June 2009

Leon Wieseltier goes nuclear on President Patience: His worst moment came when he hid behind Martin Luther King, Jr.: "What we can do is bear witness and say to the world that the incredible demonstrations that we've seen is a testimony to--I think what Dr. King called the arc of the moral…

I realize the dust has pretty much settled on the whole Pitney-Obama-Milbank brouhaha over whether the White House planted a question from a friendly HuffPo blogger, but I'm sort of amazed that in all the back and forth over this, no one to my knowledge has pointed out that this whole mess was…

A new poll from Rasmussen on cap and trade: As for the bill itself, 37% of all Americans at least somewhat favor it, while 41% are at least somewhat opposed to it. Twenty-two percent (22%) are not sure what to make of it. But there's more intensity on the "no" side: Only 12% strongly favor the…

Lefty journalist Todd Purdum has a hit piece in the new Vanity Fair on Sarah Palin. You don't have to be a big Palin fan to recognize the article is full of dubious claims, and is dependent on self-serving stories provided on background by some of the people who ran the McCain campaign into the…

Yesterday I spoke with Otto Reich, President Bush's Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, about the latest developments in Honduras. Reich, who was in Panama when President Zelaya was ousted, was accused by Venezuela's representative to the OAS of being involved in the coup…

A legal eagle friend writes in: There's been a lot of good blog coverage of the Supreme Court's Ricci/discrimination decision and its effect on the Sotomayor nomination. Perhaps it would be worth pointing to the blog posts of National Journal's Stuart Taylor, who points out that Sotomayor's…

Le Bourget

From Obama's presser today with Uribe: Over the last several years, I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, even if the results don't always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable to the United States…

Editor's note: The following is Thomas Joscelyn's response to this letter from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Let's be clear about the extreme position Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has taken here: Al Qaeda-trained terrorists pose no threat to the American people. This is obviously a disturbing stance -…

Editor's note: The following letter was submitted by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who serves as Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, in response to this blog post by Thomas Joscelyn. Despite the court rulings declaring the…

Eli Lake provides some more background on Mousavi in the new issue of TNR: True, Mir Hossein Mousavi and the people directly surrounding him are known quantities in the U.S. intelligence community. Both Mousavi and his most powerful ally during the campaign, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were key…

Apparently some are having trouble telling the difference: Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to former President Jimmy Carter, is convinced this signals "the beginning of the end for the Iranian equivalent of the neocons, the radical ayatollahs who see the world as a battle…

Haaretz reports: Unlike his predecessors, the newly appointed Israeli negotiator to win Shalit's release, Hagai Hadas, is employed as an external consultant and is being paid by the Prime Minister's Office, Channel 10 reported yesterday. The contract for his employment is for a year, starting this…

That's what Paul Krugman calls me and the 70 percent of Americans who don't think "dealing with global warming" should be a top priority for the United States government: Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn't it politics as usual? Yes, it is - and that's why it's…

In the course of Donald Morrison's review of Au Revoir to All That by Michael Steinberger, we learn that McDonald's is the largest private employer in all of France, which is sort of like being the largest provider of health insurance in North Korea, but nonetheless, it feels like a major triumph…

As Congress tackles President Barack Obama's top two domestic priorities -- climate change and health care -- he faces some of his most serious challenges from fellow Democrats. Uh oh: Looks like somebody just read the cap-and-trade bill... "The president had said in the past that he doesn't…

Col. Reuesser won: Retired Marine Corps Col. Kenneth L. Reusser, called the most decorated Marine aviator in history and was shot down in three wars, has died at age 89. Reusser flew 253 combat missions in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and was shot down in all three, five times in all. His 59…

The Senate Armed Services Committee followed the lead of its House counterpart late last week and added money to the defense authorization bill for additional F-22 fighters -- in defiance of a White House veto threat. As CQ's Josh Rogin reported, the Senate version of the bill "would permit the…

Rice and Axelrod make clear their intention to stay the course: The legitimacy of the government, while questioned by the people of Iran, is not the critical issue for the U.S. goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability, Rice said. "It's in the United States' national…

Kfar Adumim Settlement, Judea (West Bank) We stand on a promontory gazing at the bleached beauty of the Judean Desert. We could be looking at hills on the moon with a few human outcroppings: just down and to the left is the village of Anatot, birthplace of the prophet Jeremiah. Eleven miles to the…

The Enemy at the Gate

Dick Durbin's 'Insider Trading'

On June 15, I went to bed with a pang of melancholy, Father Time having slipped another year out of my back pocket while my attention was elsewhere. Thirty-nine years earlier, I'd been brought into this world the same way that I suspect I'll depart it: naked and crying for my mom.

Plain, Honest Men

The conventional wisdom about the bailouts of 2008 goes something like this. Federal regulators started off on the right foot by bailing out Bear Stearns and midwifing its sale to JPMorgan Chase. They were right to bail out AIG six months later, but botched the execution. And Lehman Brothers, the…

Democrats are clinging stubbornly to their new religion of "realism" and "pragmatism" in foreign affairs. Even where prudence dictates otherwise, as it surely does in responding to the fraudulent Iranian election and its aftermath, President Obama has been tepid at best in condemning the conduct of…

History is filled with many exciting "What ifs?"

Year One

A "man-cession." That's what some economists are starting to call it. Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80 percent had been held by men. Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, characterizes the recession as a "downturn" for women but…

Golden Legacy

The events of the past week in Iran, following the June 12 presidential election there, have been remarkable and hopeful. It's been a moment when one would like a president of the United States--who has, in such moments, a supporting but not an inconsequential role--to rise to the occasion. Barack…

The 400th anniversary of the first publication of Shakespeare's sonnets slipped silently by, all but unnoticed, in late May and early this month. But that is perhaps routine, since like all things Shakespearian, his sonnets are hedged in still-unsolved mystery.

A month after his speech in Cairo reaching out to the Muslim world, Barack Obama will make another historic trip: this time, to Moscow. While many Obama supporters hope that the July 6-8 visit will push the much-anticipated "reset button" in the badly strained relationship between Russia and the…

Shakedown

During the Kosovo war in 1999, a lot of Americans got a chuckle out of the story--probably apocryphal--about Yugoslav soldiers storming into a Belgrade news agency and demanding that the journalists hand over the Internet. What was funny was the way the soldiers sort of got it. They understood that…

Last Tuesday, Brazil, Russia, India, and China--the so-called BRIC nations--met in Yekaterinburg, Russia, for what was supposed to be an anti-American gabfest. The main agenda item for the first formal meeting of the four largest developing economies was the future of the dollar. In recent months,…

The modern Middle East has had numerous "game-changing" moments, when history turned. Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798, Muhammad Ali's conquest of the Nile Valley in 1805, and the French invasion of Algeria in 1830 introduced Europeans and European ideas into the region. The British…

Rejecting "false choices" is a favorite rhetorical device of President Obama. His speeches are littered with examples. A half-dozen times, he's repudiated "the false choice between our security and our ideals." He's dismissed "the false choice between sound science and moral values." He's not only…

Here's how President Obama concluded an interview in the Oval Office today: "But, look, I just think that what we've been doing over the last six months is getting people back into fighting trim. This is a town where there was just a belief that nothing could get done....I'll use just the workout…

Here's the view of one senior House GOP staffer who just emailed me: "Tonight, 50 Democrats lost their jobs and this bill is dead in the Senate."

According to C-Span, eight Republicans voted with the Democrats. Update: The eight Republicans include two likely 2010 Senate candidates--Mike Castle of Delaware and Mark Krik of Illinois: McHugh (NY) Reichert (WA) Smith (NJ) Lance (NJ) LoBiondo (NJ) Bono Mack (CA) Castle (DE) Kirk (IL) Forty-four…

Bermuda may have taken Gitmo detainees in order to soften Obama's crackdown on offshore banks. Joe Biden will mediate dispute between top Obama intel officials. What could go wrong? Palin mocks Kerry. Charles Krauthammer: Can Mousavi become Iran's Yeltsin? Jim Geraghty: Obama's $44 million lie.…

The House held several hours of debate today on the cap-and-trade bill, which grew by a whopping 300 pages overnight, with a vote planned for this evening. Just as things were wrapping up, Rep. John Boehner took the floor for his several minutes to speak. When he surpassed his five minutes, and…

The Hill's Michael O'Brien reports that Obama attached a signing statement to the war-funding bill--breaking, once again, his campaign pledge to end a practice that was oh-so-nefarious when President Bush did it: What George Bush has been trying to do as part of his effort to accumulate more power…

Ben Smith does a good job trying to get to the bottom of Dennis Ross's move to the NSC, but it's still far from clear just what this means for administration policy toward Iran or Israel. Dan Senor offers some speculation, telling Smith that the move will bolster the position of those inside the…

The Washington Post reports on the view among Arab democracy activists of events in Iran: The frustration comes against a backdrop of deep-rooted skepticism among pro-democracy activists that U.S. policies under President Obama will help transform the region, despite his vow to engage the Muslim…

Glenn Greenwald has a two-part Britney Spears-style meltdown because this blog expressed concern about the conditions under which Gilad Shalit has been imprisoned for the last three years by the terrorist group Hamas. Apparently Greenwald thinks I'm guilty of applying a double standard -- concern…

From the Times's Caucus blog: The death of Michael Jackson on Thursday recalled his brush a quarter century ago with an aide to President Ronald Reagan - John G. Roberts Jr., who would go on to become chief justice of the United States. Mr. Roberts, it appears, was not the King of Pop's biggest fan…

In recent weeks, European nations have come forward to say they are considering taking, or will take, some Gitmo detainees. Since January, Europe has only accepted a handful of detainees under special circumstances. The Obama administration wants Europe to take more, but the European nations have…

Andrew Shearer, who served as national security adviser to former Australian PM John Howard, goes nuclear on Obama: Barack Obama came to office full of lofty rhetoric and promises to restore American leadership. As street protests begin to peter out, ground into Tehran's pavements by thugs…

Greenpeace just came out in opposition to the massive, 1,200-page bill the House is considering today. I say 1,200 pages, but it may have expanded to 1,500 overnight, as there's a rumor than 300 pages of amendments were added around 2 a.m. Conservatives quickly took to Twitter to laud Greenpeace,…

Michelle Malkin is live-blogging the debate on the impending cap-and-trade vote in the House.

Remember when certain congressmen and presidential candidates denounced "predatory lending" last year? Too-good-to-be-true teaser rates on adjustable-rate mortgages supposedly tricked borrowers into taking out loans they couldn't afford. It was never clear to me why people wouldn't understand that…

Death by a thousand cuts. Or in the case of the efficiency of the U.S. economy, by at least four: energy policy, health care policy, trade union resurgence, and fiscal madness.

From Chad Johnson, aka Ocho Cinco, a classy walkback: Okay, first Mrs. Fawcett now Mr. Jackson, please tell me that this is a mistaken rumor, if not this is just as sad as 9/11...about 4 hours ago okay not as bad as 911, its sad period, both situations my goodness people, they just said he is okay…

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who also served in the Clinton White House, seemed to aggrandize Obama at Clinton's expense at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning in D.C. When asked to talk about the differences between his current and former boss when addressing national…

The neocons are the bad guys, pressuring Obama to take a tough stand against tyranny and murder in Iran with the aim of emboldening Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. At least that's what I keep reading at the Huffington Post and Think Progress. Meanwhile, the realists advising Obama are the great heroes…

A long time ago, magazines and newspapers would receive feedback from readers via letters. These consisted of words in ink or pencil committed on paper. Most shockingly, the information was often handwritten. Other times a type machine was used. The writer then had to place the paper in an…

Haaretz reports: European diplomatic sources said Thursday that kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit will be transferred to Egypt in the coming hours or coming days. This information has yet to be confirmed by Israeli officials. Shalit was abducted three years ago to the day. One…

Politico reports the threat from the White House. I'm not buying it. The Senate Armed Services Committee is in a closed door mark-up of the defense authorization bill, and the White House is obviously concerned that they're going to follow the lead of the House Armed Services Committee, which…

Last week on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd reported that administration officials were "frustrated that they're not getting credit for what's going on in Iran.…they think that Cairo speech did help supporters of Mousavi sort of see light at the end of the tunnel in their country." As Jonah Goldberg…

Just as the Dems are trying to nationalize healthcare, within the Ways and Means Committee Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) is out with a new effort to highlight the rampant waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid -- and just how bad an idea it would be to simply create a far bigger…

Lieberman, McCain, and Graham held a presser announcing new Iran legislation they intend to introduce. It will increase funding for Radio Farda and Voice of America, both of which have been critical at keeping Iranians informed of what's happening in their own country and reporting those events to…

Undivided Jerusalem My Israeli seatmate on the flight to Israel turns to me and says "Obama." My heart sinks. "What the hell he does now?" he demands to know. "Why he hates us and he doesn't care about us? And what he is doing with Iran? He is crazy?" If he's expecting a defense, or even a coherent…

Picture 9.png It was to be expected that the American people would sympathize with Jenny Sanford after her husband, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, admitted to an affair with an Argentine woman named Maria. The affair, and its odd revelation, took over the national news cycle for several days…

It's a little long for my taste, but given that only 24 percent even know that cap and trade is environmental legislation, Republicans have some explaining to do if they want to build any real resistance to the measure. Add to that the fact that video of Democrats admitting electricity rates will…

Noemie Emery sends in reasons this scandal is better than others: 1. He's a name, not a number. 2. No hookers crossing state lines to hotel assignations. 3. No one comes out as one more ‘Gay-American.' 4. No Israelis on payrolls as security experts. 5. No one has cancer, or is not in remission.…

Via NRO: There will be a Candle vigil this Thursday at 8:30 in Dupont Circle NW, Washington, D.C. to honor and remember those who have died in Iran. Please come wearing black with a white candle.

Elliott Abrams has an important piece in the Wall Street Journal on U.S.-Israeli agreements about natural growth of West Bank settlements.

Elliott Abrams has an important piece in the Wall Street Journal on U.S.-Israeli agreements about natural growth of West Bank settlements.

A recent Washington Post headline blared some unhappy news for the White House: "Obama Initiatives Hit Speed Bumps On Capitol Hill." Moving from popular campaign slogans like "change" to actual legislation is difficult. At one level, Obama understands this. "We've got a much longer journey to…

While much attention has been focused on the House Armed Services Committee's decision last week to include funding in the fiscal 2010 defense authorization act for the purchase of 12 additional F-22s despite Secretary Gates' efforts to shut down the program, one of the most hotly debated aspects…

An incredible video shows an Apache helicopter in action against Taliban militants.

Jim Manzi: Dear Member of Congress: Why You Should Vote Against Waxman-Markey. Robert Kaplan: Iran's Struggle, and Ours. John Kerry's latest botched joke. Chavez whips up anti-Semitism. The Guardian: Neda Soltan's family 'forced out of home' by Iranian authorities.

A friend emails in response to the news that Obama has rescinded Fourth of July invitations to Iranian diplomats: Maybe the White House is just embarrassed that none of the Iranians RSVP'ed! How humiliating to be throwing a party that no one wants to come to!

We're told that Obama's policies are really far more pro-Israel than those of George W. Bush, who didn't have the foresight to see the demographic weakness of the Jewish state, and didn't have the courage to pressure its citizens into painful concessions -- for their own good. But the Israeli…

The Washington Times reports: The White House has rescinded the invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at U.S. embassies around the world. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said nobody from Iran RSVPed to come, and at this point, the invitations are no longer valid.…

CNN airs an interview with another Iranian necon, this one a girl who just witnessed a "massacre" in the heart of Tehran. The video follows, but at one point she tells the CNN correspondent (starting at about 2:05): "This was exactly a massacre. You should stop this, you should help the people of…

Via John Boehner's press office: In a CNBC interview today, prominent Obama supporter and economic advisor Warren Buffett blasted Speaker Pelosi's national energy tax, calling it a "huge tax" and "fairly regressive" that will harm "an awful lot of people." Video here: The House will vote on cap and…

From today's briefing: The White House has rescinded its invitation to Iran diplomats to attend its July 4 festivities. None of them RSVP'd, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. But, he added, "I don't think it's surprising that nobody's signed up to come given the events of the past days," Gibbs…

The boss forwards an e-mail from a friend who's been watching Mark Sanford's press conference in disbelief: Everyone's been advising the Republicans to broaden the tent, to get beyond the narrow moralism that has allegedly bedeviled the party. Now the fates have conspired to give the GOP an easy…

A few days ago, Jennifer Rubin, writing at Pajamas Media, wondered: "Why is the Justice Department Cozying Up to Islamic Radicals?" Rubin obtained a copy of an email seeking volunteers at the DOJ to represent the department in its booth at the Islamic Society of North America's convention. ISNA is…

All the folks who thought the Right was being unreasonable yesterday will suddenly decide that univiting the Iranians to a barbecue that would happen concurrent with their murdering of dissidents in the streets is the coolest, smartest, most measured response ever. Hey, today is a new day: The…

Reihan Salam writes at the Daily Beast: And though Obama couldn't bring himself to acknowledge McCain's influence, or even that his script has changed at all as events have unfolded, it's clear Obama has come around to a darker view of Iran's rulers. Just as Obama was hilariously reluctant to…

You thought his outreach to the Iranians was a disgrace: Variety's David Cohen saw the latest "Transformers" movie --- "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" --- and filed this report on its reference to President Obama, but not, at least in his eyes, in a good way. Cohen writes, "So as usual in…

Yes, we know. You're the president. "How is it that Obama was a genius yesterday for not condemning Iranian brutality and tomorrow he'll be heralded as a genius for condemning it today?" Milton Friedman on "How to Cure Health Care." In other news, Mark Sanford is also a hypocrite for having used an…

Less than 24 hours after Barack Obama's strongest statement on Iran, three new stories underscore his administration's fundamentally weak approach to the terrorist regime and offer hints as to why he has been so eager to engage the mullahs. First, a Washington Times article by former USA Today…

Jules Crittenden: I recommend the United States embassies and career diplomats that are being compelled to go along with this travesty mullah-proof their Fourth of July events by inviting a lot of girls in American flag bikinis, just to be on the safe side. It's a surefire antidote to Obama's…

I'm a day late, but this is important. ABC's Jake Tapper reports that three members of Styx were seen at the White House Monday. He wrote: "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto -- 3 members of Styx are about to be given a WH tour." Domo Arigato? Seriously? You would think that if Tapper were going to make a…

Looks like Rudy Giuliani is giving a lot of thought to how someone might reform New York state government. ...

It is clear to all but the most blinkered observer that Iran's recent presidential election was a sham. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fraudulent "victory" over challenger Mir Hussein Mousavi, and the violence that followed, confirmed that the Islamic Republic is a brutal police state that crushes…

I peg this at about 60 percent bias and 90 percent bull (unverified transcript from CNN): BROWN: Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm going to beat the dead horse to try to get an answer to this question. We're watching this violence unfold and yet you're administration has told embassies around the…

Former vice president Dick Cheney has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster to publish his memoirs. The book will be published by the house's "Threshold" imprint, run by former Cheney adviser Mary Matalin. The opportunity to work with Matalin again was a significant factor in the decision, says a…

Prague At the Kolkovna bar and restaurant, upon telling the waiter I preferred nonsmoking seating, he looked at me with slight hesitation before saying that section is located not outside along the sidewalk or in the back of the room but rather in the basement. I chose the smoking section. It is…

1) Obama's made the least out of his strong opening statement on Iran. Having used the word "condemn" -- for the first time -- and "appalling" as well, the president followed up mostly with mush. He ducked the question on whether Iranian diplomats are still invited to July 4 celebrations at…

Harry Reid pledged that Congress would take up an immigration reform bill by the end of this year, but Ed Morrissey points out that the White House is trying to squelch any expectations that an immigration bill will come up soon, with health care and cap and trade dominating Obama's domestic…

Barack Obama's statement today on Iran was good. His answers to questions that followed were not. Most interesting was his exchange with Chuck Todd of NBC News. Todd asked why Obama has refused to discuss consequences for the behavior of the Iranian regime, given Obama's stated concern about human…

This is Russia invades Georgia redux. Obama flails for a few days and finally gets the rhetoric where it should have been from day one. If speaking forthrightly is right today, why was it not right four days ago? If speaking forthrightly would endanger allegedly greater interests, why speak today?…

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Monday that Iranian diplomats are still welcome to attend Fourth of July parties at U.S. embassies around the world: "There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," Kelly said. "We have made a strategic decision to engage on a…

The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost. I have made it…

Interesting arguments from the White House these days. We see here, reporting that advisers to Barack Obama are frustrated that their man is not getting enough credit for the protests in Iran. The Post reports that "privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the…

Sanford had not been in touch with his staff, security, or family since Thursday, but his office sent an update last night saying he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail: "I apologize for taking so long to send this update, and was waiting to see if a more definitive idea of what part of the trail…

So the Iranians are charging the families of those murdered by the basij $3,000 for the privilege of burying their children. Barack Obama is paying $12 million per Uighur to any country that will take them. If Obama is to sit across from A'jad or Kamenei or whoever Joe Klein thinks is in charge of…

Bill Sweetman has the scoop: This Sunday, June 28, National Geographic TV airs Hitler's Stealth Fighter. Set your TiVos or just kick the rest of the family off the TV, because this one should be good. Back when stealth was very, very secret, a few people quietly advised me to take a look at the…

The editors at the New York Times line up with Joementum on a matter of national security: The Bush administration planned to increase the Afghan Army from 90,000 troops to 134,000. That still won't be big enough to secure a vast, rugged country with a larger population than Iraq's. American…

With a diminished number of Western reporters on the ground in Tehran, more and more of whom are getting arrested, much of the news out of Iran is based on the innumerable eyewitness reports that come by phone and Internet. Making sense of it all here in Prague is Rod Shahidi, director of Radio…

Politico's Josh Kraushaar goes after Marco Rubio: Twitter hasn't always been a politician's best friend - see Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra's comparison of House Republican floor rebellions to the uprising in Iran or Newt Gingrich calling Sonia Sotomayor a "racist." Florida Senate candidate Marco…

Andrew Sullivan links to a poll on U.S. public opinion, which finds that 43 percent of Americans believe that the level of support President Obama has provided for Iranian demonstrators has been "about right," while 35 percent believe he has not been aggressive enough. Sullivan claims that this…

Democratic advocates of a government run health insurance option are touting a New York Times poll released over the weekend as more evidence of public support for their pet idea. In a front page article on Saturday, the paper blared this news based on its new survey: Americans overwhelmingly…

In an interview broadcast on CBS's The Early Show Monday morning, President Obama was asked about his administration's response to the protests in Iran. "The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make…

The newspaper of record explains why it's just so hard for the president and his advisers to know how to react to events in Iran: . . . the paucity of information from Iran adds another layer of complexity to Mr. Obama's challenge as he wrestles with how to respond publicly to the crackdown on…

Jen Rubin has an exclusive story at Pajamas Media that should horrify every law-abiding American: the Department of Justice is seeking volunteers for the "unique opportunity" of manning a booth at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Convention, which will take place in Washington, D.C. over…

We are told that President Barack Obama has said relatively little over the past 10 days because he does not want to feed perceptions that America is "meddling." Fine. He's being overly cautious, in my view. But let's assume his expressed concerns are genuine.

While the regime murders its own people in the streets, the Obama administration reassures Iranian diplomats that they're still welcome at Fourth of July barbecues at U.S. embassies across the world -- it's all good: "There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State…

video of her death Kasamin Makan, Neda Agha-Setan's fiancee, was interviewed by BBC Persia, noting that Neda would have turned 27 this year. "Neda's goal was not Mousavi or Ahmadinejad, it was her country and was important for her to fight for this goal. She had said many times that if she had lost…

From a CNN interview this morning with a man described by CNN as an Iranian student protester in Tehran: Mohammad: Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely - is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it's illegal. Do not recognize it.…

His wife, security detail, and staff haven't seen him since Thursday. What in the world is going on here? Sanford's last known whereabouts were near Atlanta, where a mobile telephone tower picked up a signal from his phone, authorities said. His wife says she is unconcerned, and foul play is not…

Iran3.jpg An Iranian photojournalist who was getting powerful images of protesters from places other journalists could not or would not tread is missing. From LIFE: A NOTE TO OUR READERS: We are saddened to report that the Iranian photojournalist, whose pictures appear in this gallery, is missing.…

While the Iranian people took to the streets last week to confront their tyrannical regime, S. 908 -- the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, introduced two months ago by Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Evan Bayh (D-IN), and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) -- was picking up steam on the Hill. As of Friday, the…

The Connecticut senator with a 50+ unfavorable rating, a sweetheart mortgage problem, and a challenger who is leading in the polls, probably didn't need this from the president. Washington Times reporter Christina Bellantoni reports, via her Twitter account: Obama accidentally calls his one-time…

I'm sure that's the question our readers were asking as they watched events unfold in Tehran, and thanks to the communications revolution, Twitter gives us an answer: Considering how well fighting 4 freedom in Iraq went, I dont know that we should B jumping in2 this Iran deal. I think that truly…

North Korea threatens the United States of America. But we're not worried, because President Obama warns the Norks via CBS that "the T's are crossed and all the I's are dotted in terms of what might happen." Harry Smith briefly departs from drooling MSM slavishness to argue with him, albeit weakly,…

North Korea threatens the United States of America. But we're not worried, because President Obama warns the Norks via CBS that "the T's are crossed and all the I's are dotted in terms of what might happen." Harry Smith briefly departs from drooling MSM slavishness to argue with him, albeit weakly,…

The AP reports: The Supreme Court has upheld a federal government permit to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby lake, even though all its fish would be killed. By a 6-3 vote Monday, the justices say a federal appeals court wrongly blocked the permit on environmental grounds. A friend…

President Obama told a Pakistani newspaper that he is not sure whether the elections in Iran are fair: "Obama told Pakistan's English-language "Dawn" newspaper in an interview published on June 21 that the United States has no way of knowing whether the election at the heart of the Iranian…

A common complaint among Catholics is the lack of mystery and sense of awe when it comes to mass. Between the modern style of the church itself, the New Dawn music ("Though the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust!"), and the bright lights, mass can become downright pedestrian. This has…

Check out this sharp analysis from the MSNBC crew: From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro *** Ramping up the rhetoric: As the violence and protests escalated in Iran on Saturday, President Obama stepped up his criticism about what's happening there. "The Iranian government must…

The Wall Street Journal reports on the German firm's shady dealings with the Iranian regime, which included helping the country develop "one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online…

What makes these protests in Iran so different from ones in the past is that the Revolutionary Guard and other police and security forces had previously been able to step in and successfully repress the demonstrators-to the point of deterring such activities from happening in the first place. Not…

German chancellor Angela Merkel has urged the ruling regime in Tehran to allow a full recount of the disputed presidential elections of June 12. "Germany sides with those Iranians who want to exercise their right to freedom of expression and assembly", Merkel declared on Sunday; making it one of…

Is President Obama anti-business? The obvious answer is yes. Yet he insists he's a free-market guy who hates "meddling in the private sector" but has been forced to. So in deciding whether he's anti-business, let's be fair and judge Obama by nonideological and nonpartisan standards. I have four…

The W. Kendall Myers treason story--the retired State Department gent and never-published scholar whose 30 years of skillful espionage on Cuba's behalf has recently come to the notice of the authorities--has already produced one great benefit. Not for some years have we seen newspaper writing like…

Conan O'Brien, the new host of The Tonight Show, is funny, witty, and possesses the sort of affable geekiness that makes him seem approachable. In its first weeks, his new version of Tonight--airing live-to-tape from a gorgeous purpose-built neo-art deco studio on Los Angeles's Universal lot--has…

Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift

As long as the health care reform plan envisioned by the Obama administration and congressional Democrats was just a series of slogans, it was easy for the left to build support for it and difficult for the right to imagine how it could be stopped. It is hard, after all, to object to vague promises…

The Food of a Younger Land

The Taking of Pelham 123

The Unfinished Game

Love and Obstacles

"Africa's longest-serving leader," as Reuters put it, died last week. President Omar Bongo of Gabon, the man in question, was being treated for cancer at a clinic in Spain when his "four decades of tight control over the central African oil-producing nation" (Reuters again) came to an end.

When Gerard Baker a year ago wrote in the Times of London that Barack Obama had "Ventured Forth to Bring Light to the World," it was widely acknowledged to be a clever satire, but this past week we have broken new ground in divinity politics. Forget the comparisons to our Slain Prince (John F.…

On June 7, Lebanon's pro-West March 14 coalition surprised the world by defeating the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance in parliamentary elections. Although March 14 was the incumbent, the coalition was widely seen as the underdog vis-à-vis its Iranian- and Syrian-backed opponents. The victory not…

France is a famously volatile place. Talk of cake can trigger a revolution. The British are made of more phlegmatic stuff. Pastry alone would never do the trick. What it takes, it turns out, are a tea caddy, jellied eels, vitamin supplements, a sandwich cage (I have no idea), Scotch eggs (don't…

As the public's enthusiasm for a major new energy tax wanes, advocates of the administration's "cap and trade" emissions proposal have found a new justification: national security. We should adopt a cap and trade energy tax, they say, because this will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and thus…

The Enemies of Gen. Jones

The cap and trade legislation supported by the Obama administration is a stealth strategy for a massive long-term tax increase. It is a large tax on all American households, and the tax burden rises in future years without any need for further legislation. It will evolve into an enormous new source…

Renegade

The recent murder of late-term abortion specialist Dr. George Tiller cast a spotlight once again on the violent fringe of the pro-life movement. What motivates them? How do they differ from the law-abiding citizens who work and demonstrate against abortion?

On two consecutive warm summer days last July, the House Armed Services Committee debated procedures for interrogating war-on-terror detainees. There were sharp exchanges between the lawmakers and during testimony from expert witnesses and disagreement on virtually every aspect of U.S. detention…

AEI's IranTracker posts a call for a general strike in Iran on Tuesday for "all workers and government and non-government workers, except workers of hospitals, health centers and fire-fighting agencies." The letter is posted with the disclaimer that the site's editors can't vouch for its…

Washington Times editor Barbara Slavin writes to Steve Clemons: steve, iran ceased being an islamic republic a week ago. now it's just another military dictatorship. Clemons concurs without hesitation. It's ironic then that Obama became the first American president to say otherwise just three…

From Poilitico44 (and note this has been posted since well before today's statement by the president, which one can at least argue is tough on Iran):

The most dramatic video to emerge from Iran today can be seen below and comes with a strong content warning:

Dan Senor and Christian Whiton write for Time: As for the notion that American silence is unhelpful to reformers, this simply contradicts historical experience. Successful movements to alter authoritarian and totalitarian regimes almost always depend on internal dissent backed by strong…

CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller has been doing some in-depth reporting on the president's trip to an ice cream parlor this afternoon. He reports that "Obama had vanilla frozen custard in a cup with hot fudge and toasted almonds." He reports that "Sasha had a Brownie sundae: vanilla…

An update from Radio Farda: - People have started to chant " Aloha Akbar" from roof tops. - Our Hot Bird Satellite is totally jammed in Iran . We are using three different sat. to reach our audience. - Confirmed reports say security forces are following demonstrators to the nearby houses and…

The White House released a paper statement from President Obama this afternoon, for the first time calling directly on the Iranian regime to "stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people." Statement from the President on Iran The Iranian government must understand that the world is…

There have been two pieces of Palau and Uighur-related news since yesterday. The first was a New York Times op-ed by Stuart Beck, the South Pacific island of Palau's representative to the United Nations. The second comes from the Wall Street Journal, which reports that at least some of the 13…

If I had any doubt about the need for a tougher approach to Iran, this has relieved me of it: "It's an ironic moment in history when I say I agree with Pat Buchanan, but I agree with Pat Buchanan," McCaskill said. "The president is being very smart and strategic here. Sometimes it's more important…

France continues to take a firmer stand on Iran than Obama. Sotomayor quits all-women's club. Al Sharpton to meet with freed Uighurs. To comply with Heller decision, D.C. will permit residents to obtain "1,000 additional types and models of handguns that had previously been banned." Goldfarb talks…

The GOP whip's office sends around this report from the Hill: House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on Friday said climate change bill negotiators are heading back to the drawing board after discussions between Democrats "blew up last night." A meeting between chairmen drafting the…

The Financial Times recently provided an interesting ranking of the 25 "most liveable" cities world-wide. At the top of the list in 2009 is Zurich, Switzerland, followed by Copenhagen and Tokyo. Compiled by Tyler Brûlé, editor-in-chief of global-affairs-lifestyle magazine Monocle, the ranking is…

Josh Kraushaar reports on some good news for Marco Rubio, who's challenging Gov. Charlie Crist in the 2010 GOP Senate primary: Rubio won overwhelming support from Republican party leaders in Pasco County (around Tampa-St. Petersburg), which neighbors Crist's home base of Pinellas County. Rubio…

I posted earlier on the increasingly paranoid and anti-Semitic writings of Andrew Sullivan, and now his colleague at the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, has keyed in on the same disturbing post. Goldberg is obviously troubled by the not-so-subtle insinuations Sullivan continues to make about AIPAC and…

The White House says that the House resolution on Iran is "very consistent" with the message coming from the president this week. But, nobody really believes that. The White House worked to tone down the House resolution and turn it into something that would not embarrass the White House by…

For much of the last decade, Massachusetts Democrat Richard Neal has banged away at proposals for vast tax increases on "offshore affiliated reinsurance"--coverage that insurance companies purchase from their own non-U.S. subsidiaries. As arcane as the issue sounds, the tax hike Neal wants could…

So I received a basically gracious note from the White House that I would no longer be a member of the President's Council on Bioethics at the end of the next business day.

Yesterday both the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Cesar Perales, the president and general counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), asking him "to provide documents related to [Sonia Sotomayor's] membership" in that…

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his first public statement today on the week-long protest sparked by the fraudulent electoral victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He blamed "media belonging to Zionists, evil media" for fueling divisions in Iran. Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan -- who…

Egypt's state-run newspaper Al-Ahram yesterday took the "international community" to task for its cautious response to the Iranian uprising. Between the mass demonstrations [of the reformists] decrying electoral fraud, and the counter-demonstrations accusing the reformists of allegiance to the…

Here are Democratic congressman Howard Berman's remarks, as delivered on the House floor this morning during debate on the resolution he cosponsored with Rep. Pence to support Iranian dissidents: Chairman Berman's remarks on H.Res. 560, expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the…

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) introduced the following resolution: Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes. Resolved, That the House of Representatives- (1)…

From today's Krauthammer column: Even from the narrow perspective of the nuclear issue, the administration's geopolitical calculus is absurd. There is zero chance that any such talks will denuclearize Iran. On Monday, President Ahmadinejad declared yet again that the nuclear "file is shut,…

U.S. Forces Afghanistan press release: Afghan National Army Commandos, assisted by Coalition forces, uncovered a drug cache and captured two known militants during a search of an enemy fighter safe haven in Ghorak district, Kandahar province, June 17. After receiving credible information regarding…

In a performance that may be remembered for years to come, Ayatollah Khamenei put on a show at this morning's prayers. The ayatollah said that not only were the elections legitimate, but that the "street challenge is not acceptable." He all but threatened Mousavi directly, saying: "I call on all to…

Yesterday, Media Matters hosted a panel at the National Press Club where five liberal activists discussed the use of "extremist" language by the conservative media and its allegedly violent effects. "We all need to set a tone for civil national discourse," declared Nancy M. Zirkin of the Leadership…

Yesterday, Media Matters hosted a panel at the National Press Club where five liberal activists discussed the use of extremist language by the conservative media and its violent effects. "We all need to set a tone for civil national discourse," declared Nancy M. Zirkin of the Leadership Conference…

The first thing to keep in mind when appraising the President's new regulatory scheme for the financial sector is that it is merely the administration's wish list, with the Congress yet to be heard from, and likely to resist adding the chore of systemic risk regulator to the Fed's burdens. The…

In an interview with the Washington Post's Foreign Policy blog, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, described as Mir Hussein Mousavi's "external spokesman," had some sharp words for President Barack Obama's recent comments about the demonstrations in Tehran. But Makhmalbaf also said some things that could make it…

Today, as protesters rally in Bermuda against Premier Ewart Brown because of his decision to accept four Uighur detainees from Gitmo, Bermuda's parliament will debate a no-confidence motion TEXT

Last week, Steve Hayes broke the story that the U.S. is mirandizing terrorist suspects captured in Afghanistan. Today, the House passed a measure that "would prohibit any funds under the act being used to provide the rights Americans enjoy under Miranda v. Arizona by the Department of Justice, to…

Photos from today's protests in Iran. Ed Morrissey: Obama has fired 2 IGs in 2 weeks, leashed another. Jeffrey Goldberg: The Taboo That Won't Shut Up. Barbara Boxer gets miffed at Brigadier General for addressing her as "ma'am." Chris Matthews says Howard Dean was John the Baptist to Obama's…

Allahpundit rounds up reports that indicate the clash between Mousavi and Khamanei could come to a head tomorrow. There's a lot of chatter that Khamanei will call in the Revolutionary Guard, and the Times (UK) reports: The moderate Iranian leader who says that he was robbed of victory in last…

I know that the protesters in Iran don't want the United States to interfere with their efforts in any way. I know this because John Kerry says it's true, and because every Democrat in government and the media is telling us that the people of Iran want the United States to keep quiet and not…

Reza Aslan discusses the Iranian election with Washington Times reporter Eli Lake and makes a rather startling assertion -- that Iran's electoral system provides "greater diversity of religious and political thought" than the American electoral system. The bizarre praise for Iranian democracy comes…

Hard to believe there was a moment after the fall of the Soviet Union when Radio Free Europe's existence came into question. Almost twenty years later, the broadcasts of RFE/RL (Radio Liberty) are in greater demand than ever in places like Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and, of course,…

Fox News: In case you forgot, Barbara Boxer is a senator. The feisty California lawmaker felt the need to remind an Army brigadier general of that fact Tuesday during a hearing before her Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, where the military officer testifying had the apparent gall…

The statement: "The human tragedy continues in Iran. Around the world, people are inspired by the courage of the Iranian people fighting for free elections, using new media tools like Twitter to ensure their voices are heard by all of us. America has a moral responsibility to stand up for these…

Time's Joe Klein thinks that Iran is "breezy with freedom." Freedom House, however, says Iran is "one of the most despotic regimes in the world." Peter Wehner observes in an excellent post Contentions that the problem with Klein's analysis, it seems, is that He mistakes frequent flyer miles for…

Lieberman and Graham got the Senate to vote on their photo amendment again, and again the Senate voted unanimously in support of the measure that would prevent the release of detainee photos that serve no purpose other than to put American troops in danger. CNN reports on the day's events, which…

The Republican Governors Association set up a website called The Corzine Times to campaign against New Jersey's Democratic governor Jon Corzine. A lawyer for the New York Times, Deborah Beshaw, has sent a "cease and desist" letter to the RGA that takes issue with the RGA's use of the NYT's…

Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) has some bizarre notions about "Uighur Nationalism" and the Uighur detainees held at Guantanamo. In a statement released Tuesday, Rohrabacher accused "some pundits in the Republican Party," including Newt Gingrich, of being duped by Chinese intelligence.…

Remember when the Iranians left blueprints for a nuclear warhead lying around, and then told the IAEA inspectors that the regime "received them inadvertently while purchasing its nuclear equipment on the black market decades ago"? Well, accidents will happen: Iran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog…

The Washington Post reports that President Obama's envoy to Sudan has declared an end to the genocide: President Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, said Wednesday that the Sudanese government is no longer engaging in a "coordinated" campaign of mass murder…

The Times's Joe Nocera reviews the Obama administration's financial regulatory overhaul: "[I]t's not even close to what Roosevelt accomplished during the Great Depression." Meanwhile, Peter Hart and Bill McInturff's polling shows that the president's approval rating is below 60 percent. And…

Matthias Kuntzel provided the necessary background in 2006.

Radio Farda sends along another letter it received from a journalist Teheran last night. It is written under the pseudonym E. Ahmadi: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 I woke up with a splitting headache this morning as the sounds of honking cars, loud explosions and screams and chants of last night were…

From Daniel Henniger: Medicaid alone didn't put California and New York on the brink. Add in spending on public education and you've accounted for about 60% of their budgets. This drives the deficits and gets all the ink, but not least among the casualties of bigness is the idea of governance. The…

Daschle.jpg In yet another blow to the Democrats' grand unified vision of gigantic, transformative health care reform passed in a matter of weeks, with a government-run option, Tom Daschle publicized a plan yesterday-without a government-run option. He's joining with fellow former Senate Majority…

From the Washington Times, W on Gitmo: "I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor," he said. "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists…

John Kerry, who lost the 2004 presidential election and despite having been and early and outspoken supporter of Barack Obama was passed over for any of the plum jobs in the new Democratic administration, has taken to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to write about Iran. Not surprisingly, he…

Earlier this week we began to see the stirrings of a second Iranian revolution, as hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians defied a government ban to publicly protest what appeared to be a rigged presidential election. Despite the regime's often times violent crackdown, the protests have…

President Obama is headed to Moscow in early July for his first ever U.S.-Russia summit. The administration, in an effort to "hit the reset button" when it comes to relations between the two countries, has in fact hit the delete button when it comes to ties with friends and allies in the region.

Government programs don't believe in heaven, but many seem to have eternal life. That federal initiatives grow old but never die is particularly significant today. Fueled by ideology and equipped with a large majority in Congress, President Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill are injecting…

Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou announced recently that China has dropped its objections to the self-governed island's participation as an observer in the World Health Organization (WHO). This is truly great news for Taiwan. Though it is a far cry from a full seat at the United Nations, limited…

The Wall Street Journal reports: A House committee threw a wrench in the Obama administration's plans to end Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-22 Raptor fighter program, voting instead to add $369 million in extra funding to keep production of the Air Force's most advanced jet alive. Mr. Gates thinks the…

Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel (that's the extreme anti-Israel branch), who has served time in jail for providing financial support to Hamas, who in a 2007 sermon "urged supporters to start a third intifada in order to ‘save al-Aksa Mosque, free…

CNN reports: Republican Rep. Mike Pence, criticizing President Obama for not saying more in support of protestors in Iran, said Wednesday that he is taking another step to show solidarity for the dissenting citizens of the country. "I appreciate the fact that the president said the protesters have…

Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel (that's the extreme anti-Israel branch), who has served time in jail for providing financial support to Hamas, who in a 2007 sermon "urged supporters to start a third intifada in order to ‘save al-Aksa Mosque, free…

Daytime MSNBC anchor David Shuster apologizes to Joementum: "Tamaran , an update now on a story we did earlier this week. On Monday we did a Hypocrisy Watch segment on Senator Joe Lieberman, his office points out that on some of the issues we mentioned Monday, there are no longer major differences…

A friend emails: Obama's tireless defenders have spent the past two days explaining that Obama's relative silence in the face of the Iranian crisis was actually aimed at helping the Iranian opposition. Anything he said, they claimed, would be cited by the Iranian government as unacceptable American…

Via Ace, Reuters reports: The State Department strongly rejected claims that the U.S. was interfering in the disputed June 12 election, pointing out that diplomats from other countries had also been summoned. "I suspect we are in good company. As the president has said, we are not interfering in…

Obama, on Monday, to the AMA: I'll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working. He forgot to brief Robert Gibbs on which ones. When asked at the press conference today which countries Obama was referring to, Gibbs stumbled: "I don't know exactly the countries. I think…

IranFootball.jpg As a fan of both liberty and sports, it's nice to see when the popular power of the former can help the cause of the latter. In Seoul, South Korea, the Iranian soccer team showed more than its traditional colors, adding make-shift green armbands to their uniforms, in a show of…

Obama said yesterday to CNBC: The difference between Ahmedinejad and Moussavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised. Either way we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has cause some…

In a slapdown not all that unlike the one furnished by the Iranian regime in reply to his March Nowruz message, our appeasing fly-vanquisher of a president has received an answer to his placatory toe-dipping on the stolen election. The foreign ministry, in "protest and displeasure," has hauled in…

Politico's Manu Raju reports that the GOP is "struggling to find its pitch on Iran." Maybe - Max Boot suggests Ben Smith may have overstated any rift - but so is the left. Andrew Sullivan is demanding "no recognition of Ahmadinejad" as "the first and absolute requirement of all Western…

The AP reports: State TV: Iran accuses US of "intolerable" meddling in its internal affairs. Quoth Bill Kristol: "If only."

Careful with the clone tool, Mahmoud. Like your Members Only jacket, it works only in small doses. Thugs, meet the Internet: Iran clamped down Tuesday on independent media in an attempt to control images of election protests, but pictures and videos leaked out anyway - showing how difficult it is…

Ensign was head of the Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking Republican position in the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell released this statement: "He's accepted responsibility for his actions and apologized to his family and constituents. He offered, and I accepted, his…

Matthew Cooper, now over at the Atlantic after a brief stint at Talking Points Memo, uses Marc Ambinder's blog to attack my colleague Steve Hayes for "buffoonery," for not being "genial," and for impugning the president's motives vis-à-vis Iran: It's not enough, though, for Neocons to disagree…

A friend emails: Obama has really hit a new low when the French are issuing better public statements than his administration: French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said: "We do not want to intervene directly and we are not doing that. But indignation, the need to support democrats, the need to…

Radio Free Europe's Radio Farda sends along an interesting eyewitness account from Tehran: Today, under slate skies and despite official warnings that the permit to march had been denied, against rumors that orders had been given to shoot to kill, they came. They came by the tens if not hundreds of…

Upper East Side Rep. Carolyn Maloney met with the editorial board of the New York Daily News as she prepares to mount a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand. When Gillibrand was first appointed, she told reporters she kept not one but two guns under her bed for self-defense (she says she's since…

Baucus bill: $1.6 trillion over 10 years. A socialist speaks for socialized health care. Cute. Sen. Claire McCaskill: Obama did not follow the law he co-sponsored on IG firing. "I am now the target of the most powerful man in this country, with an army of aides whose major responsibility today…

The House passed the supplemental yesterday by a vote of 226-202, with 32 Democrats voting against. Last month 51 Democrats voted against the spending, but since then the conference has added funding for the IMF and stripped out a Senate amendment that would have prevented the release of photos…

In an interview with CNBC yesterday, President Obama once again went out of his way to downplay the protests on the streets of Iran. "Well, I think first of all, it's important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and…

Dan Senor and Christian Whiton: "Five Ways Obama Could Promote Freedom in Iran" Robert Kagan: "Obama, Siding With the Regime" Danielle Pletka and Ali Alfoneh: "Iran's Hidden Revolution"

U.S. to Extend Its Job Benefits to Gay Partners

Late Monday afternoon, the District of Columbia's Board of Elections and Ethics determined that a proposed referendum to repeal the city council's decision to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions violated the city's Human Rights Act. The District's Democratic establishment…

President Barack Obama said Monday he was "deeply troubled" by the violence in Iran that he's been seeing on television. "I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent--all of those are universal values and need to be respected."

Editor's Note: Even as Uighur detainees, once trained in al Qaeda camps, frolic in the Bermuda surf, enjoying their release from the U.S. detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, newly captured detainees in Afghanistan are being read their Miranda rights, as if they were common criminals. The legal…

Today, the Washington Post has yet another piece claiming that Abu Zubaydah, a top al Qaeda terrorist captured in March 2002, was not really all that important. I say "yet another piece" because this is just the latest article in a long string of reporting by various outlets, including the Post,…

Obama ignores pleas of Iranian students and says he will negotiate with Ahmadinejad. Jules Crittenden: "History's age-old lesson is that sucking up to ambitious dictators is usually a bad idea." Pictures of the protests in Iran. Fred Kaplan: After its fraudulent election, Obama should harden his…

Sure, he'll be chatting it up from the East Room at the White House on Wednesday for an hour about his health care plan with no opposition in sight. But dang, Glenn Beck is sure unduly critical of his policies: "I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my…

A new Q-poll: Mayor Michael Bloomberg tops City Comptroller William Thompson, his chief Democratic challenger, 54 - 32 percent among New York City voters, who also say 62 - 28 percent that they'd rather chat with the Mayor at a July 4th picnic, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released…

Breaking news from the Royal Gazette--"Huge protest outside Cabinet": Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Cabinet building this afternoon to call for the Premier to step down following his decision to bring four Guantanamo detainees to Bermuda without consulting with the Governor or the UK…

One of Radio Farda's contacts in Tehran reports his own observations on the course of yesterday's events: I left my home in Tajrish along with my family at 3 p.m. We went down Valiast Street which is the main northern-southern avenue in Tehran and entered the Evin Exp'way which leads to Enghelab…

Politico's Patrick O'Connor writes: Republicans aren't letting go of the Nancy Pelosi-CIA flap. This afternoon, the House GOP drafted a privileged resolution that would establish a select subcommittee under the Intelligence Committee to "review and verify the accuracy of the speaker's…

Joe Klein returns from Iran and attacks McCain and the "neoconservatives" instead of the thugs who stole the election.

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has issued a statement, in which he refers to election "results that no one in their right mind can believe" and questions the legitimacy of the current regime: "A legitimate state must respect all points of view. It may not oppress all critical views. ...a government not…

An email from a friend who takes on blogger and Supreme Court litigator Tom Goldstein's new pro-Sotomayor op-ed in the New York Times -- "Her Justice Is Blind": Goldstein's op-ed is preposterous. In defending the Sotomayor nomination -- which Goldstein's done vehemently on his putatively…

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today: Again, I think I would, you know, stress for you the importance of what the president discussed also in his comments both yesterday and today about ensuring that, while we -- while we abhor the violence associated with this vigorous Iranian debate, that we also…

Well, if that ain't the cheapest, most effective government intervention I've seen all year: The State Department asked the social networking Web site Twitter last weekend to postpone scheduled maintenance that would have cut daytime service in Iran on Tuesday, just as protests against official…

American journalism's most prominent Iranian apologist writes: It's one thing to steal an election, another to steal it with the effrontery and ruthlessness apparent here in recent days. Translation: It's one thing to offer a ludicrous defense of a regime that's deeply hostile to human rights,…

Another in our ongoing series of "What if it Were W?" scenarios-an idea which now has its own blog. Obama experienced too oopsies on the way to and from the Rose Garden podium today: After holding a bilateral meeting in the Oval office with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the two leaders…

Press release: Washington, DC - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, in a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives announced that he is introducing a resolution later today supporting the dissidents in Iran. Pence's remarks follow: "I come to…

On Friday night, the Obama administration announced the release of more Gitmo detainees, including the transfer of Ahmed Zuhair to Saudi Arabia. As Thomas Joscelyn reported, Zuhair killed, or played a role in the killing of, an American named William Jefferson, who was working for the UN in Bosnia…

Ben Smith takes a stab: It's been suggested, variously, that this is a demotion for the hawkish Ross or a sign that (relative) doves have won the internal battles; that it's a promotion for Ross, and a sign that he has Obama's ear; that it reflects Iran's refusal to negotiation with a Jew (which…

Is it possible that the Iraqi election experience had something to do with Iranian expectations of an election? If critics of the war can for just a moment move beyond their own deeply held opinions about the invasion of Iraq -- that this was a war of choice fought on false premises to lower gas…

ABC News FAIL. Conservatives are single largest ideological group in the country. "Look at all these people, look at these numbers. If we come to the streets like this every day, they can't do anything," said Jila, a 53-year-old retired teacher marching with her two sons. Street art from Tehran.…

Late yesterday, President Obama chose to repeat the words of State Department spokesman Ian Kelly earlier in the day: Both said they were "deeply troubled" by events in Iran. When asked if the U.S. would go beyond that to condemn the actions of the regime, Kelly answered: "I haven't used that word,…

One of the reasons health care costs have risen so dramatically in recent years is the absurdly large torts that the trial bar extracts from juries and judges in medical malpractice cases. "It will be hard to make some of these changes if doctors feel like they're constantly looking over their…

The talk show host has apologized for his egregious joke directed at Palin's family.

Ben Smith TEXT And on Monday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the U.S. is "deeply troubled" by events in Iran but stopped short of condemning them. "I haven't used that word, ‘condemn,'" he told the State Department press corps. "We need to see how things unfold." "You need to see more…

Harry Reid releases a letter to the president offering his support for the administration's "decision to make the Middle East a priority." But amidst all the praise, the intended audience will spot numerous attempts by Reid to distance himself from the the president. 1) The administration has made…

Muammar Qaddafi, who had become gratifyingly less belligerent since the Reagan administration's 1986 airstrikes, subsequent economic sanctions, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, came out of his box during a visit to Italy on June 11. "What's the difference," he asked in an address to Italian…

On Sunday night, CNN ran part of an interview with a Uighur named Khalil Abdul Nasser. Until just a few days ago, Nasser was detained at Guantanamo. Nasser's transfer to Bermuda, along with three of his fellow Uighurs, has caused a storm of controversy on the tiny resort island. So, Nasser wanted…

Obama's says he's "deeply troubled" by the violence in Iran, but can't comment on whether the election was a sham because we didn't have election monitors on the ground. More importantly, he seems to say, we're not going to let the Iranian government's violent crackdown keep us from negotiating…

From a press availability with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi this afternoon: Q Mr. President, on Iran, does the disputed election results affect - there's been violence in the street - in any way change your willingness to meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad without preconditions? And also, do you have…

MSNBC's journalistic standards are, shall we say, somewhat flexible. Even by its weak standards, however, David Shuster today issued a report that was breathtaking for its mendacity. Simply put, Shuster lied--brazenly, knowingly, on the air. The subject of Shuster's piece was the left's all-purpose…

Egypt and Syria are up in arms about Bibi's speech, with Hosni Mubarak declaiming "Netanyahu's demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is ruining the chance for peace," and the state-run Syrian newspaper Tishrin editorializing that "The Zionist government . . . according to…

Greg Sargent reported today: In a move that could spark another fight with the GOP over CIA intelligence and secrecy, House Dems are quietly preparing to make major changes to the ways the CIA briefs Congress on covert actions, by broadening the pool of members of Congress who will have access to…

Be sure to check out Brink Lindsey's new essay in Reason, entitled "Nostalgianomics." It's the best critique I've read of Paul Krugman's Conscience of a Liberal. Lindsey writes: There is good evidence that changes in economic policies and social norms have indeed contributed to a widening of the…

A friend emails: Remember when McCain suspended his campaign and Obama said a president has to be able to do more than one thing at a time? Yet, today health care rollout is all he can do. He appears to be afraid of alienating the Ahmadinejad forces that stole the election because he wants to offer…

That's the headline in the Tehran Times, and the paper quotes a State Department official to back it up: he U.S. will pursue dialogue with Iran whether incumbent President Ahmadinejad or his rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, emerges as winner, a State Department official says. "The president's decision…

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty talks to Vaclav Havel. HT: TPM

The CIA walks back Panetta's comments on the former VP: "The Director was simply expressing his profound disagreement with the assertion that President Obama's security policies have made our country less safe. That's all there is to it. Everyone understands that al-Qaeda and its allies are a…

An email from one of Radio Farda's contacts in Tehran: I talked to a few students in Tehran (Monday morning Tehran time). They confirmed that the attack on their dormitory was brutal, destructive, and the authorities may have taken as many as 100 students with them. In Tehran, one faculty told me,…

A few days ago, before the Iranian presidential elections, the political head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Yadollah Javani, issued an unambiguous warning to Mousavi and his supporters. Javani compared Mousavi's campaign to Czechoslovakia's "velvet revolution" and the 1989…

Iran apologist Roger Cohen in today's Times: I've argued for engagement with Iran and I still believe in it, although, in the name of the millions defrauded, President Obama's outreach must now await a decent interval. I've also argued that, although repressive, the Islamic Republic offers…

Jeffrey Goldberg thinks that it's time for Obama to speak out: "History teaches us (see: Carter, Jimmy) that it's important to line up with the Iranian people, not against them. Now is the moment."

The boss writes at the Washington Post's Post Partisan blog: On September 2, 1939, in the wake of Hitler's invasion of Poland, the British House of Commons met to rush through a military service bill. But the House was stunned when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said he wasn't ready to ask for…

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett have a new opinion piece up at Politico. "Ahmadinejad won. Get over it." The piece largely recycles arguments from Flynt Leverett's post-election interview with Spiegel online and their troubling New York Times op-ed from three weeks ago that was rather…

Fox News: State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Monday that the United States is concerned about allegations of ballot fraud. Kelly described the U.S. government as "deeply troubled" by the events in Iran, which is a stronger expression of concern than over the weekend when Vice…

AP: TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - AP photographer sees pro-government militia fire at opposition protesters, killing at least 1.

Dick Cheney released a statement responded to CIA Director Leon Panetta's suggestion that the former vice president's criticism of Obama administration policies means Cheney is wishing for another attack. "I hope my old friend Leon was misquoted. The important thing is whether the Obama…

"Someone has said that when anyone is denied freedom, then freedom for everyone is threatened. The struggle in the world today for the hearts and minds of mankind is based on one simple question: Is man born to be free, or slave? In country after country, people have long known the answer to that…

Watch the latest protests in Tehran: Via Andrew Sullivan

Iran2.jpg The Interior Ministry of Iran yesterday declared such a gathering illegal, leading to reports that a rally in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi would be postponed or canceled. But it went forward, with plenty in attendance to protest Friday's rigged elections, which pronounced…

Interesting reporting again from Robert A. Worth at the New York Times. The main Iranian opposition on Monday postponed a major rally to challenge the disputed presidential election, as the country's supreme leader called for calm after days of street protests. In an unusual broadcast repeated…

Haaretz reports: Dennis Ross, who most recently served as a special State Department envoy to Iran, will abruptly be relieved of his duties, sources in Washington told Haaretz. An official announcement is expected in the coming days. The Obama administration will announce that Ross has been…

There have been very good grounds to criticize President Obama's foreign policy so far. There will be much more to criticize over the next three and a half years. But he is our president. We could be at an historical inflection point in Iran. The United States may be able to play an important role.…

Not since Rose Mary Woods made "18  " famous has a number so absorbed the attention of the media and political establishment. But with President Barack Obama's nomination of Second Circuit judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice David Souter, Washington has become…

The White War

The Hangover

George Steiner at 'The New Yorker'

When I was 11 years old, my parents bought a two-flat apartment building. The building had a small front and back lawn, the care of which was turned over to me. I was no more than 10 minutes on the job when I found it even more boring than hearing about your children's high SAT scores. I rushed…

On Kindness

For the liberal, using that term in the American sense, political freedom isn't freedom from governmental coercion but freedom from moral and social convention.

"As I've often said, in the short term, as we transition to renewable energy," President Obama stated in April, "we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. .  .  . We still need more oil, we still need more gas. If we've got some here in the United States that we can…

As the Worlds Turn

The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius

Bucharest, Romania

It's not every day that you get to witness the birth of a new social system. But General Motors' June 1 bankruptcy, and the company's likely reorganization under the ownership of the U.S. Treasury, does suggest the arrival of a novel relationship--at least for the United States--between the citizen…

It's been more than 20 years since James Hansen first warned America of impending doom. On a hot summer day in June 1988, Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, came to Washington to announce before a Senate committee that "the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is…

Frightened by tough economic times, formerly spendthrift Americans are beginning to save. But the shift is causing alarm among some economists and commentators. Prudent savers, say these writers, are exemplars of the "paradox of thrift," which holds that the practice of thrift, while seemingly wise…

Modern Sudan is a complex geographical expression more than a country. Annexed by Egypt's Albanian ruler Mehmet Ali in the 1820s, it was poorly managed from the beginning, and the country's administration grew increasingly corrupt under Mehmet Ali's sons. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869,…

Barack Obama once believed that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. He no longer says this. Obama's rhetoric on Iran today is noticeably softer than it was during the presidential campaign. That's striking, since he ran first to the left of Hillary Clinton, then to the left of John McCain and…

From niacblog, the the blog of the National Iranian-American Council, tonight: In response to a question of what the Iranian people want the U.S. and American people to do, his [a resident of Tehran's] response was as follows: The most essential need of young Iranians is to be recognized by US…

Provided by irantracker.org.

Allahpundit posts a video clip of a CNN producer in Iran, who says: A number of students came up to me today and said that they want to appeal to President Obama. They said, "Is he going to accept this result? Because if he does we are doomed." Watch the video and read Allahpundit's take here.

That was a topic discussed on Fox News Sunday today: WALLACE: I do want to go back to Iran, though, before we get to U.S. diplomacy, because I think it's so instructive and so sad -- not surprising, but sad. Cell phone service cut off inside Iran. A lot of Web sites cut off. I mean, this is a…

Elliott Abrams writes: In Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech today he took one major step toward the Obama administration, by endorsing a Palestinian state. In every other way, he resisted President Obama's pressure. First, he refused a "settlement freeze" and President Obama's…

In Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech today he took one major step toward the Obama administration, by endorsing a Palestinian state. In every other way, he resisted President Obama's pressure.

Yesterday Marc Ambinder reported that "White House officials say they worry about the stability of Iran during a protracted post-vote period of uncertainty." The people of Iran might hope for a little more from the administration than concerns about stability. The NIAC blog reports: According to…

Ben Smith links to an interview with Flynt Leverett, former National Security Council staff member and an Obama supporter. Says Leverett: "The fact is: Ahmadinejad won." It's worth remembering the rather extraordinary opinion piece that Leverett, together with his wife, Hillary Mann Leverett,…

Steve Hayes asks: Administration officials talk about their belief in "smart power." But what good is "smart power" if you don't exercise it? "Smart power" is a modification of "soft power," which the Obama-ites are also huge fans of. Well, isn't this the time to try some soft power? For example:…

Much stronger than anything coming out of the White House: "Over the last six months, we have witnessed free and fair elections in Iraq and Lebanon, in which millions of people peacefully went to the polls, and in both cases, the Iranian-backed forces of extremism were decisively rejected at the…

Mitt Romney today said that the election in Iran was a "fraud" and called on Barack Obama to denounce the Iranian regime. Joe Lieberman did, too, saying: "I would hope that President Obama and members of both parties in Congress will speak out, loudly and clearly, about what is happening in Iran…

The New York Times's Robert Worth, whose work from Iran over the last several days has been terrific, has another article today detailing the extent of the resistance inspired by the election results and providing a reminder of past manipulation. The streets of Iran's capital erupted in the most…

"The administration will deal with the situation we have, not what we wish it to be." That's what a senior Obama administration official told Mark Landler of The New York Times. Of course there is a third, less passive, option. The president could seek to affect that situation. He is the most…

Via Allahpundit and Andrew Sullivan.

Barack Obama should give another speech. Soon, maybe tomorrow. He should address this one to the people of Iran, whose eagerness for a political voice - a real political voice - is obvious in the photographs and reports from the streets of Tehran in the last 24 hours. President Mahmoud…

A Radio Farda staffer emails: While reports from Iran indicate that all foreign sat TV signals have been jammed, Radio Farda and especially its website remain one of the few open channels for the people in Iran. Our filter-busting software was launched just in time. Yesterday and today we have had…

TEXT

Is Palau waffling on its decision to take in Uighur detainees held at Gitmo? Here is what Palau's President was saying just a few days ago: Palau's President Johnson Toribiong, in a statement seen by AFP Wednesday, said he agreed to a U.S. request to "temporarily" resettle the men as a…

There's an article in the May/June Boston Review on an interesting study that seems (I wonder why?) to have gotten little attention. Neil Malhotra, of Stanford Business School, and Yotam Margalit, who teaches political science at Columbia, report on a survey of 2,768 American adults in which they…

Radio Free Europe has some excellent material on the mood in Iran: One e-mail from Iran reads: "It's a day of mourning today. Helpless Iranians are in mourning." Another refers to "the death of democracy and hope." Another: "I offer my condolences to the people for the June 12 coup d'etat and the…

Abbas Djavadi, with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, has been on the phone all night with people in Iran. He e-mails: An Electoral Coup in Iran It was a night of fundamental change of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was, however, not the change the overwhelming majority of the electorate…

The Associated Press won a landmark Freedom of Information Act request that led to the release of thousands of pages of documents created at Guantanamo. The files were released in early 2006. Therefore, the press organization has had some time -- more than three years -- to process the documents.…

Early Friday evening, the Obama administration announced the transfer of Ahmed Zuhair and two other native Saudis into the custody of the Saudi Kingdom. The Department of Justice's press release did not say why Zuhair was transferred. But, then again, there is much missing from the DOJ's off-hours…

CQ's Josh Rogin reports: President Obama's choice to be general counsel of the Army, Donald M. Remy, withdrew his nomination late Friday. In a June 12 letter to the president, obtained by Congressional Quarterly, Remy gave no specific reason for his withdrawal but thanked Obama for the opportunity…

This past week, the Obama administration announced the transfer of four ethnic Uighurs from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to Bermuda. The South Pacific island nation of Palau has agreed to take a number of the remaining Uighurs, possibly all of them, as well. Thus, all seventeen of the…

Jonah Goldberg: "von Brunn isn't a member of the far right. Nor is he a member of the far left, as some on the right are claiming. He's not a member of anything other than the crazy caucus." Charles Krauthammer: Obama Hovers From on High Stuart Taylor takes a close look at what really happened in…

Following up on our earlier report about Lieberman's statement that Obama should consider keeping Gitmo open, Greg Sargent posts Lieberman's direct quote: "Though I understand the President had a good intention in saying that he would close Guantanamo, because Guantanamo has become a symbol for…

Press release: The Department of Justice announced today that three Saudi nationals were transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under appropriate security measures. All individuals transferred to Saudi Arabia are subject to judicial review in Saudi…

Fred Kagan emails: Iranian media outlets have started calling the election for Ahmadinejad. Mousavi also claims victory, but I strongly suspect that Ahmadinejad has won the election-at least the first round. Irantracker.org will have continuous updates tonight and over the weekend for anyone who's…

This is the price you will pay for your health care reform of dubious efficacy: Health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said.…

That's the name of Reihan Salam's new blog on National Review Online. Check it out. For starters, here's Reihan on Mitch Daniels's greatness, and on "American socialism." Bob Woodward's book The Agenda, about the Clinton administration's economic plan in 1993, is also good.

Mike Murphy worries that it might be, pointing to recent Democratic gains among Latinos and under-30 voters. Murphy's analysis jibes with the latest Pew study on political trends, which I recently wrote about here. Jay Cost takes issue with Murphy here. I think we can say three things: (1) Once a…

As reported earlier on this blog, members of the minority United Bermuda Party have formally introduced a "no confidence" motion to remove Premier Ewart Brown from power because of his unilateral decision to accept four Uighur detainees from Gitmo. In Bermuda's Westminster-style parliament, Brown's…

So much for the "party of 'no'." Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), along with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), this week offered the first, detailed health care reform bill in Congress- the Patients' Choice Act (S. 1099/H.R. 2520). To be fair, Barack Obama is awfully busy doing a…

Shawn Crockwell, a member of Bermuda's parliament and shadow minister for immigration, says that the decision to accept four Uighur detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has "created a national crisis for the island of Bermuda." "People are outraged in this country," says…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that during an interview that was taped today and will be aired later this afternoon on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered", Senator Joe Lieberman says that President Obama should seriously consider keeping the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay open.…

The U.S. military has taken a lot of heat in Afghanistan over airstrikes that target Taliban leaders but in some cases kill civilians. In the most recent airstrike in the remote Afghan province of Ghor, the U.S. military targeted a Taliban commander they say has links to Iran's Qods Force. The U.S.…

The airline industry has never generated sustained profits -- by some estimates if you add up all the profits and losses since the Wright Brothers flew from Kitty Hawk in 1903, the net would be written in red ink. This year will be no different. The global industry will lose an estimated $9…

And it may well be necessary, which could force our lefty friends to choose between Obama and the ACLU: House-Senate negotiators reached agreement late Thursday on a $105.9 billion wartime spending bill after last-minute assurances from President Barack Obama that he will use all his powers to…

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama met by 1,000 protesters in Wisconsin. Funny, I didn't hear about that on the news. Obama encouraging truancy. Typical. Huckabee warns Republicans against the "mushy middle," forgetting momentarily that he is the mushy middle, on spending. Republicans gain control of N.Y. state senate through…

A Justice Department spokesman told the Weekly Standard Thursday that the department will not be answering any questions about the number of high-level detainees who have been Mirandized since Barack Obama took office five months ago. "I can't comment on how many people have been Mirandized in…

North Korea and Iran both seem to behave like spoiled children competing for the attention of the adults in the room. First one makes an outlandish threat or takes a provocative action, then the other must raise the ante, lest the first one become the center of attention. Thus, we recently saw Iran…

Kosovo

Panetta says bin Laden is still in Pakistan. Ace: Why Not Just Call the Holocaust Museum Shooter a "White Supremacist" and "Anti-Semite"? Allahpundit: Wright: Wait, did I say Jews control Obama? I meant "Zionists" Fox News polls shows 58 percent of Americans oppose takeover of GM. Check out the…

Andrew Sullivan describes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's opponent in the upcoming Iranian presidential "election" as a "reformist candidate," who represents a "Pawlenty-style conservatism," but Mousavi's record suggests he's slightly more sinister than the Mullet from Minnesota. In 1981, when Mousavi first…

The special relationship between the U.S. and UK has taken some hits in recent months, at least in terms of public perception. And now it appears that the UK is not too happy that Bermuda, which is an overseas territory within its sovereignty, has agreed to the Obama administration's request to…

From yesterday's press briefing, in which Robert Gibbs was asked how much Executive Compensation Special Master Ken Feinberg makes. Q What's Ken Feinberg being compensated? MR. GIBBS: I'm sorry? Q What is the compensation of Ken Feinberg? MR. GIBBS: I don't know. Q I mean, is it a paid position? Is…

Jake Tapper tweets: statement of fact: in the last few days both James von Brunn and Rev Wright have claimed POTUS is controlled by Jews. Of course, the president only considered one of them like a father until about a year ago.

When President Obama speaks to the American Medical Association Monday to pitch his vision for health care reform, he will have a lot of work to do. The group of 250,000 doctors has announced it is against a so-called "public option" for government-run health care, which Obama sees as central to…

By a vote of 267-152, the House has passed a non-binding motion "to instruct conferees on H.R. 2346, the war supplemental, insists that the House conferees." The language of the motion includes this: Maintain the House's higher level of Defense spending ($81.3 billion); Not exceed the Senate's…

President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to appeal the decision by a lower court that ruled in favor of the ACLU and ordered the release of photos allegedly showing detainee abuse. Whether that ruling will be overturned is unclear, but Senators Graham and Lieberman have been fighting for…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD just called the Bermuda Department of Tourism to see if there's any concern that the release of four Uighur Gitmo detainees will threaten the tourism business in the island nation. According to the CIA World Factbook, "Bermuda's tourism industry - which derives over 80% of its…

ETIM-video-1.JPG A Uighur terrorist from a videotape

From the moment Sonia Sotomayor was nominated, Democrats have pointed to her academic pedigree as evidence that she is highly qualified for the job. Some conservatives doubted whether those credentials were, on their own, evidence of anything other than the success of liberal social policies like…

Docs say no to Obama's "public option." Mahmoud's problem with women. Lawyer in Heller case seeking to have Second Amdendment right enforced against state and local gun-control laws. How the "public" option becomes the only option. The compensation czar doesn't like being called a czar. Russia not…

Many on the left are trying to depict raging anti-Semite and Holocaust museum killer James W. von Brunn as a TEXT "right-wing" Francis Beckwith TEXT TEXT

Department of Justice press release: WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice today announced that four detainees, Chinese nationals of Uighur ethnicity who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, have been resettled in Bermuda. These detainees, who were subject to release as a result…

In our political system, the best check on lawmakers is that they must run for office. In many states and localities the same thing is true for judges. Unfortunately, a recent Supreme Court decision may effectively neuter this traditional protection.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sounded like a fiscal Paul Revere last week, warning Congress about the dangers of an advancing army of debt.

Allahpundit: Guy who attended Jeremiah "Them Jews" Wright's church for 20 years: We must be vigilant about anti-Semitism. Obama administration would more than double entire GDP of Palau with $200 million bribe to take Uighur detainees. Jennifer Rubin: Creigh Deeds shows that unknown candidates,…

Jake Tapper reports: Yesterday, despite repeated questioning, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs refused to answer whether the Obama administration will free Ahmed Ghailani if he's found not guilty in court. The Obama administration flew the accused terrorist from Guantanamo to New York…

Via Brian Faughnan, Kathy Shaidle at Examiner.com links to some of James von Brunn's deranged anti-Semitic Internet writings, in which the Holocaust museum killer spouted 9/11 conspiracy theories and claimed that he "despise[d] JEWS-NEOCONS-BILL O'REILLY".

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd confirms Steve Hayes's report that the FBI is reading Miranda rights to terrorist suspects in Afghanistan: "There has been no policy change and nor blanket instruction issued for FBI agents to Mirandize detainees overseas. While there have been specific cases…

"Two names on doomed Air France Flight 447's passenger list also appear on a list of radical Muslims considered a threat to France, according to French investigators," Sky News reports, adding: There is a possibility that the name similarities are simply a "macabre coincidence," the source added,…

A friend writes in: I just saw Steve Hayes's report that prisoners held in Afghanistan will get Miranda warnings. In September 2008, when McCain-Palin pulled ahead of Obama-Biden, Candidate Obama publicly mocked Sarah Palin's suggestion that Obama favored giving captured terrorists Miranda…

When 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was captured on March 1, 2003, he was not cooperative. "I'll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer," he said, according to former CIA Director George Tenet. Of course, KSM did not get a lawyer until months later, after his…

When 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was captured on March 1, 2003, he was not cooperative. "I'll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer," he said, according to former CIA Director George Tenet.

Very few details, but from Fox News: At least two people were shot at the national Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, an official told FOX News. Other media reports said a man walked into the museum and shot a security guard. Another guard returned fire, wounding the alleged…

Ed Whelan highlights some baffling lines from a 1996 speech by Sotomayor: When my first mid-term paper came back to me my first semester, I found out that my Latina background had created difficulties in my writing that I needed to overcome. For example, in Spanish, we do not have adjectives. A…

Rev. Wright on whether he's spoken to Obama: "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ... "They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ...…

What, the promise of 600,000 new jobs this summer didn't entice them? Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans say the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should now be canceled. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 36%…

The New York Times account of the Obama administration's deal with Palau, which has agreed to take some or all of the 17 Uighurs detained at Gitmo, contains one interesting observation and one significant oversight. The interesting observation is this: "But the United States had not been able to…

The Obama administration has allowed U.S. forces in Afghanistan to begin reporting enemy body counts -- something the Bush administration went back and forth on -- as U.S. forces ramp up in the south of the country. On the one hand, the Bush administration got raked over the coals by the left when…

The Obama daughters are having a lovely European tour in the manner of the American upper class, with educational stops at Towers both Eiffel and London, Notre Dame Cathedral, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, and, of course, the requisite shopping spree-with maman, nanny grand-mère, and motorcade in…

It looks like the Obama administration has finally found a home for the 17 Uighurs detained at Gitmo. According to the Associated Press, the small Pacific Island of Palau is reportedly taking some or all of the 17 Uighurs in exchange for $200 million. If true, this raises a few obvious observations…

The rural, moderate Democrat with less money won, in a pretty stunning shift: Running with the least money and fewest ties to vote-rich Northern Virginia, State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds has won the three-way Democratic primary for governor, paving the way for a rematch with Republican Bob McDonnell in…

Private William Long, R.I.P. Landrieu comes out against the "public option" aka government-run health insurance for all. Bill McGurn: The media fall for Obama's claims about the hundreds of thousands of jobs he "saved or created." Byron York on Obama's health-care offensive. Jonathan Martin has the…

The Washington Times's Amanda DeBard reports: The Brookings Institution on Monday said cap-and-trade legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions would lower the nation's gross domestic product in 2050 by 2.5 percent, compared with levels it would reach if the legislation is not implemented. A…

Over at the Corner, Andy McCarthy notes that the trial of Ahmed Ghailani, the first Gitmo detainee transferred to the U.S. for criminal proceedings, should be a slam dunk. Some of Ghailani's co-conspirators have already been convicted for their roles in the August 1998 embassy bombings. And there…

Pete Wehner follows up on his earlier takedown of Newsweek editor Evan Thomas. Thomas, you'll recall, made a comment last week that would, in less extraordinary times, be fatal to a journalist's career. Chris Matthews didn't even bat an eye: Matthews:...Evan, you remember '84. It wasn't 100 years…

Obama's transparency czar is using $84 million to build a web site that won't be usable until October, and may not be useful until four years from now. Obama's stimulus oversight guru, Joe Biden, says "people are being scammed already" in the disbursement of $787 billion. And, when asked whether…

Politico reports Jeff Sessions isn't all that pleased with the timeline: Sessions told reporters outside the Senate chamber that Leahy did not talk to him about the scheduling before announcing the July 13 date. "I'm really a bit surprised," Sessions said. "I don't think our side has the time to do…

Come for the headline, stay for the robot snake video: ...the spying robot, about two meters long and covered in army camouflage, mimics the movements and appearance of a real snake, slithering around through caves, tunnels, cracks and buildings, sending images and sound back to a soldier…

Senators Lieberman and Graham have just concluded a press conference held in response to a still unconfirmed move by the Democratic leadership in the House to strip from the supplemental appropriations bill an amendment that would bar the release of detainee photos. That amendment, the Detainee…

Rasmussen reports: Sixty-two percent (62%) of U.S. voters say Iran should be required to stop developing its nuclear weapons capabilities before a meeting is allowed between the Iranian president and the president of the United States, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.…

What does Carlos Slim have against Michael Bloomberg anyway? The New York Times did all it could to boost the mayoral candidacy of Anthony Weiner, but it wasn't enough and Weiner opted not to run. Now the Times has moved on to boosting city comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., this time with with a…

Tom Coburn's STD lecture on hold due to pizza dispute. Lobbyists not getting gifts for lawmakers anymore, but they're "honoring" the heck out of them. Blair and Panetta fighting over spies. There she is, Miss Tibet. Walking on air, fairest of the fair, and ticking off China. Ramping up for…

Through its German subsidiary Opel, the troubles of now-bankrupt U.S. carmaker GM have also spilled over into Germany's domestic political arena, turning the question of how to best separate (some would say "liberate") Opel from its rather incompetent American masters into a major campaign theme…

Obama one-upped Bush's frequent proclamations that Islam is a religion of peace by declaring in Cairo: "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." Rasmussen reports that Obama has his work cut out…

David Smick has a Washington Post op-ed today that is well worth your time. Here's a taste: The United States may be undergoing a subtle economic shift. World governments should listen carefully to President Obama, a leader with an uncanny ability to make activist, even radical, proposals sound…

The Washington Times's Julia Duin reports that late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart called on the federal government Monday to treat all activities by "anti-choice domestic terrorists" as hate crimes after last week's fatal shooting of Dr. George Tiller. "This is the equivalent of Martin Luther King…

In all my years as an observer of international affairs, I have seldom seen the Organization of American States (OAS) so energized by a single issue. If only that issue were the humanitarian tragedy of Haiti, or the defense of democracy in those member countries where it is under siege--such as…

Ginsburg stays sale of Chrysler to Fiat. Shelby Steele: Sotomayor and the Politics of Race Chris Cillizza: "Twitter may be all the rage for athletes, Ashton Kutcher, Oprah and even the Fix, but it is a bad, bad idea for politicians." Two Democrats in the New York State Senate defect, giving…

According to news reports coming out of Saudi Arabia, "King" Abdullah warned President Obama during his pre-Cairo visit to Riyadh that "Arab patience is running out." "We want from you a serious engagement to solve the Palestinian question and impose a solution if necessary," Abdullah reportedly…

ABC describes the prison system in which two U.S. journalists will be held: The prisons are vast and gloomy work camps in which inmates are routinely beaten, starved, executed - or forced to watch family members executed, according to eyewitness accounts. The deeply secretive dictatorship does not…

The AP reports: The White House is defending the overly optimistic economic models it used to justify the historic stimulus plan. Four months after the stimulus was passed, unemployment is far higher than expected and continuing to rise. It is even higher than the White House predicted it would…

I wonder when Olbermann will air this segment: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The NRCC and the NRSC may not appreciate her, but she makes Giuliani smile.

Sonia Sotomayor breaks her ankle and Dave Weigel tweets: I would hope that a wise Latina woman's ankle, with its richness of experience, can heal faster than a white male's ankle.

As we reported here late last week, the Democratic leadership is moving to strip the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act, which passed the Senate unanimously and with White House support, from the supplemental appropriations bill in order to appease liberals in the House. The amendment was…

Rick Richman flags this from Martin Kramer on Obama's Cairo speech: Some of the influences on Obama bubble to the surface. There is the Third Worldism: Muslims are victims of our colonialism (Obama has read Fanon) and the Cold War (has he been reading Khalidi again?) The primacy of the West is…

About that: National unemployment rate the month that the stimulus was signed into law: 8.1 percent. National unemployment rate today: 9.4 percent. Nonetheless, the president was out this morning promising another 600,000 jobs "created or saved" this summer, and touting the 150K jobs he's already…

Chris Cillizza reports: Specter Signals Change on Labor Vote: With a rewritten Employee Free Choice Act likely to be introduced in Congress within the next month, Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter is signaling he is likely to back the legislation -- a major priority of the labor community.…

Only Israelis could generate these poll numbers: 53% believe Obama's policies are bad for Israel 56% think Netanyahu should give into Obama's demands 52% favor freezing settlements HT: TA

Yesterday the New York Times stated as fact that Sotomayor "benefited from affirmative action policies" at both Princeton and Yale. Today William Bowen, the president of Princeton during Sotomayor's undergraduate years, praises Sotomayor effusively and says that Sotomayor would have succeeded…

Kennedy's health-care bill, a primer. What will cap and trade mean? Dear Paul Krugman, Reagan didn't do it. Love...The Nation? "In victory, Daniels attracted a lot of Democratic votes, and 20 percent of the African-American vote." "There are only a few times that I felt like smacking Larry."…

The former Bush White House economist has an excellent, extremely disturbing run-down on the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill.

The Development

John Paul Jones

The Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot

Like most political reforms, the Obama administration's attempt to clean up lobbying is beset with unintended consequences. The president's policies are producing an explosion in interest-group activity, and much of the growth is taking place outside the scope of federal disclosure and other…

With the economy floundering, Wall Street in disgrace, and American capitalism facing its most serious ideological challenge in one, two, or three generations (you can take your pick), it's a good moment to remember Lenin. While the bearded Bolshevik's grasp of economics was never the best and his…

Most people include eating well among the delights of a short stay in Paris. But few consider that, as well as fond memories of melting soufflés and crisp croissants, they could acquire the skill to make them at home. In fact, even if you have only a few hours to spare in the culinary capital of…

Up

The next time someone complains that poetry is never in the news, it might be worth reminding them to be careful what they wish for. Poetry has been in the news lately, and the news has not been uniformly glorious.

Ninety years ago the Chicago White Sox intentionally lost--dumped, to you sports fans--the World Series. Legend has it that a young fan implored the team's star, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, as he emerged from the court house, "Say it ain't so, Joe." The Shoeless one allegedly responded, "Yes, I'm…

Let's start with stem cells. That may seem a strange place to begin thinking about torture, but many bioethical issues are at least as controversial and disputed as torture. Among the most controversial in recent years has been research that destroys embryos in order to procure stem cells for use…

In announcing her nomination to the Supreme Court last week, President Obama said Sonia Sotomayor has the "first and foremost quality" needed in a justice: "a rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law, an ability to home in on the key issues and provide clear answers to complex legal questions." He…

On June 2, 1967, the shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, exited a performance of The Magic Flute at the Berlin Opera House to a throng of rock-throwing protesters, already into their second hour of battle with police. As the situation escalated, Karl-Heinz Kurras, a detective sergeant in the West…

The U.N. Shakes Its Mighty Fist

In 1996, Min, then in her mid-20s, expressed disbelief when she first heard of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. The tragedy had come up in a casual dinner conversation I was having in her hometown of Shanghai with her and Chris, her American boyfriend. I was taken aback that anyone could have…

Let's stipulate that President Obama is a wonderful speaker, vigorous in promoting his policies and even eloquent at times. But there's a problem: He's not persuasive. Obama is effective at marketing himself. His 64 percent job approval (Gallup poll) is a reflection of this. But in building public…

"First Latina Picked for Supreme Court; GOP Faces Delicate Task in Opposition," blared the four-column headline on the front page of the May 27 Washington Post. Leave aside the Post's odd failure to put in the headline the name of the person nominated--itself a nice example of the…

Allison is "furious. They think they'll break me, but they will only make me fight harder in the end."

Cairo

From the Hot Air Green Room, an alternate, and much less apologetic, version of Obama's Cairo speech: I will not waste your time by carefully selecting quotes from the Koran, in a misguided attempt to tell you what your religion means. I am here to tell you what membership in the community of…

Thus a neighbor of retired State Department intelligence analyst Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn, on the "frustration with U.S. policies" shared by all right-thinking people in the upper-Northwest D.C. bastion of liberalism in which they reside. Still, a little shiver of shock has run…

Fox News interviews a World War II veteran who fought on D-Day at Omaha Beach and helped liberate Dachau:

Reuters reports: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report said Iran had increased its rate of production of low-enriched uranium (LEU), boosting its stockpile by 500 kg to 1,339 kg in the past six months. Iran's improved efficiency in turning out potential nuclear fuel was sure to fan…

Fox News reported yesterday: The Pentagon is sending 1,000 more special operations forces and support staff into Afghanistan to bolster a larger conventional troop buildup, and is revamping the way Army Green Berets and other commandos work to rid villages of the Taliban. John McCain at an FPI…

And he looks a whole lot like Obama in Cairo to them. And this is without peyote. Presumably. Also see the new Newsweek at the Corner.

Today marks the 65th anniversary of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy. Too often Americans tend to think of it as the American invasion of Normandy--witness the accidental oversight regarding the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II (the only current head of state who actually served…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership is moving to strip the Lieberman-Graham amendment blocking the release of detainee photos from the supplemental appropriations bill now in conference. The Lieberman-Graham amendment, formally named the Detainee…

On Thursday, President Obama said in his speech in Cairo that "Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice", and that "events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible." Today, President Obama visited the…

One of the odder moments in Obama's speech in Cairo came when he suggested creating a new tool whereby young people in disparate parts of the world could talk to each other in real time: ...and create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in…

Allahpundit: House GOP claims new intel hearing confirms that enhanced interrogation works. Sotomayor in 2001: I don't know what liberal means. State Department security clearance fail. Who's afraid of Liz Cheney? Keith Olbermann and friends. Rightly so. Andy McCarthy: Obama's speech was deep in…

"It was a wonderful speech, carefully prepared, well-balanced, between interests of different listeners," intones the author of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, praising Obama's Cairo address beyond all warrant in an interview with Reuters, and particularly approving his willingness "to move toward…

He didn't think that Iraq was a war of choice.

Barack Obama might finally have met his match. Two matches, in fact. No, some new Republican opponent has not emerged to threaten this enormously popular president with a difficult campaign for re-election. No, Republicans in Congress have not produced a coherent alternative to the president's…

After Obama's speech in Cairo yesterday, he arranged a roundtable with eight journalists. Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli paper, was invited to send a correspondent as were several Arab papers. Nahum Barnea reports (translation): After Obama's speech yesterday at Cairo University, we gathered, six…

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week: As you know, our government is not always of one mind with the Government of Israel on the issues of the Middle East. But friends, I am very troubled by the degree to which opposition to the Government of Israel has become, in some circles, an…

Powerline posts the exchange between Brokaw and Obama: BROKAW: What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald? And what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians? OBAMA: Well, look, there's no equivalency here. Brokaw should be ashamed of himself, but we'll take what…

James Capretta had an excellent post on the Corner yesterday analyzing the letter President Obama sent Sens. Kennedy and Baucus before departing for the Middle East and Europe: For starters, President Obama unequivocally endorses the creation of a new government-run insurance option for working age…

The picture below, by the AP's Eyad Baba, was posted at Time's White House Photo Blog with the caption, "Tough Audience: Members of Hamas, wearing masks to conceal their identity, watch President Obama's speech at their training base in the Gaza Strip." It was subsequently reposted at Time's…

At a joint press conference with Angela Merkel in Dresden today, Barack Obama spoke of many things, like "why the sea is boiling hot" ("In terms of climate change . . . We're going to have to make some tough decisions and take concrete actions if we are going to deal with a potentially cataclysmic…

It looks like good opinion and bad opinion are starting to meet in the middle for Obama. Rasmussen reports that the President's "strongly approve" rating has fallen from roughly 42 percent to roughly 32 percent since Inauguration Day, while his "strongly disapprove" rating has risen from roughly 14…

In his Cairo speech yesterday, President Obama declared, "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." Is that why Obama's statement on the Islamist terrorist attack in Arkansas--which was buried by…

While it was good news that the British software company T-Enterprise decided to kill "Rendition: Guantanamo", a video game that would have served as al Qaeda propaganda, the real story was never about the T-Enterprise or even Xbox's producer, Microsoft. This story is about former Guantanamo inmate…

Via Drudge, a new Gallup poll shows that Dick Cheney's approval favorability rating is 3 points higher than Nancy Pelosi's: cheneypelosi.gif

Okay, not every time, but CQ reports that Sotomayor was quite fond of touting the superior legal acumen of the "wise Latina woman" or perhaps just the "wise woman": Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor delivered multiple speeches between 1994 and 2003 in which she suggested "a wise Latina woman"…

Liz Cheney, Max Boot, Rich Lowry, Marty Peretz and David Frum on Obama's Cairo speech. Jonathan V. Last: Once upon a time, men were asked to stay away from the delivery room. House Appropriations committee denies funding to transfer Gitmo detainees. Rasmussen: Christie 51, Corzine 38 Microsoft will…

Senator Lamar Alexander introduced the "Auto Stock for Every Taxpayer Act" today, which would "require the Treasury to distribute to individual taxpayers all its stock in General Motors (GM) and Chrysler within one year following the emergence of the companies from bankruptcy proceedings." From the…

Florida Rep. Robert Wexler's constituents will be much relieved to learn that their congressman is not standing by a comment he made just a few hours ago in support of President Obama's statement that "America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we…

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb) told the Omaha World-Herald that Sotomayor's remarks that a "wise Latina" would have superior ability to judge than white men "What I want to do is have her explain to me what she meant by that and give her an opportunity to satisfy me that she doesn't intend to take an…

It's a theory of World War II that one can also find in the pages of the American Conservative: As the Kremlin presses a campaign to recast Russia's 20th century history in a more favorable light, a research paper published Thursday on the Defense Ministry's Web site blamed Poland for starting…

A new poll of 3,000 U.S. voters by Quinnipiac University shows that Sotomayor's approval rating--55 percent--is right about where John Roberts's was in 2005. What's more interesting: Hispanic voters approve of Sotomayor at about the same level as the general public does: Men approve 50 - 31 percent…

From the most fruitful news source of our modern times comes this flash: Picture 1.png During the 2008 campaign for president, Sen. John McCain was frequently maligned for his alleged tech-gap with Barack Obama, who was famously addicted to his Blackberry. The attack on McCain's lack of…

The Senate Judiciary Committee website has all of the documents Sotomayor provided in response to her questionnaire here.

On the supplemental, which Democrats have tried to stuff with $100 billion in IMF funding: House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is doubling down on his charge that $108 billion in proposed loans to the International Monetary Fund could aid terrorists. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) earlier…

The NYT found a photo of the iconic protester from China's Tiananmen Square that's never been published before. Mr. Jones' angle on the historic encounter is vastly different from four other versions shot that day, taken at eye level moments before the tanks stopped at the feet of the lone…

Rep. Robert Wexler, one of Obama's most important and visible surrogates during the campaign on the issue of Israel, offers Greg Sargent his take on the president's speech: Wexler told me he thinks that Obama's promise to "say in public what we say in private" to all parties was "one of the…

Via the New York Times, Sotomayor's questionnaire (PDF) was delivered to the Senate today. As noted last week, the press and Democrats were very concerned about whether or not Alito and Roberts were members of the Federalist Society, but Sotomayor's connections with the controversial National…

Joe Klein, who has in the past boldly declared himself "not a big fan" of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, sits down with the terror group's commander in chief for an interview in the wake of Obama's speech: Meshal refused to make concessions on any of the points Obama mentioned--renouncing the use of…

Our secretary of state, fresh from her didactic ruler-smacking session with Israeli knuckles, put on her goody two-shoes habit yesterday and suggested to Beijing that it could mark the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre by publishing the names of those mowed-down--hundreds of…

Steve Hayes makes the key points in his criticism of the speech -- the president rejected American exceptionalism, diminished the achievement of U.S. arms in Iraq, and invoked numerous strawmen -- all of which seemed an attempt to reframe the course of history and the current friction between Islam…

ETIM-video-1.JPG "A Uighur terrorist from a videotape released by the Turkistan Islamic Party last year." --Long War Journal

Harvey Mansfield writes in the Harvard Crimson: Every once in a while I feel obliged to do my alma mater Fair Harvard a favor by showing the world that not everyone here is morally naïve and politically correct. I am grateful to The Crimson for providing the opportunity and wish only that…

"My educational policies are based on the fact that I care more about my children than you do." The woman says, "No, you don't." Gramm says, "Okay: What are their names?" Health care tie. Add to the list of Democrats who don't pay taxes- the Kerry campaign. Matt Yglesias, you are wrong.…

I think the two most significant things about that speech were these: first, the hour-long spectacle of pandering anodynity limning the whole "we are the world" catalogue was delivered from a platform in a police state whose own citizens are routinely imprisoned for saying less; and second, aside…

What struck me most about Barack Obama's speech today in Cairo is what was missing: Iraq. He didn't skip Iraq entirely, but his discussion of it was perfunctory and incomplete. He said: Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong…

You can find Obama's remarks, as delivered, after the jump: THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary (Cairo, Egypt) ________________________________________________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 4, 2009 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING Cairo University…

When pundits talk about religion and politics they usually include obligatory references to Republican ties to the "religious right." Based on recent history, there's some justification for the connection. John McCain won "born again" white voters 74%-24% in 2008, and George W. Bush prevailed with…

After two days of silence, President Obama issued a statement Wednesday on the shooting of two U.S. soldiers by a Muslim militant in Arkansas--but the White House didn't even email the statement to its list of national reporters. Rather, the White House appears to have quietly released this…

Jamie Kirchick: "There is no appreciable number of people in this country, religious Christians or otherwise, who support the murder of abortion doctors. The same cannot be said of Muslims who support suicide bombings in the name of their religion." Michelle Malkin: Climate of hate, world of double…

With the media focusing their attention on real news stories, like the growing Christianist terrorist movement in this country, you probably haven't heard much about Nancy Pelosi lately. Remember her? The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who accused the Central Intelligence Agency of…

Michelle Malkin writes today: When a right-wing Christian vigilante kills, millions of fingers pull the trigger. When a left-wing Muslim vigilante kills, he kills alone. These are the instantly ossifying narratives in the Sunday shooting death of Kansas late-term abortionist George Tiller versus…

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) unloads on President Obama (emphasis mine): "President Obama's recent comment in support of Iranian nuclear power is both shocking and reckless. Supporting Iran's "legitimate [nuclear] aspirations" ignores all recent history and smacks of the same naive and misguided…

Greg Sargent reports she made an almost identical remark in 1994: "Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that "a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion in dueling cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes the…

So Obama showed off a little Arabic in his meeting with the Saudi King: KING ABDULLAH: (As translated.) I thank you, Mr. President, for the kind words and the kind sentiments expressed within them. I am not surprised, given the historic and strategic ties between our two countries, I believe that…

A new Quinnipiac poll shows: American voters say 55 - 36 percent that affirmative action should be abolished, and disagree 71 - 19 percent with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer's ruling in the New Haven firefighters' case, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Why…

Who did New York Times reporter William J. Broad turn to for expert advice on the implications of the release of a document showing the locations of nuclear material in the United States? None other than John Deutch: "These screw-ups happen," said John M. Deutch, a former director of central…

And it's not how we Americans have maligned the greatness of Islam for far too long, or the importance of the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process." Pressuring Israel is something he can do on his own time, they seem to be suggesting by omission. What they want to hear about is freedom: freedom to…

A Yemeni detainee committed suicide at Guantanamo earlier this week. Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih became the fifth Gitmo prisoner to kill himself since the detention facility opened. Some of the detainees' advocates are already reacting much as they have in the past. The LA Times quotes the Center…

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Is all the talk among conservatives and Republicans about the dangers of the mounting federal debt starting to get some traction? A Rasmussen poll suggests that it is: Support for health care reform has slipped slightly as more voters think President Obama should work harder on his promise to cut…

Which ideologically motivated shooter is this? It's the one that Obama has yet to make a statement on. The one whose victim was a 23-year-old man, just out of basic training who had never seen combat. The one who shot two American soldiers in cold blood "because of what they had done to Muslims in…

According to a statement by Zarrar Christi, the head of T-Enterprise, the British software company developing the video game Rendition: Guantanamo, "as a direct result of the extreme reaction that the game and its popular misconceptions have provoked, T-Enterprise has decided to pull out of the…

You know, because you need a crack political team in place if you want to extract, say, more than $50 billion from the American people in less than a year: The company said yesterday that it would not stop its political operations, including its lobbying activity, despite the recent news, according…

From the "what if W. had dunnit" files: Sensitive nuclear information accidentally released publicly on Internet by most web-savvy administration of all time. Thou shalt not Twitter Tiananmen. Remember how well GSEs worked out with housing? Can't wait for what they do to the auto industry. I just…

In an interview with NPR on Monday President Obama said that being direct and honest will be one of the keys to Middle East peace. In interviews he's given previewing his Cairo speech, while he has noted the value of being a good listener, he has also emphasized the importance of straight talk.…

Eli Lake and Sara Carter report for the Washington Times: The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) published last month a detailed 268-page dossier disclosing the addresses and specifications of hundreds of U.S. nuclear-weapons-related facilities, laboratories, reactors and research activities.…

Chris Christie wins New Jersey GOP primary. Ross Douthat: Justices Gone Wild Ramesh Ponnuru explains to William Saletan why late-term abortionists are not like brave soldiers (and why pro-lifers are not logically compelled to shoot abortionists). Allahpundit: Gillibrand tells Truthers she supports…

As we noted earlier, and as ABC now confirms, Obama's speech in Cairo will focus on his Muslim roots and the unique perspective it provides him. Obama also teased the contents of the speech in an interview with a French television station: What I want to do is to create a better dialogue so that…

Andy McCarthy writes at National Review Online: Courts ought to butt out of how the administration disposes of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. They are not defendants; they are held "as enemies under the laws of war." And besides, as the Supreme Court held after World War II, it "is inherent in the…

Bill McGurn has an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal today: This week the 1,600 or so members of Harvard's Class of 2009 will leave campus with a coveted Ivy degree. Of this number, seven will leave with something else: the gold bars of a second lieutenant. At a time when institutions from…

Senator Joe Lieberman issued the following statement today in response to the shooting of two U.S. soldiers at an Arkansas recruiting station by a "Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military": "Hadassah and I offer our deepest sympathies to the families of the U.S. soldier shot and…

Joe Biden on the stimulus: "There are going to be mistakes made," said Biden. "Some people are being scammed already."

Well, it's a close race with Nancy Pelosi, but Joe Biden is pulling ahead: "We know some of this money is going to be wasted," Biden said during a roundtable discussion in New York with business leaders aimed at promoting the two-year stimulus plan... "There are going to be mistakes made," said…

Scott Horton, crusader for terrorist rights and wanna-be national security reporter, has been caught with his pants down -- again. Last week, Horton wrote in response to "revelations" in the British press that the photographs President Obama had suppressed contained images of rape and sexual abuse.…

A strong statement from Governor Palin: The stories of two very different lives with similar fates crossed through the media's hands yesterday - both equally important but one lacked the proper attention. The death of 67-year old George Tiller was unacceptable, but equally disgusting was another…

Cheney won this round: Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to closing the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and moving some of the detainees to prisons on U.S. soil, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds. By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By…

While the Pakistani military is quick to tout the success of its military in Swat, other developments show the country has a long way to go in tackling the native terrorist problem. Today, the Lahore High Court released Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba /…

Press release: House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement after President Obama suggested that the Mideast peace process and our interests have been harmed by the failure of the United States to be "honest" with Israel, then that Iran might have a right to nuclear…

Ahead of his trip to the Middle East, President Obama is making clear that he won't budge an inch from his demand that the Israelis freeze all settlement construction, on both sides of the fence, and even in Jerusalem proper -- what Obama once called the undivided capital of Israel when he was…

Brought to you by NPR: The eight a.m. NPR news update today included word of the fatal shooting of one soldier and the wounding of another outside an army recruiting station in Arkansas. The news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have "religious…

Politico reports that "President Obama today will appoint Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) as Secretary of the Army, according to an administration official." McHugh is one of the best Republicans in the House. As ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, he's been a vocal advocate for the troops and…

The central argument put forth in defense of the 17 Uighurs detained at Gitmo is that their principal enemy is China, not the U.S. This defense ignores a host of troubling facts including that: (a) all of the Uighur detainees are members or associates of the ETIM/TIP (a U.S. and UN designated al…

A trailer for "Rendition: Guantanamo," the video game starring al Qaeda suspect Moazzam Begg that I wrote about here, can be found on YouTube. Note how the producers say the detainee is being used for "illegal scientific experiments" at Guantanamo -- of course, such experiments never happened. This…

All your cars are belong to us. "Why should Israel make new agreements with Obama immediately after he established the precedent that they might be unilaterally discarded at a moment's notice?" In the preceding sentence, please feel free to play fill-in-the-blank, replacing "Israel" with "liberal…

Last night, Thomas Joscelyn reported on the development of an outrageous Microsoft Xbox video game called "Rendition: Guantanamo" in which users pretend to be inmates at Guantanamo Bay who kill prison guards in order to escape. We would like to invite our readers to contact T-Enterprise, the…

On his second day in office, President Obama issued an executive order to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year--without any plan for how to dispose of the 241 detainees held there. With the clock ticking, the president is discovering that closing Guantanamo is more easily said…

When President Obama delivers his speech to the "Muslim world" in Cairo he will once again differentiate his foreign policy from that of his predecessor. The president is smart to use his own popularity to try to improve America's image in the region. However, to prevail comprehensively over…

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama assured voters that his personal biography gave him a unique capacity to engage the Islamic community and challenge Muslim states to address their social and political troubles. "I have lived in the most populous Muslim country in the world, had…

Ben Smith: Obama issues official proclamation to say he will end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". USA Today/Gallup poll: "By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By more than 3-1, they oppose moving some of the accused terrorists housed there to prisons in their own states." Ed…

Over the weekend, President Obama went to New York to take the first lady to a Broadway show-a promise he made to her during the campaign. But how much did it cost the taxpayers? The White House isn't saying, though the Daily Mail has done some calculating: For transportation and security, the cost…

Former "war on terror" detainees have played a large role in shaping perceptions of U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. One of the more popular former detainees is Moazzam Begg, who writes columns about the supposed horrors of America's detention policies and regularly…

USA Today reports: A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military shot two soldiers outside an Arkansas recruiting station, killing one of the soldiers, police said Monday. "This individual appears to have been upset with the military, the Army in particular, and that's why he did…

Ed Whelan finds a disturbing inconsistency in the Sotomayor life-story as told by President Obama: As part of his effort to curry favor with baseball fans-"Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball" by her injunction ending the 1994-1995-Obama presented Sotomayor as "a lifelong Yankees fan." But…

Minutes after news broke yesterday that George Tiller had been murdered in Kansas, The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan declared "O'Reilly's Target Shot Dead In Church." Sullivan wrote that "there is a Bill O'Reilly connection" to a "campaign of domestic terrorism" against Tiller and posted the video at…

Laura Rozen writes on the Obama administration's hard line on Israel: "Over the past 15 years, settlements have gone from being seen in Washington as an irritant, to the dominant issue," says Georgetown University Middle East expert Daniel Byman. He pointed out that key figures in the Obama…

The editors at the Times will presumably offer MoveOn a special rate for the full page ad: General McChrystal, who goes before the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, built an impressive reputation as commander of the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations teams in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2003 to…

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, the boss made the case for "targeted air strikes to show the North Koreans - instead of always talking about, Gee, there could be consequences, to show that they can't simply keep down the - keep going down this path." The left is outraged! How dare anyone suggest…

CNN reports: Senator Tom Coburn says he's running for re-election next year. The conservative Republican from Oklahoma, who's become a crusader against government earmark spending, made his announcement at a news conference in Tulsa. "I have made a decision that I will seek a second and final term…

I look forward to Keith Olbermann's denunciation of his network's resorting to this kind of "cowboy capitalism," which has been shown to fail again and again, bringing nothing but wealth and prosperity pain and misery to this once-great country.

The AP reports some terrible news: One Army recruiter was killed Monday and a second was wounded in a shooting at a recruiting office, and a suspect was arrested, police said. Police Lt. Terry Hastings said the recruiter was shot when a man in a black SUV opened fire on the office in west Little…

As the Taliban moved into the district of Buner in April after securing the peace agreement that humiliated the Paksitani government, Pakistani political and military leaders rushed to assure the world that there was no threat to Islamabad or Pakistan's nuclear weapons. But Ahmed Rashid, the author…

Reuters reports: The U.S. military is rigging up satellite television service and distributing Sudoku puzzles in Guantanamo prison cells even as the Obama administration works towards a goal of emptying them of detainees. The amusements are aimed at providing mental stimulation for the 240…

You'll recall Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC almost a year ago to the day. "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," he said, only to later clarify that Jerusalem would instead remain a "final status issue." But a campaign adviser clarified Thursday that Obama…

Finally, a study that doesn't show conservatives are just plain stupid. Don't look now, but here's another one! A short history of the futility of diplomacy in North Korea. Hey, remember how North Korea's nuclear program was for civilian energy needs, too? Robert Gibbs better start lowering…

Like a troubled bank, President Obama is overleveraged. When a bank makes risky loans and many of them default, the bank goes bankrupt (or gets bailed out). When a first-term president adopts risky policies and many of them fail, his prospects for sustained public approval and reelection diminish.

Americans like to think big in foreign policy, so they yearn to settle the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. Both Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly tried to rally the region's denizens for a "comprehensive settlement" and thereby transform the Middle East. George W. Bush's desire to change…

Barack Obama spoke at the National Archives last Thursday on the war on terror (not that he used that term). After paying tribute to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and before turning to a defense of his policies, the President of the United States said:

The Republican party is in a whole lot of trouble. The latest Pew Research Center report on "Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes" shows that fewer than 25 percent of voters identify with the GOP, the lowest rating for the party in almost 20 years. The Republican party is older and less…

The Soul of a Leader

Angels and Demons

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

The other day a journalist friend of mine in Washington got a phone call from a colleague in South America. "How's it feel to be a fellow citizen of the Third World?" my friend's friend asked.

Caitrin Keiper on psychotherapy as expert witness.

"Iran for president promising transparency, and I meant what I said. And that is why, whenever possible, my administration will make information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable."

The best seats at a boxing match, dog show, or Broadway play are the worst seats at Mass. I'm still not sure why, but almost everyone knows it. As an altar boy I used to notice that even at a 7 A.M. weekday Mass with only two people in attendance, the first eight pews would still be empty. If Mass…

In 1977, as in 2009, the future seemed dark for the country's conservatives, shut out of all of the conduits to power, with nary a bright spot in sight. "The result of the 1976 election was Democrats in power as far as the eye could see," wrote Michael Barone in Our Country (1992). "It was almost…

The Wreck of Western Culture

Save Your Money: Don't Buy This Book

I looked for them--looked hard--but I don't think Jon Meacham or Maureen Dowd made it to the gala dinner last week where Helen Thomas gave Katie Couric the Helen Thomas Award for Excellence in Journalism. They should have been there. Everybody else was, it seemed. And we deserved a gala.…

Franco and Hitler

There is a new consensus on gay marriage: not on whether it should be legalized but about the motives of those of us who oppose it. All agree that any and all opposition to gay marriage is explained either by biblical literalism or anti-homosexual bigotry. This consensus is brilliantly constructed…