prominent member of the "rights defense" movement, which is attempting to use China's existing laws and institutions to protect human rights. After Teng and other lawyers offered to represent Tibetans arrested during widespread demonstrations in March 2008, the…

The Mind of Jihad

Dept. of Half-Empty Glasses

NET-ZERO GAS TAX

How Fiction Works

As George Walker Bush watches Barack Hussein Obama be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, he may be among the few happy Republicans in Washington. Those who have been meeting with the 43rd see a man comfortable in his own skin, confident history will vindicate his decision to wage…

Some Republicans--including a lot on Capitol Hill--are in danger of making a mistake. They're about to draw the wrong lessons from the Bush legacy. And misreading history will only prolong the GOP's time in political detention.

The best store in Washington recently changed its name from the P&D Souvenir Factory to the classier-sounding Obama Biden Collectible Merchandises. The ex-P&D is on Tenth Street N.W., next door to the Peterson House, where Abraham Lincoln--remembered today as one of Barack Obama's big…

Under the bright lights, Florida scored 10 fourth-quarter points to beat Oklahoma 24-14 and claim the BCS National Championship. When asked for his thoughts following the Gators' tremendous win, President-elect Obama replied, "We need a playoff."

Her Oxford

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Growing up in Johannesburg in the mid-1990s, I had the great privilege of knowing Helen Suzman, the legendary white anti-apartheid activist and South African parliamentarian who died on New Year's Day. This outspoken and fearless promoter of racial equality and political liberty was an inspiration…

House minority leader John Boehner started his press conference on January 15 sounding like a teenage girl who had just found out that her boyfriend like totally hooked up with her best friend.

Idea and Ontology

William Faulkner once said that the past isn't dead, it isn't even past--and that's certainly proving true in post-Soviet Russia. Vladimir Lenin still lies in his grand mausoleum on Red Square. And meanwhile, Tsar Nicholas II and his family, murdered by Lenin's revolutionary government, were…

Barack Obama is the apostle of hope. But he also arouses the flipside of hope--fear. And while the fear he stirs may turn out to be unfounded, it's not irrational. People don't know who Obama really is or where his ideological center of gravity rests, to the extent it rests anywhere. He was a…

About a decade ago the foreign policy establishment was busy dismissing China's efforts to build a powerful, modern military. Writing in the Washington Post in 1997, Michael Swaine, a China specialist then at the RAND corporation, declared that the "enduring deficiencies in China's military…

Of all the disappointments for which the George W. Bush administration will be remembered, perhaps none is as bitter as the failure of its North Korea policy. Despite its intermittent tough talk about Kim Jong Il and his regime, the Bush team's record with Pyongyang these past eight years is a…

London

Phil Terzian wrote the piece in these pages just a few weeks ago, speculating that Biden's role in the Obama administration would rate slightly higher than "the 'bucket of warm piss' described by John Nance Garner, [but] less than its constitutional status suggests." That would seem to be confirmed…

Barack Obama was sworn in Tuesday. He ordered Guantanamo closed on Thursday. And today comes news that the United States plans to send 94 Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo back to Yemen -- a nation with a long history of accommodating terrorists. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh made the…

Obama better break out those waivers pretty quick. A group of mostly left-leaning government watchdog groups are asking senators not to confirm Deputy Sec. of Defense nominee William Lynn due to his lobbying ties to defense contractor Raytheon: Several Washington watchdog groups have ratcheted up…

milli_vanilli_main.jpg We were betrayed on Hope Day One. Following in the inauspicious footsteps of Milli Vanilli and Ashlee Simpson before them, the all-star chamber orchestra serenading Barack Obama Tuesday was caught in the act of instrumental lip-syncing. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak…

Lately all eyes have been on Washington, but the biggest political surprises tend to happen in the states. That's where insurgent candidates are made, where policy experimentation takes place, and where social and political movements start. So be sure to pay attention to developments in New Jersey,…

At Foreign Policy's blog, Marc Lynch notes that a senior Islamist from Egyptian al-Gama'a al-Islamiya (the Egyptian Islamic Group) is calling for a four-month truce between al Qaeda and the United States "to test Barack Obama's pledges to establish a new relationship with the Islamic world and to…

Ian Bremmer and Nouriel "The Glass is Half Empty" Roubini write: We enter the new year grappling with the most serious global economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. The U.S. economy is, at best, halfway through a recession that began in December 2007 and will prove the longest…

More than 100 Saudis have been repatriated to Saudi Arabia from Guantánamo. The United States has trusted the Saudis to rehabilitate these former detainees and make sure they do not return to the battlefield. But the New York Times has now reported disturbing new evidence that the Saudi program is…

While President Obama is keen on rolling back the Bush administration policies on Guantanamo Bay, black detention sites, and all related legal decisions pertaining to the war, one area he has not backed away from is targeting al Qaeda operatives inside Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal areas.…

Obama's not the first president to retake the oath or forgo the Bible. Blagojevich compares his arrest to attack on Pearl Harbor. You will all soon be asked to buy Blago Bonds to help the defense effort. Rule of thumb: Wait a week after the elation of inauguration before getting an Obama tattoo.…

... That the war on terror is over. The Washington Post's Dana Priest has the major scoop today: President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the "war on…

It's an idea that conservatives should rally behind. The intellectual work for a cut in the payroll tax -- amounting to an instant raise for millions of American workers and relief for employers torn between layoffs and going under -- is well underway. Lawrence Lindsey wrote about it for us here.…

WASHINGTONIANS EXPECT THE ROAD closures and Metro delays, the stuffy black-tie galas and VIP sightings, and the patriotic decorations and memorabilia on every street corner. This inauguration was different. When Barack Obama was sworn-in on Tuesday the nation's capital was suddenly turned into a…

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INSPECTOR GENERAL Glenn Fine, himself a political appointee in the Clinton administration, has released his report on the supposed "illegal" political hiring at the Civil Rights Division of George W. Bush's Department of Justice. [Full disclosure: I served four years as a career…

AS ONE OF HIS FIRST acts as president, Barack Obama ordered his new cabinet to review the case of Ali Saleh Khalah al Marri, the only "enemy combatant" held in the continental United States. On Thursday, January 22, President Obama ordered his executive branch to undertake "a prompt and thorough…

Robert P. George on Roe v. Wade's 36th anniversary: The Struggle for Our Nation's Soul. Murtha earmark beneficiary raided. Sad news for journalism: Evans-Novak Political Report to print its last issue next week. The trashiest inauguration evah. A baby we can believe in:

Politico reports: President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press corps Thursday night, but got agitated when he was faced with a substantive question. Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that when the Indian government discovered that the Obama administration planned to appoint Richard Holbrooke special envoy for Afghanistan-Pakistan-India, they swung into action and lobbied to have India excluded from his purview. And they succeeded. Holbrooke's…

Yesterday, Joe Biden took a shot at Chief Justice John Roberts for transposing the words of the oath of office on Inauguration Day. He should have held his fire. Today, he flubbed the oath while administering it to Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett: But who can blame ol' Joe? He's never been…

Could Foreign Policy's Shadow Government blog get any better? Yes it can! Dan Twining, who's contributed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD in the past, has joined an already impressive group and posts today on "China's National Defense in 2008," a white paper quietly issued by the Chicoms during the…

The Wall Street Journal reports on the suspicious case of OneUnited Bank, which received a TARP bailout thanks to Barney Frank, despite running afoul of state and federal regulators due to shady investing and lending practices, as well as the perks it granted to senior executives. The case is an…

This provocative blog from Harvard economist Edward Glaeser will be the most interesting thing you read all day. A taste: [S]kepticism about vast public works does not necessarily lead towards Alf Landon-like antipathy towards stimulus, or towards tax cuts for big businesses and the wealthy. A…

Reuters reports: President Barack Obama's choice to head the CIA declined on Thursday to call waterboarding "torture," only days after his attorney general nominee condemned the interrogation practice as precisely that. Retired Adm. Dennis Blair replied cautiously when pressed on the waterboarding…

Norm Coleman came to Washington, D.C., yesterday to talk with colleagues and reporters about his efforts to hold onto his Senate seat in an election contest--a legal proceeding, set to kick off January 26, in which a three-judge panel will determine which candidate got the most votes. "I think our…

Josh Rogin reports: President Obama's new lobbying rules are fueling the concerns of senators from both parties regarding the nomination of William Lynn to become deputy defense secretary. Obama signed an executive order Wednesday strengthening the restrictions on lobbyists and former lobbyists…

After meeting with retired generals in the White House today, President Obama signed three executive orders. The first order requires that Gitmo be shut down within a year, grants detainees rights under the Geneva Conventions, and sets up a review to determine whether detainees may be transferred…

Despite signing an executive order yesterday that would prevent lobbyists in his administration from working in the areas for which they lobbied, his Deputy Secretary of Defense nominee most recently lobbied for one of the biggest defense contractors in the U.S.- Raytheon. The obvious contradiction…

Approximately 24 hours after voicing deviationist thoughts about the importance of President Obama's inauguration, Venus Williams lost to Carla Suarez Navarro, an unseeded Spaniard at the Australian Open. Let this serve as notice. The Great Eye is watching. Always watching.

Is Obama the only Democrat in town who doesn't want to investigate the Bush administration for war crimes? And note that Think Progress files this under "Social and Economic Justice." How long until the left starts demanding that detainees get free health care and a generous unemployment benefit to…

According to one Palestinian doctor: Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported Thursday that a doctor working in Gaza's Shifa Hospital claimed that Hamas has intentionally inflated the number of casualties resulting from Israel's Operation Cast Lead. "The number of deceased stands at no more…

The election of President Barack Obama led many to believe that the Europeans would change their tune on Afghanistan and beef up the NATO forces deployed there. Just one day after President Obama's inauguration, both France and Germany, Europe's two largest powers, have signaled that no additional…

Isn't it nice to know that the WaPo can still surprise you with its bias after all these years? Stimulus could do some good, but won't actually stimulate. The re-oath. What will become of the 50-state strategy? Sizing up Obama's executive orders. "It is so amazing to see what the daughter of a son…

Former Vice President Dick Cheney disagreed publicly with his boss just four times in the eight years they served together. Yesterday, however, on the first day after the official end of the Bush administration, Cheney disagreed with George W. Bush once more.

On Monday, January 19th, America commemorated the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. His dream of an equal America is in many ways personified in Barack Obama, whose inauguration as our first African-American president took place the following day. Obama's triumph is a monumental achievement for…

President Barack Obama's presidential campaign set new standards for success in fundraising, voter mobilization, and Internet political savvy.

Even the coverage of the Australian Open was wall-to-wall Obama talk yesterday, with stalwarts such as Darin Cahill, Mary Carillo, and James Blake going on and on and on and on about the 44th American president. The one person trying to opt out of the chatter? Venus Williams. Some excerpts from her…

From White House counsel Greg Craig: "We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the President was sworn in appropriately yesterday. But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief…

Obama suspends Gitmo hearings and will issue executive orders on torture, Gitmo, and detainees tomorrow. Jules Crittenden on the Obama swoon: inaugural keepsake edition. Noemie Emery on Bush's legacy. Juan Williams: Judge Obama on performance alone. Report: North Korean officials claim to have…

On the campaign trail, Obama repeatedly relied on the same basic formulation when discussing his plans for Iraq. Obama would declare his intent to "to end this war responsibly." Sometimes he'd say he was going "to end this war responsibly and deliberately, but decisively," but the point was the…

Let's just say President Obama's sense of irony is not nearly as well-developed as his sense of self-confidence: President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a sweeping set of executive orders and directives he said would usher in "a new era of openness," freezing the salaries of senior aides and…

Among the first "directives" of this very young presidency is one Barack Obama has given himself. From a press release issued earlier today: I will also hold myself as President to a new standard of openness. Going forward, anytime the American people want to know something that I or a former…

Without making value judgments one way or another, one is struck by how backward-looking and partisan President Obama's inaugural speech was. All inaugurals are principally forward-looking (you can peruse the entire oeuvre here) and Obama's was no exception. But what was exceptional was that nearly…

At the new White House website, Obama lays out his agenda for Iraq. In addition to assuring the American people that he "had the judgment and courage to speak out against going to war" (unlike the cowardly fool Joe Biden), Obama promises a responsible withdrawal, a 'diplomatic surge,' a new effort…

I'm with Jonah Goldberg. He writes: I am proud of and excited by the fact that we have inaugurated the first black president of the United States. He wasn't my first choice, but he is nonetheless my president. And if ever there were a wonderful consolation prize in politics, shattering the race…

A new Congressional Budget Office report suggests Obama's proposed, gianormous stimulus plan is really just a proposed, gianormous spending plan: Less than half the money dedicated to highways, school construction and other infrastructure projects in a massive economic stimulus package unveiled by…

All of the telecasts of yesterday's Inauguration lauded the peaceful, and even positive, transfer of power that we take for granted in America. Indeed, it is something to be applauded. The pictures of the Obamas and Bidens seeing the Bushes off in their helicopter, even sharing a joke on the…

In his interview on Meet the Press over the weekend, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made an interesting point when he addressed the problem of the deficit: MR. EMANUEL: Yeah. Well, as you probably know, that there--over the last decade, the last eight years there's been actually a--there…

During the last presidential campaign, some believed conservative Republicans' opposition to comprehensive immigration reform turned off Hispanic voters toward the GOP. But this new survey from Pew suggests the issue ranks a little lower in the minds of Latinos than suggested by conventional…

Clinton vs. Cornyn in the Rotunda. The unofficial inaugural parties struggled at the greatest, most enthusiastic inauguration celebration of all time? Nifong says it's not his fault. Questions Tim Geithner should be asked, not counting, "Will you pay your taxes, pretty please?" Whither the enviros…

Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem, "Praise Song for the Day," doesn't qualify as a great poem, but it might emerge as an important one. As a celebration of the commonplace and an exaltation of the personal over the political, the poem offers a distinctly American take on the concept of…

MSNBC carried a shot of a group mocking President Bush with "Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey good bye" as he took his seat. I figured there'd be a bit of this, but singing the song was particularly bold. Not your average under-the-breath boo or hiss for these classless attendees.

"You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." For many conservatives, I would guess for many Americans in uniform, this was the signature phrase in Barack Obama's inaugural. The Yes-We-Can man is no longer a candidate for office or a president-elect, but now commander-in-chief during times of…

IT WAS FAR FROM THE best speech Barack Obama has ever delivered. As an inaugural address, it won't be mentioned in the same breath as inaugural speeches by Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt (Franklin), Kennedy, or Reagan. And Obama uncharacteristically rushed through the speech as if he was impatient…

Does the era of bipartisanship mean people of the same party have to get along, too? If so, then Jimmy Carter has yet to "put away childish things," judging by this tape.

The Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan executed six more "US spies," continuing their campaign to remove any opposition to their rule in the Taliban-controlled tribal areas. One of the "spies" was publicly hanged in Mir Ali, which is one of the two large towns in North Waziristan. The locals…

Having just listened to the speech, I think there was a lot to like there for those whose greatest concern is that Obama is soft -- that he doesn't appreciate the role violence has played in forging our democracy. Dianne Feinstein opened the ceremony by talking about how the ballot is more powerful…

William McGurn writes in today's Journal: In a few hours, George W. Bush will walk out of the Oval Office for the last time as president. As he leaves, he carries with him the near-universal opprobrium of the permanent class that inhabits our nation's capital. Yet perhaps the most important reason…

Ironically, the famously eloquent new president stumbled three times during his Oath of Office, requiring prompting from Chief Justice John Roberts. It was out-of-character, but one of the more human moments from a man renowned for his composure. His prepared remarks are going much more smoothly.…

All that fuss for nothing. Pastor Rick Warren delivered his much-anticipated invocation Tuesday, calling the inauguration of the first black president a "hinge-point of history" that has "Dr. King and a great crowd of witnesses are shouting in heaven." He asked blessings upon Obama, his family, and…

According to Richard Leiby and DeNeen L. Brown of the Washington Post, "the free mega-concert signaled a departure from the Bush administration's frequent efforts to distance itself from Hollywood." Which makes it sound like Jamie Foxx, Stevie Wonder, Tom Hanks, Jack Black, Usher, Bruce…

Kay Hagan, the new Democratic senator from North Carolina, signaled the dawning age of bipartisanship Sunday as she spoke to the pro-choice women's political group, EMILY's List at an Inaugural Luncheon. The group was gathered to celebrate the wins of Democratic women in the Senate, House and…

Obama will keep President Bush's custom-made Oval Office rug. It really ties the room together. Not just an Inauguration; the largest temporary restroom in history. Cheney will appear at Inauguration in a wheelchair, partly because he pulled a back muscle, and partly because he thinks now that he's…

AT LEAST ONE prominent atheist wanted even more "change" than Barack Obama promised on the campaign trail. Michael Newdow, most famous for his efforts to have "Under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, recently asked a federal court to prohibit certain religious references in Obama's…

"You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

Over the weekend, Barack Obama embarked on a train trip from Philadelphia to Washington reminiscent of Abraham Lincoln's train journey from Springfield prior to his inauguration. As the New York Times says, Obama's pre-inaugural journey "is another nod to history, kicking off a week when the…

Bush keeps it classy with a farewell ceremony closed to the press. (And White House staffers pledge that no "O's" will be removed from White House keyboards). Was Joe Biden offered a choice between secretary of state and vice president? Obama's stimulus costs $275,000 per job saved/created. Gay…

Plenty of criticism has been heaped on the Israeli Defense Forces for firing on United Nations and media headquarters during the operation inside the Gaza Strip. During these incidents, UN employees and reporters claimed it was impossible for Hamas to fire rockets from these compounds and intimated…

Faced with a slow economy and a large deficit, Democrats in Washington are going to try to solve the problem by adding more than $1 trillion to the national debt. Many governors face similar challenges, and some at least, are trying a different approach. One noteworthy example is Minnesota's Tim…

From a most unlikely source, the BBC, comes an excellent defense of Israel's Gaza incursion. Two points stand out here. One, war is hell. It's completely unpredictable and impossible to fully choreograph. Two, by way of the first point, civilian deaths and collateral damage are unavoidable,…

The boss writes in today's New York Times: As we recited this on Saturday, I couldn't help but reflect that a distressingly small number of my fellow Jews seem to have given much thought at all to the fact that President Bush is one of the greatest friends the state of Israel - and, yes, the Jewish…

Barack Obama isn't even sworn-in yet, and Inauguration Week is in full-swing with countless black-tie galas, concerts, and parties taking place throughout Washington, D.C. And Washingtonians and visitors alike are starstruck by the hoardes of A-list (and D-list) celebrities in the city--lining up…

Ashton Kutcher announced this new initiative in a barely literate personal essay at the Huffington Post over the weekend. The concept seems to be 'Pay it Forward,' but with a creepy loyalty oath to our new leader mixed in for good measure: We call it a Presidential Pledge. We have gathered a group…

John Kerry is pushing for a costly global emissions treaty and Hillary Clinton testified at her confirmation hearing that "climate change" an "unambiguous security threat." But it appears a majority of Americans don't buy the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Rasmussen reports: Forty-four…

I didn't make it to the "We Are One" concert yesterday at the Lincoln Memorial, but I did catch a little bit of HBO's re-broadcast of the program last night at 11:30. At one point Sheryl Crow and will.i.am performed a little mash-up of Bob Marley's "One Love" and the Black Eyed Peas' "Where Is the…

Is it too soon to talk about the failed Obama presidency just because Obama isn't president yet? That depends upon how quickly Barack Obama is able to apply the lessons he's learned from Management Secrets of the Illinois Governors. So far he's not doing very well. He has allowed America's current…

As the obituary notices will tell you, Samuel Huntington was a controversial figure. They lead, normally, with a reference to "Clash of Civilizations?" his 1993 Foreign Affairs article, which outraged many readers by predicting that the end of the Cold War would usher in, not an era of good…

Samuel Adams

The Age of American Unreason

The postmortems on the presidency of George W. Bush are all wrong. The liberal line is that Bush dangerously weakened America's position in the world and rushed to the aid of the rich and powerful as income inequality worsened. That is twaddle. Conservatives--okay, not all of them--have only been a…

When I showed up for my interview with Vice President Dick Cheney on January 6, he was standing behind his desk in the West Wing of the White House sipping, as he often does, from a can of Sprite Zero.

WE ARE ALL DETROITERS

The great Donald Westlake died of a heart attack on New Year's Eve. When I heard the news, I did what I thought he'd want me to do: I reread a couple of his comic crime novels, dissolving several times into helpless laughter.

Several smart observers have described the root cause of the ongoing battle between Israel and Hamas in the exact same phrase: "irreconcilable differences." America and Europe are warned not to press for pointless negotiations, because the parties are irreconcilable. Israel and the Palestinians…

Gone Tomorrow

The Rest Is Noise

On the Dot

He was the greatest reader I ever met. The greatest reader, and a cigar smoker, and a walker, and a preacher, and a brewer of some of the worst coffee ever made. What odd items the mind latches onto in moments of grief: the tilt of a friend's head, the way he used his hands when he spoke, an awful…

The Group of Five

On December 9, the Families of Flight 93 group sent a letter to President Bush. Progress on the national Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, had stalled, and the families were seeking the president's help: They requested that he seize, by executive order, a parcel of private land…

Much as generals make the mistake of fighting the last war, politicians are prone to recycle old nostrums that were previously successful in getting us (and them) out of one crisis or another. For liberal Democrats, this typically involves the dream of replaying the New Deal and FDR's first 100…

Pretty much everybody seems to agree that the economy needs stimulating. They agree on this because the United States has been in recession for more than a year and the outlook is bleak. There aren't a lot of options left to policymakers. In most recessions, the Federal Reserve increases demand by…

Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington

BARACK OBAMA'S FIRST test as president isn't his inaugural address. As talented a writer and orator as Obama is, the speech should be a snap. His big test is the economic stimulus package that Congress is expected to pass within a few weeks. The starting point for Congress is an old-fashioned,…

Detroit

Courtesy of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, home of the 231 million percent inflation rate. Zimbabwe's central bank says it will soon introduce a 100 trillion dollar note as the once prosperous country battles to keep pace with hyperinflation that has caused many to abandon the country's currency. The…

The entire country is wondering: Who designed Michelle Obama's inaugural gown? For the first time in First Lady history, we won't find out the designer of this much-hyped dress until Tuesday. This is a "break with precedent," reports the Washington Times, since the "designer of the First Lady's…

The national Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, has been at a standstill as the National Park Service tried to negotiate the purchase of the final piece of land from owner Michael Svonavec. Svonavec's land was the last crucial parcel needed for the planned 2,231 acre national park and…

The U.S. Treasury Department dropped a bombshell today when it sanctioned four al Qaeda operatives known to be operating in Iran. Osama bin Laden's son Sa'ad along with Mustafa Hamid, Muhammad Rab'a al Sayid al Bahtiti, and Ali Saleh Husain have been designated as terrorists under Executive Order…

Obama may create "classified loophole" for enhanced interrogations. Really good economic news: the Ted spread is now below 100 basis points. Forty-four senators--25 Democrats and 19 Republicans--urge Obama to buy F-22s. Behold the dreaded American patriarchy: the passengers on the safely…

The "otherwise smooth" transition of the Obama administration hit yet another bump in the road today when the team's vaunted discipline could not keep the likes of pop princess Beyonce Knowles in line. When it was announced today that Beyonce would perform the couple's first dance, the inauguration…

Of seven newly minted freshman Democratic senators, six voted for releasing the second half of the $700 billion TARP funds in what is being considered Obama's first major test of strength on the Hill. This would be rather uncontroversial had not five of them, to some degree or another, campaigned…

I for one am pleased to see that Democrats will continue to speak truth to power in an Obama administration: The $825 billion economic stimulus package rolled out by Democrats on Thursday might not be enough to prevent an economic catastrophe, according to the chief architect of the package. House…

The BBC reports: The authorities in China say they have found that most Chinese women would like to have more than one child. Family-planning officials say their research indicates that 70% of women want to have two babies or more. Chinese couples who ignore China's strict one-child policy must pay…

Goldfarb noted that the captured Hamas fighters have been stunned bey the ferocity of the Israeli assault on Gaza. That same article notes that the Israeli Defense Force has taken out on of Hamas's elite military units: The so-called "Iranian Unit" of Hamas has been destroyed, according to Gaza…

I do heartily recommend that you follow Mary Katharine's advice and take a crack at writing, er, generating your own Obama speech. Here's what I came up with: My fellow Americans, today is a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day. You have shown the world that "hope" is not just another word for…

Thanks to this web application, you can do it right now. Groping cardboard cut-outs of female Cabinet appointees is optional, but apparently helpful to the Obama speech-writing process, so have at it if you wish. Here's my go at it: My fellow Americans, today is a illustrious day. You have shown…

Ahead of her final White House press briefing, press secretary Dana Perino spoke with reporters at a breakfast in Washington hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Perino said she's thinking about writing a book, though she promised it wouldn't be a "kiss and tell" because she "wasn't raised that…

This is cause for optimism: Two captured terrorists interviewed by Maariv/NRG say that Hamas was not expecting Israel's response to the escalation in missile attacks on Israeli targets that preceded Operation Cast Lead. One of them, a 52-year-old victim of a premature detonation who had already…

Germany has been in shock and outrage over an incredibly nasty incident, which took place in the city of Duisburg last Saturday. That day, about 10,000 agitated protesters organized by the radical Islamist Turkish group Milli Gorus, were marching through the city to protest Israel's military…

Last August the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court once again affirmed President's Bush's constitutional authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance in the name of national security. That ruling was made public yesterday but the court reached a similar conclusion in 2002, In re:…

Senior UN officials and Human Rights watchdog groups are calling for Israeli leaders to be brought up on war crimes charges, alleging that the IDF's use of M825 Felt-Wedge projectiles violates international protocols restricting conventional weapons use in densely populated areas. The problem in…

"Especially as a Social Democrat," said German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier a few days after the U.S. elections, "I am glad that Barack Obama won. All night I sat in front of my TV and was enthusiastic and elated." The minister's merriment reflects the mood all over Old Europe:…

On Wednesday, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post reported a bit of old news that was dressed up as something new. Susan Crawford, the convening authority of military commissions, said that Mohammed al-Qahtani (the would-be 20th hijacker on September 11) was tortured while in U.S. custody and that…

Vienna

Barack Obama's invitation to evangelical pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation on Inauguration Day not only has stirred the fury of the political left. In a way that team Obama never intended, it has created a challenge to liberalism's secular ethos--but only if evangelical leaders such as…

Joe Biden: "I know as much or more than Cheney ... I'm the most experienced vice president since anybody." Really, Joe? Really? In the Age of Obama, plane crashes are no longer lethal. (Seriously, though, what an amazing pilot.) The big blue wall. Protesters label Redford an enemy of the poor.…

Max Blumenthal is the M. Night Shyamalan of political Internet "filmmaking." The brash politico experienced early success with his brave foray into the bow-tied underbelly of conservative politics, producing "CPAC 2007: The Unauthorized Tour." The young filmmaker was praised for his…

Good news: Hamas's interior minister, Said Siam, was killed along with his brother Iad and his son, as well as another senior Hamas man in an IAF strike on a house in the Jabaliya neighborhood in Gaza City, Israeli defense officials told The Jerusalem Post. Siam was the Hamas political echelon's…

It's not quite right to say President Bush owes Scooter Libby a pardon. Having commuted Libby's sentence to 30 months in jail (but not his $250,000 fine), the president has no special obligation to follow up now with a full pardon before he leaves office next Tuesday. Nor does Libby's role as a…

Republican Whip Eric Cantor and the Economic Recovery Working Group held a hearing today featuring Mitt Romney and Meg Whitman. You can watch video of the event here, but one of the things to focus on is the support for a "defense stimulus," the outline for which was laid out by Tom Donnelly here.…

Eli Lake has an excellent piece in the Washington Times today sifting through Leon Panetta's record on rendition as Clinton's chief of staff. Panetta, Obama's nominee to head the CIA, will face confirmation hearings next week. As Lake points out, Panetta does not represent the clean break from Bush…

This kind of clarity on an Obama nominee from the New York Times editorial page can't be a great sign for Geithner. Even without the allegation that Geithner took reimbursement for the taxes he did not pay, the NYT raps the economic whiz-kid squarely on the knuckles: As much as Mr. Obama and his…

This week the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Gary, Indiana, charging the city with racial discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. You can read the complaint here. The story in brief: Gary wanted to hire some Emergency Medical Technicians. It had 25 job…

Vice President Cheney explained to Jim Lehrer in an interview that aired last night why the Iraq war was the right choice. Q: But Mr. Vice President, getting from there to here, 4,500 Americans have died, at least 100,000 Iraqis have died. Has it been worth that? CHENEY: I think so. Q: Why? CHENEY:…

Jeffrey Goldberg posts an email from the Jane Mayer: "Howard Gordon is the main creative force at "24" now. He's said he invented "Blaine Mayer" to "amuse" himself. He's a Princeton grad, and conflicted "moderate" Democrat, who seems in real life to be a very likeable guy, but one who is having…

Milton Friedman p3wns Naomi Klein. Gratifying. Despite their well-known tendency toward clannishness and proclivity for imposing apartheid on their Palestinian neighbors (Right, Jimmy and Naomi?), the Jews are inexplicably out-diversifying the diversity ball during Inaugural festivities. Louis…

This might be the first presidential honeymoon that ends before inauguration day: Ten committee chairmen in the Senate and House said that Obama's advisers did not alert them ahead of time about the incoming president's Cabinet selections. Nine of them learned of the picks from the media, even…

Early in this Senate cycle attention has been focused on the news that four Republicans will not seek re-election in 2010. In a way of course, this is good news. Knowing about these retirements early gives NRSC Chairman John Cornyn (R-TX) plenty of time to line up credible candidates. And it…

Have you ever wondered what Iraq might have looked like had the United States quit the country Iraq in 2006 after it was on the brink of civil war? Look no further than Somalia, where the Ethiopian Army has completed its withdrawal of Mogadishu and is preparing to pull out from other bases in the…

After counting all the ballots, the 2008 election produced record year for voter turnout. Many believe president-elect Barack Obama's candidacy was solely responsible for producing the boost. He generated significant enthusiasm among supporters and sent a thrill up the leg of many members of the…

BILL EMMOTT, a former editor of the Economist magazine, has written that George W. Bush's "bold initiative" to strengthen U.S. relations with India "may eventually be judged by historians as a move of great strategic importance and imagination." It "may turn out to be the most significant foreign…

As I traveled across Turkey in November, optimism over Barack Obama's electoral victory was in the air. Several Turks told me stories of villagers who had sacrificed 44 sheep in honor of the 44th president's election. They were not alone in their jubilation: Indeed, many people I met believed…

Fox News reports - President-elect Barack Obama will allow gays to serve openly in the military by overturning the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy that marred President Clinton's first days in office, according to incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The startling…

In the face of news that Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner failed to pay more than $30,000 in taxes in the early part of the decade and briefly employed an illegal housekeeper, the President-Elect and forces on the Hill are sending mixed signals on the fate of his nomination. His…

Boehner will vote against spending the second half of the TARP funds. Megan McArdle questions the wisdom of the stimulus. Rob Portman is running for Senate. Byron York has more on Geithner's tax trouble. Feel the love: Warren praises Obama's selection of gay bishop. And in the Age of Obama, Tom…

Vice President Cheney gives an exit interview to Jim Lehrer tonight, a transcript of which was just released by the White House. Cheney is asked at length about his current approval rating and whether it makes him sad. It doesn't. Cheney also responds to today's Washington Post story in which Susan…

What does Barack Obama think about Asia? Does Barack Obama think about Asia? As the president-elect prepares himself to confront the global economic disaster, the conflict in Gaza, the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, the genocide in Darfur, and…

Just as they did during the campaign season, some of New York's top fashion designers have created "the Runway for Change Inaugural Collection, a series of high fashion handbags and T-shirts created by some of America's most renowned designers in celebration of the Inauguration of President-elect…

It's very nice that Susan Crawford can now continue her work with a clear conscience, but it seems the left has missed the point of this story entirely. We already knew that the Bush administration had ordered the use of aggressive interrogation techniques on a number of detainees, and we already…

Joe the Plumber, PJTV's media correspondent in Israel, clearly does not know the first law of holes: once you are deep in one, you should stop digging. The other day Joe told us the media has no place in a warzone and harkened back to the days when war news was shown in theaters on grainy film.…

Yesterday the president-elect met with his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon. While Obama's Nafta two-step has drawn the headlines, the Mexican press is reporting today that Obama committed to enacting immigration reform. My translation: The president-elect of the United States, Barack Obama,…

Obama administration recycling manure. Green initiative or euphemism for politics as usual? Blue on blue on the economy. Obama's paper trail finally revealed. It consists of one paper from Columbia. Mickey Rourke defends President Bush. Bush totally pumped to have support of pro-wrestling…

Via Jake Tapper, Dick Cheney said in an interview with Bill Bennett yesterday: There's never yet been a congressman come forward and volunteer to take 250 al Qaeda members in his district ... So then the question is, where are you going to put them? And you've got to sort that all out before you…

David Brooks has a lovely reflection on the life of Fr. Richard John Newhaus in the New York Times today. Born Toward DyingBy all accounts Neuhaus was ready to meet his Maker as few others are TEXT Ross Douthat, John Podhoretz , Alan Jacobs, George Weigel, and editors of National Review TEXT TEXT

Obama backed same-sex marriage in 1996. Continetti thinks impeaching Blagojevich creates more problems than it solves. A hitch or two in Timothy Geithner's confirmation hearing? "Hardline" Iranian protestors burn pictures of Obama. Democratic Congressman John Conyers recommends that the Obama…

Remember in 2004 when the press and liberals, but I repeat myself, lectured the nation about how President George W. Bush's second Inaugural was too glitzy, too high-dollar, and altogether too festive to befit a country at war? Today, we're still at war, but with that going rather well, the dismal…

The politics of the current economic crisis are fluid -- the Bush administration's original diktats for bailing out the troubled financial sector and the auto industry have generated growing resistance -- but it's likely that Barack Obama will be able to produce a stimulus package quickly after his…

Human rights groups are actively lobbying President-elect Obama and his team to drop the charges against Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who is charged with killing an American soldier in Afghanistan in 2002. On Monday, Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire was in Washington pleading for Khadr to be sent…

Obama has shown himself to be perfectly at ease talking about America's pluralism, his unique past, and America's promise as illustrated by his own pluralistic past propelling him to the Presidency. But the Bradley Project on America's National Identity has put in a request for other subjects. The…

The 18-day old Israeli operation in Gaza appears to be on the cusp of intensifying as Israeli troops are preparing to conduct the third phase of the operation and enter the urban sprawl of Gaza City. Intense fighting is expected as Hamas has dug in and planted mines and booby traps along the roads…

Cato's Michael F. Cannon writes: On This Week with George Stephanopolous, president-elect Barack Obama proposed eliminating the ENTIRE Medicare Advantage program... Medicare Advantage allows seniors to choose a private health plan rather than get their health coverage from the traditional Medicare…

As a sop to the left, Obama has chosen Gene Robinson, the gay Episcopal bishop from Planned Parenthood, er, New Hampshire to deliver a prayer at an inaugural event featuring musical performances by Shakira, Usher, Sheryl Crow, and many more. Robinson, who called Obama's selection of Warren to…

As of January 8, David Plouffe was still asking me for money via e-mail. Time and again you have stepped up to support this movement in inspiring ways. Now you can help give this administration a strong start. Ten supporters and their guests will be selected to come to Washington, D.C., and attend…

A couple good questions for Hillary today. The Rev. Wright follows Mr. Obama to Washington, for a "thought-provoking" message, according to ABC. In the sport of Shameless Race-Card Playing, Rep. James Clyburn has just reached the Olympics, by pulling the slavery card on Gov. Mark Sanford. "We are…

Paul Mirengoff raises some interesting questions on Eric Holder's nomination to be Attorney General. At issue: Why has Holder been, as Mirengoff puts it, "less than forthcoming" about his work for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in 2004? Several weeks ago, reporters discovered that Holder failed…

Congress and President-elect Obama are frantically considering how to stimulate the weakening economy, but even with Washington under unified Democratic control, it is proving hard to move quickly.

Just after Christmas, two Chinese destroyers and a supply ship left their base in southern China to make the long voyage to Somalia, there to protect Chinese-flagged vessels from pirate attacks. Headed by a Rear Admiral, the PLA Navy flotilla marks the first overseas maritime deployment by China…

Professor Juan Cole, in a rant against the influence of the Israel Lobby on American foreign policy, suggests that progressives set up an alternative to the nefarious influence peddlers who promote the interests of the Zionist regime at the expense of the American people. The name he suggests for…

The boss believes in continuity we can believe in. David Freddoso explains Nancy Pelosi's power grab. Thirty percent of votes were cast before Election Day. Obama plans to keep the estate tax. Michael Moynihan throws a rock at Matthew Yglesias's head. Poland hopes Obama will back missile defense.…

When "SNL" took on the Blagojevich/Burris debacle this week, they picked the wrong targets to spoof. Laying aside the fact that the dull Rachel Maddow impression was simply a vehicle for the liberal, urbane cast of "SNL's" hackneyed gay jokes, Roland Burris was not the one who deserved ridicule…

It's become an article of faith on the left that any use of force by Israel works to the advantage of its enemies. We are told that by invading Lebanon, the Israelis strengthened Hezbollah and Iran. There may be some truth to this. No doubt Hezbollah is much stronger, politically, than it was…

There has been no shortage of coverage of Joe the Plumber's foray into reporting on the Israeli military operation in Gaza. As someone who started reporting on the war as an independent reporter, I could understand PJTV's decision to support citizen journalism by sending Joe to Israel. Sure, the…

Does the PRC advertise in Newsweek? Because this piece by Rana Foroohar sure reads like a retread from the Xinhua news service. The article is titled "China's Economy Stays out of the Red," and it includes phrases like "China is governed by a radical pragmatism" and "[i]n dire economic times (like…

AvWeek editor Bill Sweetman is suspicious of the claims being made about JSF: If your track record is Ishtar and Howard the Duck, and you tell me that you've got something that beats Gone With The Wind and Star Wars, you are going to have to prove it with more than a PowerPoint, or "trust me, but…

While much of the reporting on the rise of the Islamists in Pakistan focuses on Pakistan's tribal areas and the spread of the Taliban into the northwest, the problems within Pakistan run far deeper than that. Over the years, the spread of radicalism has extended far beyond the tribal areas, into…

An economic comeback in Pittsburgh. The 50 Best Business Movies Ever. What the Voinovich retirement means for Ohio and the GOP. W's last presser: "I decided to do something about it and sent 30,000 troops in as opposed to withdrawing." Jimmy Carter: Hey, those Hamas tunnels are defensive! Olmert's…

Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have now both promised that the upcoming economic stimulus bill won't include any earmarks. Both have used Clintonian language to limit the scope of their promises, but that hasn't gotten all that much attention. Barack Obama has said that the stimulus bill will…

This piece in today's Journal by George Bisharat, professor of law at UC Hastings, is breathtaking in both its presumption and its inability to substantiate the allegations that are, for a lawyer, recklessly cast about. Bisharat writes: Israel then broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza Strip…

Poetic justice: Five of the pirates who hijacked a Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a $3 million ransom, a relative said Saturday, the day after the bundle of cash was apparently dropped by parachute onto the deck of the ship. But the AP wants us to understand the root causes of…

After the first week of fighting in Gaza, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights estimated that the death toll stood at 161, including 41 civilians. That figure included 7 children and 11 women. After another week of fighting, Amnesty International upped the death toll to 350 and estimated that…

Vote for the best blog of 2008. CNN stands by its reporting on this video of a Palestinian boy allegedly killed by Israeli fire. A silver lining of the Madoff scam. Jeffrey Goldberg explains that Joe the Plumber is, in fact, more qualified to report on Gaza than many Middle East reporters. Greg…

Catch, Sen. Reid! The Illinois Supreme Court ruled today that Roland Burris' certification need not be signed by Secretary of State Jesse White, which means White will not be compelled to sign it: Burris was handed an apparent victory when the court ruled that Illinois Secretary of State Jesse…

Yesterday the United States abstained from a vote on a new UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease fire in Gaza and the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the territory. A well informed source tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that Vice President Cheney had urged a veto of the…

Rep. John Conyers, one of Congress' biggest universal health care advocates, is distributing a "Dear Colleagues" letter urging against Sanjay Gupta's appointment to Surgeon General: Conyers planned to call Obama directly Thursday afternoon to voice his concern and has raised the issue with Senate…

The Anchorage Daily News and the AP report that Bob Poe, the former state director of international trade, announced yesterday that he's running against Sarah Palin in 2010: [Poe] asserted [Palin]'s been out of town and out of touch. Poe, a Democrat, also said the Republican Palin's "divisive,…

Behold, the Blago, as he lectures the House on getting back to work on bills to help the people of Illinois instead of bothering to impeach him: Embedded video from CNN Video Update: Who are these people who stood on stage with him, so he could tout his heroism? If you ask me, he could start a…

It was an irresistible story for Western media. A Gazan cameraman was working valiantly to bring the images of war's brutality to the world from a war zone blocked to media access by the Israeli government. While he was performing his heroic task, violence hit home with a deadly blow. Ashraf…

WHAT DID OBAMA SAY AT AIPAC ABOUT IRAN? On Friday, Obama named former CIA operative John Brennan to be . In effect, he will serve as counterterrorism czar--Obama's Richard Clarke, if you will. With the title of assistant to the president, Brennan will have the right to schedule face to face…

Jeffrey Goldberg quotes "the superannuated settler fire-breather" Elyakim HaEtzni, a man I'm not familiar with but I trust is every bit the right-wing radical Goldberg claims, on the war in Gaza: The goal of the war, he writes, is for Israel "to smash Hamas, and to neutralize its motivation to fire…

Al Kamen reports: Former assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia Elizabeth Jones, now at APCO Worldwide, is being talked about to become assistant secretary of state for Middle East matters. Jones, who served as the United States ambassador to Kazakhstan from 1995 to 1997 and during the Bush…

The followers of Muqtada al Sadr have held the obligatory Friday protest today to denounce Israeli operation. The protest featured the regular agitprop: the stomping on and burning of Israeli and US flags, chants of "No, No, to the Occupier," etc. AFP reported that 2,000 Sadrist supporters showed…

A Minneapolis ABC affiliate reports on a new Survey USA poll: On election night, each candidate received only 42 percent of the votes. Now it appears they're both even less popular. Only 38 percent of Minnesotans surveyed said they view Coleman favorably. 44 percent have an unfavorable view.…

The vote was 114-1, with a Democrat from Chicago offering the only pro-Blago vote. Blagojevich's spokesperson maintains that the governor will not resign, reportedly adding, "Nothing is over until we say it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!?" The actions of the House--approving…

Edwardsville, Ala. wants $2 million per resident from the stimulus package. Taking Bloomberg back: "Let's be real. He's got $20 billion." 10 Worst Kos Quotes of the Year. It's coming out January 9 because it took that long to narrow it down. Israel and Hamas ignore U.N. resolution, prompting talk…

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution last night in response to the situation in Gaza, calling for an immediate ceasefire with Israel. Rather than vetoing it, the United States abstained - an appropriate but shameful coda to the State Department's feckless peace process diplomacy this past…

Any lingering opposition to Barack Obama â s stimulus plan melted in the face of today â s report that 2.6 million workers lost their jobs last year, 1.9 million in the last four months alone. The official unemployment rate jumped from 6.7 percent to 7.2 percent, the highest since January 1983. If…

The Washington Post reported that the New Year's Day missile strike in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan resulted in the death of two senior al Qaeda operatives. The al Qaeda operatives killed were Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, al Qaeda's operations chief, and Sheikh…

That's one of several interesting ideas outlined in this Washington Post op-ed by Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, who cofounded the KIPP charter schools. They write: [W]e should assess teachers on their demonstrated impact on student learning, not whether they hold a traditional teacher…

Jagdish Bhagwati sounds the alarm.

It's no secret that members of the US Armed Forces screen The Battle of Algiers before deploying to the CENTCOM area of operations. The 1966 black and white film, which depicts the brutal Algerian war of independence, was even shown at the Pentagon in the early aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom…

Kiev

As the President-elect's administration weighs what to do with the detainees remaining at Guantánamo, the pressure is mounting from advocacy groups. For years, some organizations have taken an extreme approach, telling the detainees' stories in the most favorable manner possible -- ignoring…

The Guardian reports that the Obama camp is open to talks with Hamas. William McGurn picks apart the poor press coverage of a study on abstinence pledges and teen sex. Pelosi urges Obama to raise taxes. Kit Bond won't run for reelection in 2010. Chris Matthews won't run for Senate in Pennsylvania.…

At a press conference Tuesday regarding the stimulus bill, Barack Obama : "We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review." Reporters whether his qualification that earmarks are projects Question: … Earmarks, you said there will be…

J Street is almost completely irrelevant as an organization, so perhaps it is better ignored entirely, but I'm fascinated by the speed with which it has collapsed in the face of a hot war in the Middle East -- the first since J Street launched last spring. It should have been obvious that a Jewish…

"The only thing we have to fear, Obama will say in his George Mason speech today, is not passing his stimulus package," writes Ben Smith, who highlights this portion of Obama's speech: If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our…

A colleague and I were just joking about the new issue of Time magazine, the cover of which teases a story on Gaza with the headline "Why Israel Can't Win." The story itself is titled "Can Israel Survive Gaza?" Jeffrey Goldberg apparently had the same reaction we did: Which one will last longer:…

The video above, courtesy of MEMRI, shows the leaders of Hamas discussing their hopes and dreams: the annihilation of Israel, the Jews, America, and Europe. At one point about half way through you can even catch the message of extermination being translated into sign language -- presumably for the…

Braving a severe economic downturn, celebrity chef Michael Mina opened his first District eatery, Bourbon Steak, at the Georgetown Four Seasons last month. And just last night, I attended the press dinner (thanks to publicist Heather Freeman) in which the kitchen showed off its best offerings-not…

In 2003, my friend Matt Burden of the military blog Blackfive published a remarkable, deeply moving account of Marine LtCol M.R. Strobl's escort of a fallen Marine's remains from Iraq. The blog posting eventually found a spot in Matt's definitive book on military blogging, The Blog of War, and has…

The new Shadow Government blog at FP has added three more contributors who will be must-reading in the dawn of the Obama administration. They include Steve Biegun, who was a senior foreign policy adviser with the McCain campaign and before that served on the National Security Council from…

Yesterday The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, released a leaked copy of the dossier the Indian government put together on the Mumbai attacks and sent to the Pakistani government. Included in these documents are recorded phone conversations between the Mumbai terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan.…

A flare-up on Israel's northern border: Lebanese militants fired at least three rockets into Israel early Thursday, threatening to open a new front for the Jewish state as it pushed forward with a bloody offensive in the Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 700 people. Two people were lightly injured,…

How grey will Obama be in 2012? This is CNN. Pretty sure Congress is immune to "sticker shock." Each writer of the stimulus bill will be responsible for spending $1.5 billion of our money better than we would. Kit Bond to retire, making Missouri a battleground state in 2010. The text of Obama's…

Joseph Bottum reports the very sad news that Fr. Neuhaus, founder and editor-in-chief of First Things, died this morning. R.I.P.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD gets a shoutout in the January issue of Vogue in a profile of CNN's Campbell Brown: She spends her mornings with the papers and the blogs: Politico.com, Realclearpolitics.com, William Kristol's The Weekly Standard, and the Huffington Post. Speaking of Vogue, Fashion Week Daily…

They seem to hold the same opinion of Hugo Chavez. Just a few months ago, Sean Penn offered this assessment of the Venezuelan dictator in the Nation magazine: "It's true, Chávez may not be a good man. But he may well be a great one." Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, praised Chavez in similar…

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Public Policy Polling has completed a survey of New York voters, testing how Republican Peter King would fare in a Senate run against either Caroline Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo. The results lead you to question whether the dream is still alive: Public Policy Polling's newest New York survey finds that…

President Bush leaves office in less than two weeks, with record low job approval ratings, a weak economy, and his party in the minority on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Many would ascribe his current predicament to his decision in 2003 to attack Iraq and topple the government of Saddam…

Vice President Dick Cheney believes he hasn't "fundamentally changed" since he came to Washington 40 years ago. Only his job has changed. As vice president, he doesn't talk freely to the press about what he's doing. And he's been deeply involved in shaping controversial policies aimed at making…

Of the many items on President-elect Obama's foreign policy to-do list, one of the most important long-term tasks is repairing America's relationship with its key Asian ally, Japan. Though often taken for granted by American policymakers, Japan is the linchpin of America's strategic position in…

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong (re)opened the door to a possible political run in an interview posted yesterday at The Daily Beast. Is there a future for Lance Armstrong in politics? If you feel like you can do the job better than people who are doing it now, and you can really…

Netanyahu defends Israel's right to self-defense. Continetti defends George W. Bush. Why the Israeli people have finally had enough. How a neocon theme accidentally slipped into a Hollywood film on the Gulf war. The conservative restoration begins: Joe the Plumber will serve as war correspondent in…

The affable Roland Burris was out and about on the Hill again today, as the political winds of a Washington January started to shift decidedly in his favor. He held his second press conference in as many days, regaling the press with tales of Jimmy Carter's endorsement and keeping a straight face…

Two weeks ago, a Daily Kos / Research 2000 poll showed Sarah Palin beating Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a hypothetical 2010 Republican primary matchup 55 to 31, but a recent poll done by Dittman Research for The Alaska Standard blog shows the Nate Silver explains why we should be skeptical of the latter…

The other day the Washington Examiner ran an item in which a number of semi-famous Washingtonians shared what books they'd read in 2008. Chuck Todd recommended his own book, of course, Howard Fineman recommended his own book, of course, and Luke Russert: Luke Russert, NBC News " ‘The Last…

Get ready, Washington, for the most glamorous, star-studded weekend to grace the Beltway in recent history: Barack Obama's inauguration weekend. Barack and Michelle Obama will party at all 10 of the official balls, one more than George and Laura Bush attended in 2005. This year the official balls…

Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda's number two, has released a new video discussing, among other items, the conflict in Gaza. Laura Mansfield has posted two excerpts from the video here. In the first excerpt, Zawahiri says: Be strong and persist in the way of Jihad. The whole Muslim ummah is united with…

The Associated Press confirmed the Israeli Defense Force's claim that Hamas fighters were firing from the UN school in Gaza, which lead to Israeli troops to return fire and tragically kill more than 30 Palestinian civilians. As with much of the reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many…

The Pakistani Taliban have stepped up their murder campaign against what they term "U.S. spies" in the tribal agency of North Waziristan. Over the week, the bodies of eight men accused of spying for the United States have turned up in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency. The men are often…

Speaking of Obama portraits, I couldn't help but think the cover of the latest American Dog, which features Barack Obama and a three-legged dog named Baby who was rescued from a puppy mill: obamapuppy.jpg Wouldn't this make a wonderful official portrait for the 44th president? It would symbolize a…

Republicans and Democrats pondering new budget rules for Congress. Sounds achingly boring until you realize the new rules would restrict the spending of your money. New Ben & Jerry flavor: "Yes, Pecan!" I wonder how many calories are in really bad puns... Who, pray tell, is black enough to fill…

Harry Reid has pledged that the United States Senate will not seat Roland Burris, and despite recent reports to the contrary, Reid's people are still out there saying that Burris isn't welcome. Reid has also declared that Norm Coleman will "never ever serve" in the Senate again and vowed to lead…

The Washington Post reports that the original red-and-blue Obama "HOPE" collage by Shephard Fairey is headed to the National Portrait Gallery. It's a grand, and domineering, 60 by 44 inch artwork. The iconic collage is a gift from Tony and Heather Podesta, superlobbyists in Washington whose late…

Administrators of Team Sarah have uncovered evidence on a left-wing online thread that some Internet trolls sought to discredit the organization by posing as conservative racists on Team Sarah's forums. Team Sarah, an online community supportive of Gov. Sarah Palin, claims over 60,000 members and…

Pew Research reports more bad news for the struggling traditional newspaper business. According to a survey released last month, the Internet overtook newspapers for the first time in 2008 as the main source of domestic and international news. Forty percent of Americans responded that the Internet…

The New York Times reports on Arlen Specter's floor speech yesterday about the nomination of Eric Holder as Attorney General, but they gave short shrift to Specter's explanation of his objections and concerns: A leading Republican senator issued a broad attack on Tuesday on President-elect Barack…

Martin Wolf, who wrote the book on our current economic troubles, has a thought-provoking and extremely worrying column in the Financial Times. Everyone should read it. Here's the basic argument: We are in the grip of the most significant global financial crisis for seven decades. As a result, the…

Ross Douthat on just war and modern warfare. Nancy Pelosi abolishes term limits for committee chairmanships. Jeb Bush won't run for Senate in 2010. Obama predicts "trillion-dollar deficits for years to come." Gallup reports that a majority of Americans think Burrris should be blocked. Arlen Specter…

So, America's most telegenic, Indian-American neurosurgeon/family man/anchorman will be America's next surgeon general. None of C. Everett Koop's stern demeanor and exceptional facial hair or Joycelyn Elders' tendency toward the most awkward national public health conversations ever. Not for Obama.…

The majority of the media's coverage of Guantánamo has been decidedly one-sided. Consider, as the latest example, the New York Times's account of Muhammad Saad Iqbal's story, which was published on Tuesday ("An Ex-Detainee of the U.S. Describes a 6-Year Ordeal"). Iqbal was a detainee at Guantánamo…

Obama had been taking plenty of criticism for not speaking out on Gaza, mostly from the left flank of his party and the world, which wishes him to signal the "change" he promised by condemning Israel. The Guardian bemoaned his silence this week, and noted the negative response of some Arab media:…

Joe Klein writes at Time: I'm not a big fan of Khalid Meshaal, who leads the Hamas military wing, but I do believe the peace process is severely hampered by the unwillingness of the United States (and the E.U.) to talk directly with the Hamas leadership. How would Klein describe his affection for…

Amir Taheri reports: Iran is a "short distance" from securing all it needs to make a nuclear warhead. This is the conclusion of a long-awaited report prepared for the French National Assembly (parliament) and submitted to President Nicolas Sarkozy in the last days of 2008. The report is the fruit…

The New York Times runs a story about Muhammad Saad Iqbal, who claims he was tortured by the Egyptian government at the behest of the Bush administration: But the full stories of individual detainees like Mr. Iqbal are only now emerging after years in which they were shuttled around the globe under…

juice.jpg In order to add some balance to the glut of anti-Israel protest pictures flooding the AP, Reuters, and AFP photo wires, there will be a pro-Israel rally today in Washington, D.C. at the Israeli Embassy at 12: 30, sponsored by a group of rabbis in the Washington area. Anti-Israel groups…

After ten days of Israeli offensive operations in the Gaza Strip, Hamas' command and control appears to be in disarray, Palestinian analysts told the Jerusalem Post. Hamas leaders are in hiding, and conflicting messages are being put out by Hamas's leadership under Khalid Mashal, who is based in…

Stephen Walt, coauthor with John Mearsheimer of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, has started a new blog at the website of Foreign Policy. He is one of a number of new bloggers the magazine has brought on board ahead of Obama's inauguration. Among the others are some real heavyweights,…

The New Media war against Hamas apologists. Fallen in battle: Two IDF soldiers remembered. Just War Theory in Gaza. Senate to block comedian from the Senate floor today, like George Wallace at the entrance to the Laugh Factory. Fresh young face at 1600 Pennsylvania to work with most crotchety, aged…

Write fast! If you are interested in seeing Barack Obama sworn in as President, the official Presidential Inaugural Committee is conducting an essay contest. Although the real goal is fundraising and the website is vague as to whether anyone who fails to contribute will, in fact, be selected to…

Kiev

There is a distinct novelty in the current war in Gaza. While much of the Arab broadcast media displays graphic scenes of and outrage about the mounting Palestinian casualties, print media in the Arab world is steering in the direction of a far more nuanced position that recognizes, albeit often…

Over the weekend, Al Franken's lead over Norm Coleman jumped to 225 votes after officials counted about 1,000 absentee ballots that had been wrongly rejected due to clerical errors. This afternoon, the Minnesota canvassing board certified that Franken is the winner. But, as the St. Paul Pioneer…

"Anybody with a brain realizes you can't trust the agency," said one Republican when I asked him about the appointment of Leon Panetta to run the CIA. So you take someone with a reputation as a competent manager and caretaker and install him there in the hopes that the agency does as little damage…

The conventional wisdom about the incursion by Israeli ground units into Gaza, mirrored in Sunday's Washington Post, is that "Israeli leaders run the risk of repeating their disastrous experience in the 2006 Lebanon war, when they suffered high casualties in ground combat with Hezbollah."…

J Street, the Jewish group that bills itself as a pacifist, liberal, pro-Palestinian, pro-Israel alternative to AIPAC, has self-destructed in the last week as Israeli forces clash with Hamas militants in Gaza. Jamie Kirchick profiled the group in the New Republic in May, when J Street first emerged…

The New York Times reported on the front page of its Sunday edition that as part of the planned stimulus program, Obama Considers Major Expansion in Aid to Jobless. If the article is true, it is a very bad sign for both the economy and the culture: One proposal, as described by Democratic advisers,…

The ground invasion of Gaza has begun. According to the IDF spokesman, Israel's aims are limited to "deal[ing] a heavy blow to the Hamas terror organization, to strengthen Israel's deterrence, and to create a better security situation for those living around the Gaza Strip that will be maintained…

On Tuesday, Andrew Breitbart, friend to many here at TWS, launches "Big Hollywood," a website of culture and politics which has "changing Hollywood" as its modest goal. Breitbart, who helped establish the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post, has discarded more good ideas than most of us have had.…

... Just not in the United States. David Kenner has a useful list of this year's upcoming elections. Somehow he left out the two most interesting. First, there are the summer elections in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim democracy. (And, according to David Brooks, perhaps the location of one…

The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath

Commander of the Faithful

A Time to Speak

We've stopped counting the number of times we've been told over the past few years that conservatives can't govern. Everywhere you turn, someone is saying that a conservative government is naturally incompetent and naturally corrupt. The idea that conservatives are ideologically incapable of…

Barack Obama is an awfully good politician but not much of an economist. His model for lifting America out of its economic slump is President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. The trouble with FDR's policy, however, is that it didn't come close to reviving the economy and restoring it to…

We may sooner than you think look back at 2008 and need to be reminded that this was the year when the stock market crashed, the banks reeled, the streets of Athens ran with blood, Obama captured the White House and invited the Clintons back in, the GOP collapsed, and Chris Buckley and David Frum…

One of the conventions of modern presidential transitions is the ritual exaltation of vice presidents-to-be. The incoming vice president, it is announced, will have unprecedented responsibilities in the new administration. His desk will be located just inches from the Oval Office; he will be first…

Seventy-six years ago, in 1932, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. gave a timely endorsement to -Franklin D. Roosevelt, and, as a reward, was appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (and later ambassador to the Court of St. James), from which perch he launched the political careers of his…

When it comes to fighting recessions, there's a tendency to see "fiscal stimulus" packages as wasteful, as a form of "throwing money at the problem." The critics have a point. But the conclusion that therefore we should do nothing is also wrong. Instead, careful attention should be paid to the…

Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution

I swam through the most beautiful coral reef recently: large quantities of vibrant elkhorn coral just a few feet below the water's surface. When healthy, coral supports a vast network of underwater life, and the reef was full of Sergeant Majors, Butterflyfish, Fairy Basslets, Gobys, Trunkfish,…

American Lightning

Americans have a deep and understandable aversion to gasoline taxes. In a culture more single-mindedly devoted to individual freedom than any other, tampering with access to the open road is met with visceral opposition. That's why earnest efforts to alter American driving habits take the form of…

The Ongoing Saga of 'Obamaweek'

On December 15, the city council of Binghamton, New York--every member a proud progressive--unanimously passed an ordinance making it a crime to discriminate against fat people. The next day, David Paterson, the famously progressive governor of New York, proposed a special "fat tax" on soda pop…

Zamboanga City, Philippines

Doubt

NOW WE KNOW how President Bush reads so many books. It's a "discipline deal," the president says. "I don't watch TV," he says. And he reads every morning while doing an hour of exercise and on the many long flights aboard Air Force One.

Bill Richardson, one adult ticket, under the bus: Sources tell ABC News that officials on the Obama Transition Team feel that before he was formally offered the job of commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was not forthcoming with them about the federal investigation that is looking…

If you're concerned about the dwindling vital signs of Western culture in Britain, pull out the defibrilator, stat. A national British TV station allowed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give its alternative Christmas message. The Guardian is now eulogizing terrorist leaders in official "obituaries"…

The Obama transition train just keeps on chugging down the tracks to Smoothville, huh? Bill Richardson reportedly has withdrawn as the commerce secretary-designate in the face of a federal grand jury investigation into whether the former presidential candidate exchanged government contracts for…

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When the Democrats captured the majority in Congress two years ago, some of their boosters in the media like Joe Klein predicted an outbreak of "centrism." Red State Democrats would ease their party to the middle and end the era of extreme partisan polarization. Back then Klein wrote a Time cover…

Richard Falk is Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He is also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. Princeton hasn't booted him yet, but the Israelis did, refusing him entry to the country and putting him…

Greg Sargent, the prolific TPM reporter, announced today that he's heading to the Washington Post to run a new blog. Sargent is an unrepentant Democratic partisan, which means he should fit in well with the staff at the Post, but also a top notch reporter. During the campaign, Sargent would ping…

Just for fun, a brief year in review of Obama's legendary new openness and transparency with the press corps:

So Patterson is leaning towards Caroline according to report: New York Gov. David Paterson says the search is ongoing, but two people close to him tell The Associated Press they believe Caroline Kennedy will be appointed to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.... Meanwhile, Kennedy seems to…

Donald Westlake, one of the boss's favorite authors, passed away yesterday. Westlake wrote once for THE WEEKLY STANDARD, a piece that can be read here, and was the subject of a profile in this magazine by Steven Lenzner, which can be read here. Lenzner begins: Plato, as everyone knows, once defined…

It's true that there are very few examples in 20th century history of a bombing campaign that actually broke the morale of a people at war and sapped them of the will to continue the fight. The Battle of Britain did nothing but harden the resolve of the English, and the destruction of German cities…

"At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides." Hamas vows revenge on Israel, as soon as it can escape from under the barrage of…

Lot's wife looked back at a scene of devastation and was turned into a pillar of salt. Salt--as in the salty tears we shed last week as we looked back on 2008, a year of deepening economic recession, and the worst for share prices since 1931. Worse: most forecasters are expecting an even bleaker…