August 2009

Anthony Cordesman: A chance to avoid defeat in Afghanistan. Ross Douthat: What if Ted Kennedy shared his sister's pro-life liberalism? National media oddly more interested in Republican's gubernatorial candidate's 20 year-old thesis than Democratic President's missing 20 year-old thesis. Palin to…

At the White House press briefing today, Robert Gibbs gave the impression that there's a good chance that Obama will send more troops to Afghanistan: I think there's broad agreement that for many years our effort in Afghanistan has been under-resourced politically, militarily, economically. [...]…

The Start Over caucus is growing: Rep. Mike Pence: I have seen in town hall meetings across Indiana, and I have three more scheduled, Republicans and some Democrats who had them have heard tremendous public concern about health care legislation that has been drafted in the House of Representatives.…

Today the AFSCME and AFL-CIO co-hosted a block party to celebrate the end of their "Highway to Health Care" summer tour, in which they sent an RV to 19 cities in 10 states to spread the good news of the Democrats' health care plan. One of my first impressions of the event in Washington, D.C. was,…

As the Chicago Sun-Times reports today, President Obama was involved in a very similar fight over health-care reform in 2004, when he was still a state senator in Illinois. Then, as now, Obama accused Republicans of "fear-mongering" and unfairly branding his proposal a form of "socialized…

J Street, the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian lobbying group, is having a conference this October that will feature a wide range of speakers -- from Salam Al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council to Bernard Avishai, author of The Tragedy of Zionism and The Hebrew Republic…

Israel's education minister, Gideon Sa'ar, yesterday announced that when third-graders file into their classrooms for the first day of school tomorrow and open their Arabic-language textbooks, they will no longer find "al-naqba" in their pages. The phrase, which roughly translates as "devastation…

Washington Post Style writer Robin Givhan has a reputation for occasionally channeling her political predilections in petty fashion critiques of certain Washington actors. George Bush's hair is a "dull gray thatch," but Kerry should "gloat" over his "silver" mop, and John Edwards' mane "demands to…

Only 4 percent of Israelis believe President Obama is pro-Israel according to a poll done last week by the Jerusalem Post. (The poll's margin of error was larger than that at 4.5 percent.) Part of the reason Obama might be having trouble convincing even a few Israelis that he is a true friend is…

Laura Rozen has broken a lot of news over the last six months from her perch at the Cable blog on the website of Foreign Policy magazine. Last week it was announced that she'd been hired by Politico. Her replacement at Foreign Policy was announced this morning, and it's a name that will be very…

The economics of health care, in four sentences. NYT finds insurance folks are "human beings, too." The Buffalo News: Rangel should resign. Obama administration rebukes Cheney rebuke. Photo of the week? Jenna Bush has a new gig: Education correspondent for the Today Show Harry Reid working hard on…

The polling data: A poll by The Israel Project of 800 registered voters, jointly conducted by Republican Public Opinion Strategies and Democratic Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, found that 81 percent of those surveyed believe Iran poses a "very" or "somewhat" serious threat to the United States,…

The Wall Street Journal pans Charlie Crist's cronyism: Democrats have embarrassed themselves by naming political buddies to replace Joe Biden and Barack Obama in the Senate, and now a Republican is showing he can do the same. On Friday, Florida Governor Charlie Crist picked a long-time aide and…

Bob Dole and the Cincinnati Enquirer join the Start Over caucus--founded by Bill Kristol six weeks ago.

I didn't realize before I married Jill that our union meant we'd always own a dog or two.

Six months into the Obama presidency, conservatives and Republicans have occasion for some good cheer.

Between July 20 and July 30, President Obama was a busy man, barely out of the public eye while campaigning furiously for his health care initiative. He did four town hall events, spoke at two hospitals, delivered a radio address, was interviewed on two network TV news shows, and held a prime time…

Inglourious Basterds

God's Architect

Over six months into President Obama's term of office, there is still no head for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), America's main foreign aid agency. Nor is there yet a CEO at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (Washington's newer, arguably more flexible foreign assistance…

Barack Obama is a young president in a hurry. He is a man of preternatural self-confidence and soaring ambitions. That combination, tethered to a liberal worldview, is inflicting considerable damage upon his presidency.

Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing in Fifth Century Greece

Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive, but to be a banker is very heaven--with apologies to Wordsworth. The Federal Reserve Board's monetary policy gurus are making cash available to banks at almost no cost, it can be re-lent to desperate borrowers at mouthwatering margins, and if anything goes…

Merce Cunningham might be the only American artist to have remained avant-garde, even cool, for almost a century. This extraordinarily inventive choreographer, who died late last month at 90, possessed a vision that bridged expressionist modern dance and classical ballet. His career has been…

Robert D. Novak, 1931-2009

The Road to Woodstock

Us right-wing nuts sure is scary! That's the message from the Washington Post. To put this in language a conservative would understand, the fourth estate has been alarmed once again by the Burkean proclivities of our nation's citizens. The Post is in a panic about (to use its own descriptive terms)…

Raleigh, North Carolina

We've spent the month of August talking about alleged right-wing rage, but it's really time we started discussing the Angry White Liberal. When things aren't going his way, the Angry White Liberal wails and gnashes his teeth, rends his garments, and hurls invective at the opposition. His rhetoric…

The Liberal Imagination

In 2007 China overtook Japan as Australia's largest trading partner. Australia has been selling raw materials to China as fast as it can dig them up and load them onto ships, generating jobs and revenue. More recently, demand from China has cushioned Australia from the worst effects of the global…

We are berated, ad nauseam, with imprecations that America is the only advanced nation that fails to have universal health care. This statement is often followed by the rueful remark that the debate over government controlled health care has been going on without progress for 60 years and, ipso…

$2,000,000,000,000. That's the amount by which the Obama administration raised its ten-year estimate of the nation's budget deficit from the one it made only a few months ago. Now, $2 trillion is a lot of money. But even more significant is the fact that this revision represents almost a 30 percent…

In the latest TWS, Fred Barnes writes on the need for tort reform in health-care reform: tort reform remains a key to paring costs. The president can make a stab at directly cutting back spending on health care, but that's bound to add to the political unpopularity of Obamacare and is unlikely to…

Is the mainstream media coming around? The Washington Post has an important front-page story this morning, with matter-of-fact reporting on the importance of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad as an intelligence source and the enhanced interrogation techniques that made him talk. The piece is headlined: "How a…

In 2004, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law to fill Senate vacancies through special election rather than gubernatorial appointment in order to prevent Mitt Romney from picking John Kerry's successor should Kerry have won the presidential election. Now Massachusetts Democrats are working to…

It's Ramadan, and 90,000-got that? 90,000-Muslims worshipped today at the Al Aksa mosque in Jerusalem. Will we hear all about it from Human Rights Watch? Will they find a minute to stop fronting for Hamas over there to acknowledge this fact? Will the Israel-bashing Amnesty International take note?…

St. Petersburg Times: Crist should just have appointed himself, not LeMieux. Editor of The New York Times Magazine and Ted Kennedy biographer Ed Klein: "one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself." Charles Krauthammer: The Obamacare exit strategy. Irwin Stelzer: Seven…

A statement from Marco Rubio on Charlie Crist's appointment of his former chief of staff and campaign manager to the U.S. Senate: "This is a disappointing appointment for Florida. George LeMieux is a talented political operative and the governor's best friend, but that doesn't make him the right…

Cheney will be on Fox News Sunday this weekend. Should be very entertaining television for those who would rather hear about Barack Obama's war on the intelligence community instead of syrupy tributes to Ted Kennedy:

I've been saying for months now that Pakistan has no desire to move into South Waziristan, the Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. According to Time magazine, a Pakistani official with close ties to the military said that no such operation would occur, and in…

"I would far prefer American health care than I would health care in the UK any day of the week," Minnesota Republican Michelle Bachmann said at townhall meeting yesterday, citing this Daily Mail report about 4,000 mothers who have been forced to give birth in bathrooms, offices, hallways, waiting…

I didn't think it was possible to go lower than 6 percent, but Barack Obama's done it. Just 4 percent of Israelis believe Barack Obama is pro-Israel according to the latest poll from the Jerusalem Post. A majority of Israelis think that Barack Obama is pro-Palestinian (51 percent). Could 96 percent…

A friend emails: After a summer of dithering, this is the month of Iran. The Admin faces a real test. Now is the time they have ordained for decision and action. SO: NU? What comes next? When are the decisions being made? Who will be in the room? What will be done to sqeeze Iran with "crippling…

Via NRO, the AP reports: A state lawmaker says Gov. Charlie Crist is picking his former chief of staff George LeMieux (leh-'MEW) to replace Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, who is resigning. State Rep. Jennifer Carroll, who was considered for the position, said Crist told her he is choosing LeMieux.…

Yukio Hatoyama, the man who would be sworn in as Japan's next prime minister should his Democratic party overcome the country's long-ruling Liberal Democratic party in elections this Sunday, penned an extremely provocative, borderline anti-American, and just plain creepy op-ed in the New York Times…

The Huffington Post has major news -- with maps and everything -- on which parts of the country will be hardest hit by climate change just 100 years from now. Ryan Grim reports "Small Midwestern States To Be Hit Hardest By Climate Change" per a study from the Nature Conservancy (it's the ignorant,…

Greg Sargent once again reacts to my critique of his argument without responding to its substance. And, after some throatclearing, accuses me of cherrypicking. Sargent claims that I cherrypicked the IG report "in a comically dishonest way." His evidence? I quoted part of the IG report on Abd al…

Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Kirsten Powers on Ted Kennedy. Obama approval rating hits new lows in Economist poll and Gallup poll. Hopefully he won't be chairing the death panels: liberal congressman Pete Stark calls Blue Dog Democrats "brain dead." Michelle Malkin: Fake hate crime in…

Time's Michael Scherer did some good reporting this week on abortion coverage in the proposed health-care bills: The Commander in Chief has, of late, become something of a fact checker in chief. In town halls, interviews and meetings with interest groups, President Barack Obama repeatedly harps on…

Obama has tried valiantly to keep discussion of cutting Medicare focused on the idea of cutting waste and waste alone, but the fact that the CBO (and Obama himself) concede that the bill on the table is not adequately funded in the first 10 years or beyond, has some folks worried. Democratic Rep.…

Seven months of importuning Arab dictators and "monarchs" to toss something passing for a bone to Israel -- an overflight right or a couple of visas, maybe -- in exchange for "positive Israeli steps" such as freezing all settlement activity even where no Arab has ever lived or ever expects to live,…

Some great reporting from the Danger Room's Noah Shachtman. Marine snipers taking heavy fire and killing bad guys -- it's the best thing I've read all day. A sample: They reached the intersection, and saw one man in the distance to their left. Luckily, he didn't see them in the alleyway. Then, a…

The reputable Small Wars Journal is, interestingly enough, one of the leading sources on the current plight in Zimbabwe. That expertise, originating in their aggressive study of the Rhodesian Bush War, has matured into pragmatic policy on statecraft and diplomacy -- evident in the following excerpt…

The FEC has ruled that the Club for Growth can contact Specter donors with a "preprinted form letter and envelope addressed to the Senator's campaign." When Specter switched parties in April, he said, "Upon request, I will return campaign contributions contributed during this cycle," and the Club…

Atlantic reporter Matthew Cooper, formerly of Time and Talking Points Memo: It feels a bit like 9/11 on Martha's Vineyard. End-of-summer weather is achingly beautiful but the mood is melancholy because of Teddy. Via Exurban League

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Since Obama's own great-uncle is confused about what's in the health-care bill, maybe the president should put down Tom Friedman's book, and read through the health-care bill instead. A few weeks ago, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wouldn't say whether or not Obama will read the entire bill before he…

McDonald's doesn't mess around. It's not enough to be the biggest fast-food giant in the world. It's got to keep fighting. Keep expanding. Keep moving, like a shark. Hence, McD's introduction of specialty coffees (McCafé) giving Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts a run for their money. And now, the…

While looking for an apartment in D.C. on craigslist, I stumbled upon one advertisement for an opening in a "progressive group house" in Adams Morgan. It's not a parody, but it is beyond parody. If you're "a woman of color who is vegetarian friendly" you just might be lucky enough to live with…

They seem kind of hostile to the president. First there was Uncle Charlie, who Obama claimed had liberated Auschwitz (he'd helped liberate Buchenwald). And when Charlie was asked, months later, about Obama's visit to Buchenwald, he took a rather cynical view of the president's motives: SPIEGEL: Mr.…

She was speaking at an open luncheon with limited seating (not a town hall), and was greeted by a small group of protesters. Her line on health care and cap and trade cannot be music to the administration's ears: Landrieu, D-La., who spoke during a chamber luncheon today, also met with local…

"How many thousands of federal employees will have access to your (tax) records?" "A federal court rejected an attempt by two Ohio residents to use the so-called TurboTax defense that Timothy Geithner relied on to help win Senate confirmation as U.S. Treasury Secretary." New York's teachers' union…

Here is Greg Sargent pretending to respond to my post from Tuesday. It's five paragraphs with almost zero substance. And that turns out to be an improvement on his previous commentary about the CIA and interrogations. But we're left without answers to basic questions. What about Sargent's central…

Despite the fantasy propagated by the left that missile defense does not work and that it creates instability by undermining deterrence, even countries critical of some aspects of the U.S. missile defense system, such as Russia, see the utility in deploying their own missile defense systems. As…

President Obama's election campaign dazzled the political world with its use of the Internet as an electoral tool. Fundraising, voter communication, and citizen mobilization were just a few of the tactics that reached new levels of intensity, sophistication and success via the Internet. More than…

SCOTUSblog reports that the Supreme Court will consider hearing two cases challenging Chicago's handgun ban when it meets at its first Conference for the new term on Sept. 29. At issue is whether the Second Amendment applies to state and local laws or only federal laws. After D.C.'s handgun ban was…

Maybe it was the fact the latest revelation that the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division, Joe Stork, had praised the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics that finally forced some introspection at the organization, but two members of the Human Rights…

Newsweek's Mark Hosenball says the Inspector General's report and other recently-released documents pertaining to Bush-era interrogations of top al Qaeda operatives do not show that waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) "actually worked." Hosenball concedes that the…

A friend emails in response to reports of Hassan Nemazee's arrest: This story is worth more scrutiny. In the mid 1990's Helms killed his nomination as Ambassador to Argentina (with Biden's quiet acquiescence). From what I remember, Nemazee helped Kennedy illegally when he needed the money at a…

Someone's making the "tough choices" Obama always talks about, but never makes: Rhode Island will shut down its state government for 12 days and hopes to trim millions of dollars in funding for local governments under a plan Gov. Don Carcieri outlined Monday to balance a budget hammered by surging…

Obama's public approval has, according to Pollster.com's Poll of Polls, for the first time slipped across that magical 50 percent line (see the graph below). It's not a good sign for the president, and it's not a good sign for Democrats looking at midterm elections last year. Presumably Dem numbers…

The feel-good story of the day: The IDF published on Tuesday a video depicting an altercation that took place this week in the southern Lebanese village of Marwakhin between local residents and Hezbollah operatives. Taken by a unit of the IDF's Field Intelligence Corps, the video shows a group of…

Eleven and one-half days. That's how much prison time columnist Charles Krauthammer reckons Libyan terrorist Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi served for each of the 270 people he murdered when he planted the bomb that blew Pan Am flight 103 out of the skies. Nothing like the 27 years to which Megrahi was…

SM27.jpg

Elliott Abrams writes at National Review Online: At the height of the Cold War, when Ronald Reagan was president, the Soviets and their allies and satellites did not shirk human-rights debates with the West. They had their arguments ready. When American officials denounced the lack of freedom of…

David Ignatius's Washington Post column on the release of the Inspector General's Report and other documents strikes some of the right notes, but his conclusion is far off the mark. Ignatius writes: One of the most chilling documents released this week was one that Vice President Cheney had…

Watch perfectly good cars get destroyed in Cash for Clunkers...for the environment, or something. Obama should have known better on Obamacare. (From last week, but a goody.) The babies of the NHS: Born in elevators, offices, bathrooms, thanks to bed shortages. S.C. Lt. Gov Andre Bauer to ask…

After nearly eight years of war with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Islamist extremist groups, some reporters still can't understand that these groups commit acts of violence with the goal of driving foreigners out of Muslim countries and that they feel free to kill anyone they deem to be…

Via Geraghty, the numbers from the very credible polling firm Public Opinion Strategies: Latest poll on how the public feels about health care, from Public Opinion Strategies, finds... well, more skepticism: 15 percent strongly favor Obama's proposed health care plan, 10 percent somewhat favor, 5…

Further evidence that America is moving in a conservative direction: Bob Dylan puts out a Christmas album.

The Guardian reports on a possible deal to restart peace talks between Israel and the Arabs: Obama has pencilled in the announcement of his breakthrough for either a meeting of world leaders at the UN general assembly in New York in the week beginning 23 September or the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on…

From Amanda Terkel at Think Progress: Colorado Democratic headquarters vandalized. A "vandalism spree" hit the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters in Denver today, where the "vandal allegedly used a hammer to smash" 11 windows. Party Chairwoman Pat Waak attributed the violence to the intensity…

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent is worked up about the fact that "big news orgs" have not declared Dick Cheney a liar for claiming that EITs were effective. (For the record, many people still consider the Washington Post a big news org.) Sargent argues that "the docs themselves don't actually…

Late yesterday afternoon, the CIA public affairs office sent reporters an email with two documents attached. CIA spokesman George Little wrote: "For your information, the attached files are part of today's document release on the CIA interrogation program. Former Vice President Cheney asked that…

Just kidding. You saw all that over the very loud yelling and impolitic signage at health care town halls, but when it comes to angry left-wing activists being arrested with Molotov cocktails outside the Republican National Convention, there's surprisingly little national interest. This story…

Yesterday, the Times of London had a troubling article titled, "Heart patients missing out on life-saving care after surgery." Today, the Financial Times has a piece on the troubles of getting the NHS's national online database of medical records up and running. As Fraser Nelson and Irwin M.…

Finally, after weeks of speculation about whether Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead or alive, the Pakistani Taliban has confirmed he was indeed killed. Two Taliban leaders named Hakeemullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman Mehsud phoned the AP and other news services to state Baitullah died…

Glenn Thrush quotes freshman Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.): Freshman Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.) - who has bucked Dem leadership on the stimulus and climate change - told a town hall back in north Alabama that he doesn't plan to back Nancy Pelosi as speaker again, saying she's too divisive. "I…

Via Ben Smith, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) calls it like he sees it: "Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas, and maybe not even then, if this ever happens," Feingold said. "The divisions are so deep. I never seen anything like that."

From Ha'aretz, the top foreign policy Democrat in the House of Representatives acknowledges what, privately, many inside the administration are themselves increasingly admitting: namely, their approach to the peace process over the past several months has been a train wreck: The chairman of the…

"Dead silence about human rights, smiles at dictators. That's the norm." -- An interview with Elliott Abrams.

So shady: Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp. and a fundraiser for President Obama and Hillary Clinton, was arrested on charges that he tricked Citigroup Inc. into lending him as much as $74 million using phony documents. Ben Smith adds: Nemazee was central to a large portion of the…

House Republicans circulate this statement from freshman Rep. John Adler, (D-N.J): "The bill that's coming through the House, with or without the public option, isn't good for America," Adler said matter-of-factly. "We have Congressional Budget Office projections of a trillion-dollar increase in…

Yesterday, the Obama administration's Special Task Force on Interrogations and Transfer Policies announced that future interrogations would be conducted in accordance with the Army Field Manual, and only the Army Field Manual. From the Task Force (emphasis added): "After extensively consulting with…

Glenn Beck blows this thing wide open: Update: A former Bush White House official tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD, "this guy couldn't even have gotten a tour at the Bush White House with that arrest record."

Ben Smith gets some great quotes from Rep. Peter King: "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an…

After all, his entire approach to foreign policy is premised on his ability to negotiate directly with -- and extract concessions from -- the heads of terrorist regimes. Maybe direct, presidential diplomacy can be used to extract confessions, too. The Obama administration has already stripped the…

So it's to be more Bernanke -- assuming the Senate goes along, as it almost certainly will. That's one thing economists got right -- the consensus was that he had a 70+ percent chance of being reappointed. What does it all mean? For one thing, Larry Summers stays at the White House. Not a bad thing…

Rasmussen takes a look at the ever-diminishing support for closing Gitmo: Seventy-five percent (75%) of U.S. voters are at least somewhat concerned that dangerous terrorists will be set free if the Guantanamo prison camp is closed and some prisoners are transferred to other countries. Fifty-six…

I'm pretty sure Obama "consistently said" the deficit might be $2 trillion more than his administration originally estimated, right? The White House now expects the 10-year budget deficit to reach $9.05 trillion, roughly $2 trillion more than it estimated earlier in the year, according to a report…

As I discussed in my piece, The Zubaydah Dossier, there is no question that Abu Zubaydah was a top al Qaeda terrorist with detailed knowledge of al Qaeda's plotting. Despite a wealth of evidence in this regard, however, some still insist that Zubaydah was not really all that important. This is…

The new party of protecting...Medicare spending? David Paterson doubles down on the race card. Young people need a bailout, too! Enjoy your new meme, President Obama. The troops will thank you if you can fight the NYT on this as hard as you fight Fox News in every speech. "This will be another…

That question has been among the most hotly disputed issues at the center of the continuing controversy over the CIA's interrogation of suspected terrorists. The report released Monday from the former CIA Inspector General John Helgerson should end the debate. Throughout his report, Helgerson goes…

There's one point of overlap in today's statement by Attorney General Eric Holder and tonight's by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Holder: "The men and women in our intelligence community ... deserve our respect and gratitude for the work they do." Cheney: "The people involved deserve our…

Former Vice President Dick Cheney gave THE WEEKLY STANDARD a statement Monday night about the CIA documents and the coming Justice Department investigation: The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of…

...of how a terrorist was released! Imagine that, investigating bad guys instead of the people defending the country. Lieberman says that the suggestions "that there was an intermixing here of Megrahi's fate with British interests and oil exploration in Libya are shocking." He went on, "I don't…

That seems to be the Obama administration's strategy for the war on terror overseas contingency operations against al Qaeda. The IG report, the independent prosecutor, taking the CIA out of the interrogation business, releasing Mohammed Jawad back into the wild, and that's all just in the last 24…

That's the title on a Republican memo now being circulated on the Hill: DATE: August 24, 2009 SUBJECT: release of CIA IG report confirms effectiveness of CIA interrogation program A redacted version of the CIA Inspector General Report on the CIA interrogation program was released today. Media…

A statement from the Connecticut senator on AG Holder's decision to name a prosecutor to investigate and potentially criminally charge CIA interrogators: "I respectfully regret this decision by Attorney General Holder and fear our country will come to regret it too because an open ended criminal…

President Obama said on Saturday: "Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform. Also false. When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform." FactCheck.org reported on Friday: "As for the House bill as it…

From a Department of Justice press release:

Apparently I overestimated Leon Panetta and underestimated Denis Blair. The Washington Post reports that Panetta has all but lost his turf war with Blair, while ABC reports that Panetta threatened to quit over administration plans to go after CIA operatives for interrogations that went beyond what…

From a Department of Justice press release: On July 30, 2009, consistent with the U.S. government's notice that it would no longer treat Jawad as detainable under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, a federal court ordered the U.S. government to release him from detention at Guantanamo…

Interesting bit on the decline of U.S. production capacity, via Loren Thompson at the Lexington Institute's new blog. With the Obama Administration moving to put more emphasis on manufacturing policy, the Lexington Institute is releasing a report this week detailing just how severe the nation's…

For some time I've argued that the Pakistani military, despite its operation against the Taliban in Swat, has no intention of going into the real Taliban strongholds of North and South Waziristan. And just one day after Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud's death was reported, I said the Pakistani…

For the first time since the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Command closed in 1979, U.S. Marines have taken up positions on the island of Taiwan -- as part of the relief effort in the wake of Typhoon Morakot. Yes, they're there as part of rescue and relief operations, but that won't make the ChiComs any…

After months of deliberation, the president's task force on interrogation and detention policies has recommended the formation of an "elite interrogation unit" to question "key terror suspects," the Washington Post reports."[S]hifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White…

It's hard to keep the rules straight in our post-racial society: President Obama's aides were so furious that Gov. Paterson dragged him into a rant about racism that they sent a message sharply criticizing the governor's comments just hours after he made them, The Post has learned. Aides to Obama…

We can dream, folks. We can dream of a Daschle vs. Thune moment in 2010: It's the highest stakes ever for a Nevada election, and former boxer Sen. Harry Reid is on the ropes early. Either Republican Danny Tarkanian or Sue Lowden would knock out Reid in a general election, according to a recent poll…

Interesting bit on the decline of US production capacity, via Loren Thompson at the Lexington Institute's new blog. With the Obama Administration moving to put more emphasis on manufacturing policy, the Lexington Institute is releasing a report this week detailing just how severe the nation's…

Can Obama and Bernanke get the U.S. out of the current economic slump without creating bigger problems down the road? Americans look to three sources for clues about the future of our economy: President Barack Obama, in charge of fiscal policy; Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke, in charge…

On some level this shouldn't surprise anyone: the terrorist president of Iran has appointed a terrorist defense minister. But it is the final nail in the coffin of Obama's appeal for fist unclenching. The Ahmadinejad government begins with the absence of domestic legitimacy. Now it is flouting the…

Former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge is in the news these days because a forthcoming memoir apparently makes the claim that he felt pressure from his Bush administration colleagues to raise the terror alert level before the 2004 elections. Sounds like a blockbuster claim.

Over at the Corner, Andy McCarthy points to this Politico story about a recent order by a D.C. District Court giving Gitmo detainee Abdul Raheem Ghulam Rabbani the right to ask 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) some questions about Rabbani's role in al Qaeda. The details of how these…

The ad from Rick Scott, and his group Conservatives for Patients' Rights, to air on Boston TV and in Martha's Vineyard during Obama's vacation, including on NESN during four Red Sox-White Sox games (which Obama will surely be watching). The size of the buy is reported at 150k:

Some choice quotes from his interview with President Obama:

Comparisons between our current efforts in Afghanistan and the Soviet intervention that led to the collapse of the USSR are natural and can be helpful, but only with great care. Below are a number of key points to keep in mind when thinking about the Soviet operations, especially when considering…

Military defense attorneys are under investigation by the Justice Department for showing photographs of covert CIA operatives -- secretly shot by "researchers" hired by the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- to Gitmo detainees in preparation for potential trials, the…

Be sure to check out the inimitable Dorothy Rabinowitz's take on cable-show-of-the-moment Mad Men:

Charlie Cook says that "[T]he situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Today, The Cook Political Report's Congressional election model, based on individual races, is pointing toward a net Democratic loss of between six and 12…

Obama yesterday:

Michael Rubin puts together a nifty little chart to help us figure out what kind of prison time the world's worst mass murders would face in Scotland, where the going rate is about 11.5 days for every man, woman, or child slaughtered:

Huckabee on Israel (via Ben Smith):

The New York Times reveals the awful truth about the secret air war against high value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan -- the drones are being armed by evil government contractors. And while the paper felt comfortable suppressing any news of the capture and confinement of one of its own reporters…

rubiocover.jpg National Review's John J. Miller profiles Marco Rubio in the cover story of the latest issue:

"I am a family man: first and foremost I am a son, husband, father and grandfather." Thus said Lockerbie bomber Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi in his appeal to the Scottish authorities for compassionate release. And thus Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill on Scotland's decision to comply:…

The Wall Street Journal editorial board zeroes in on Obama's health care non sequiturs:

Despite several weeks of huffing and puffing about disrupting Afghanistan's election to decide the next president and provincial council representatives, the Taliban had a poor showing today. There were 73 recorded acts of violence in 15 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces; 27 people were killed on…

The president whined today on Michael Smerconish's show:

Pelosi said today, "there is no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option." Does she mean it? Is she using the public option as a bargaining chip or do the internal politics of her caucus demand that any health care package include a public option? One senior GOP…

President Obama explained during his health care pep talk for Organizing for America activists today what exactly has been dragging down his vision for Obamacare:

The Obama administration is keen on highlighting the progress it is making in closing down Gitmo. Naturally, it could count on the Washington Post ("Administration Makes Progress on Resettling Detainees") to do its PR. The Post's account gives us a good sense of how the administration sees things…

Biden:

Last week, there were several instances of protesters showing up outside of town hall meetings openly carrying firearms. Anti-gun activists and the media were flabbergasted not only at the audacity of the protesters, but that the carrying of firearms happened to be perfectly legal where it…

Marshall Ackerman, who's been a doctor since 1969 in the D.C. metro area, doesn't much appreciate the characterization of doctors during the health care debate. Click through to read the whole thing for the full extent of Obama's, shall we say, "misinformation" about physicians.

"Planes come first," says the Russian military.

I'm not quite sure what to expect when Tom DeLay takes to the dance floor on next month's Dancing With the Stars. But I can't get out of my mind David Brent's "performance" in BBC's The Office. (Remember how Brent describes his style: "I've sort of fused Flashdance with M.C. Hammer shit." Also note…

The Obama administration is, according to the Washington Post, still discussing the possibility of sending at least some (it is not clear how many) of the 98 Yemeni detainees held at Gitmo to Saudi Arabia. The administration has previously floated the idea of having the Yemenis reeducated in the…

Continetti takes Joe Klein to task for his patently false claim that "There is no Republican health-care alternative in 2009." It's the kind of "intellectual dishonesty" of which Klein and others on the left so often accuse Republicans. But Klein isn't just intellectually dishonest. He's plain…

Roll Call reports:

How bad are the numbers on health care for the administration? So bad that Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring can one on one an analysis by the Plum Line's Greg Sargent:

More trouble in Paradise for the president, and not just from the storm brewing off Martha's Vineyard that threatens to interfere with his vacation. At a fundraiser for the Lambda Legal Defense Fund held last month by a wealthy gay couple at their ocean-front Fire Island home, Obama's name invoked…

I don't know whether Joe Klein believes Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is a "nihilist" and a "hypocrite" engaged in a "disinformation jihad" aimed at persuading the "tight, white, extremist bubble" that is the GOP to defeat ObamaCare. Still, it might have been a good idea for Klein to have read Ryan's…

The White House released behind-the-scenes pictures from the Obama administration this week, evidently fearful that between WhiteHouse.gov, his Twitter feed, near-constant presence on TV, and spam e-mails to unwilling citizens, he might be in danger of being slightly underexposed.

Charles Krauthammer seeks a research assistant for one or two year term. Email resume to job[at]charleskrauthammer.com.

A deep point from Erick Erickson at RedState in response to Obama's statement to some 1,000 rabbis yesterday that "We are God's partners in matters of life and death":

The Washington Post reports on the administration's efforts to release and resettle Gitmo detainees:

In essence he was calling these Christian groups a bunch of liars. It's a serious charge. By ratcheting up the rhetoric, the President just amped up the fight against him and opened up a can of worms.

Remember when the media breathlessly reported on all of the anti-Bush protesters who advocated assassinating the president?

The case for divided government. Inclement political weather rocked President Obama and his party this summer. Falling poll numbers and growing voter misgivings open the door for big Republican gains in next year's midterm elections.

While supporters of the health-care bill focus on politics, opponents focus on policy. President Obama made an unfortunate stumble in his August 11 town hall meeting on health care reform. "FedEx and UPS are doing just fine," he said, attempting to allay fears that a public option would drive…

Allahpundit: WaPo poll shows 7 in 10 Democrats now say war in Afghanistan wasn't worth fighting.

"I know there's been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness," President Obama said during a conference call with religious folks this evening, "but I want everyone to know what health insurance reform is all about." He then…

Obama leaves for Martha's Vineyard this weekend -- a visit that may coincide with the arrival of Bill:

Remember when Obama thought that questions of religious import were "above my pay grade"? Or when the left thought that an American president shouldn't presume to act on behalf of the Lord? Not any more:

Apologies for the second nod of the day on the blog to Bill Clinton's famous locution,

George Stephanopoulos: "Administration officials are thinking about how to use the former First Couple [the Clintons] on the subject they know so much about: health care."

The independents who provided the lift for the Democrats' soaring political fortunes in 2006 and 2008 are abandoning the Democratic party. The new Pew poll has Obama's job approval rating at 51 percent, and finds that "Independents, who approved of Obama's job performance by nearly two-to-one in…

pixie dust.jpg

Al Qaeda flags keep showing up around the globe. On Tuesday, August 18, U.S. authorities unsealed a warrant that had authorized searching the homes of two individuals from the vicinity of Raleigh, N.C. The pair were among eight men charged late last month with plotting Islamist terrorism. The…

Mark Murray writes at MSNBC.com that yesterday's NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll found that "Americans remain skeptical about White House plans to overhaul the nation's health system." It sure did!

At yesterday's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took a step back to reiterate a familiar Democratic argument that we need a "public plan" to provide "choice and competition" in the health insurance market. "I want to step back just for one second and discuss -- because we…

One of the most contentious issues among military planners is how, exactly, we should be fighting the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan. CENTCOM boss General Petraeus figured Iraq out quickly, but cracking the Hindu Kush's human terrain remains -- as it has for centuries -- the bane of empires and…

As the Obama administration presses Pakistan to continue the battle against the Taliban in the tribal areas, Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, is courting Pakistan's Islamists as part of the effort to listen to critics of American policy. One of the Islamist leaders…

Contentions has two excellent blog posts, the first by Noah Pollak and the second by Ted R. Bromund, about the recent decision by Yale University to censor an upcoming book it is releasing about the 2005 Danish Muhammad cartoon controversy, The Cartoons That Shook the World, by removing from it the…

Funny how Obamacare makes for strange bedfellows. After Whole Foods CEO John Mackey expressed his opposition to the administration's health care reform plans in the Wall Street Journal, liberals have been up in arms, and as reported by Ylan Q. Mui in today's Washington Post, a Boycott Whole Foods…

From a just posted piece by Elliott Abrams:

TEXT Conservative voters have shifted to U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey who has narrowed the gap in the Pennsylvania Republican primary, trailing incumbent U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter 49 - 44 percent among likely voters, according to a Quinnipiac poll released today.

As the Times and Politico report today, the White House is now backing a unilateral approach to health care reform. How did we reach this impasse? Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny report:

From the Miami Herald:

Old and new. A cluster of recent events has put homegrown terrorism on the country's radar for the second time in two months. We have seen alleged members of a jihadist cell arrested in North Carolina, a Minnesota-based Somali man plead guilty to aiding Islamic militants in Somalia, and the…

Not the Obama administration. This week brought the odd juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated events: the death of former South Korean president Kim Dae Jung, and the visit to the United States of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. What links the two events is America's human rights policy--or…

Jake Tapper: Will Bagram become Obama's Gitmo?

Having spent ten days mostly out of news range, I missed watching as it happened the fabulous Sarah Palin takedown of the Obamacare "death panels." But am now all caught up, thanks to Richard Cohen's column of today attacking her.

In the most recent habeas decision handed down by a D.C. District Court judge, the court ruled that Gitmo detainee Adham Mohammed Ali Awad is properly held in U.S. custody.

1931-2009 Robert Novak terrified Washington. Elected and appointed officials, Democrats and Republicans, lobbyists and self-styled defenders of the "public interest" -- few were comfortable when Novak had them in his sights. Nor should they have been. The reason was simple: Bob Novak didn't play…

Robert Novak terrified Washington. Elected and appointed officials, Democrats and Republicans, lobbyists and self-styled defenders of the "public interest" -- few were comfortable when Novak had them in his sights. Nor should they have been. The reason was simple: Bob Novak didn't play political…

What Would Rove Do? James Carville took a shot Sunday:

Robert Novak passed away this morning after a long battle with cancer. At Human Events, Kenneth Tomlinson and Tim Carney have written remembrances of Novak.

Look around, the left has already tired of multilateralism, compromise, negotiation -- they want action, with or without the help of potential allies. The Huffington Post has a banner headline "Ignore This Man," a reference to this piece in the Hill about liberal activists pressuring Senate…

Let's play Count the Clichés! Today's subject is Democratic strategist Bruce Reed, who writes in Slate that "[h]ealth care reform remains a good bet."

Politico reports that liberals are in "full revolt" against White House signals that the so-called "public option" is negotiable. Bob Herbert - yes, Bob Herbert - has an angry column in today's Times in which he writes that the White House has been "rolled" and that the emerging Obama health reform…

Greg Sargent notes that leaders of the House progressive caucus sent a letter to Kathleen Sebelius last night to remind her that "60 Members of Congress ... are firm in their position that any legislation that moves forward through both chambers, and into a final proposal for the president's…

Bill McGurn writes in the Wall Street Journal:

A surprising European approach to health-care reform. The Netherlands is a liberal country. It has legalized drugs and euthanasia is an accepted social policy. Yet, to solve its health care dilemma of rising costs and inefficiency, it has turned to a health care system that sounds much more like…

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Fox News's Major Garrett had a heated exchange last week over whether the White House was spamming people with emails to support Obamacare. Garrett reported that several people had contacted him saying that they received a mass email from David Axelrod to support…

The outspoken Ayatollah Sane'i called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a ‘bastard' who is out to destroy the Shia faith.

The Hillary Doctrine -- give them liberty or give them public housing: "I also think that it's important to look at human rights more broadly than it has been defined. Human rights are also the right to a good job and shelter over your head and a chance to send your kids to school and get health…

The flag@whitehouse.gov email address is "no longer in service," but the White House directs you to submit "your feedback about health insurance reform via:http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck".

I received an email at my University of Oregon account today informing me that there are "intern opportunities with Organizing for America," formerly Obama for America. According to the email, OFA is launching what it calls the "National Organizing Internship" for college students around the…

Over the weekend, the Obama administration backed away from liberal efforts to include the "public option," i.e., a government-run insurance program open to all Americans, in prospective congressional health care legislation. The shift was probably a response to the emerging public opposition to…

As Rachel Abrams noted earlier, President Obama told ABC news on Thursday: "I'm always worried about using the word 'victory' [regarding Afghanistan] because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur." I was told recently by a…

A few weeks ago Human Rights Watch made news when it was revealed in the Wall Street Journal that the group had sent representatives to Saudi Arabia to tout HRW's battles with "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations" as part of a fund-raising pitch to…

The Condé Nast cafeteria no longer serves Fiji-brand bottled water.

The primary Democratic response to criticism of ObamaCare has been to attack the motives, intelligence, and good faith of the people making the criticism. One of the most common tactics is to highlight those instances when a voter seemingly betrays his or her ignorance of the fact that Medicare is…

Greg Sargent reports:

Mike Allen reports that you will now have to report your fellow citizens' spreading of misinformation to the U.S. government at a different email address:

Niall Ferguson has a pithy and provocative essay in the new Newsweek. He writes:

A delegation of U.S. Senators, led by Senator John McCain, is in Yemen today to reportedly discuss the Yemeni citizens detained at Gitmo, among other topics. When it comes to closing down the detention facility, the Yemeni detainees pose one of the Obama administration's most difficult challenges.…

Over at his excellent blog, Richard Brookhiser highlights an interview that Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the Times book review and William F. Buckley Jr.'s biographer, recently gave to MSNBC:

Hamas fighters and members of the al Qaeda-linked Jund Ansar Allah, or Warriors of God, clashed in the border city of Rafah in southern Gaza, resulting in 13 people killed and 85 wounded. Hamas fighters attacked the Jund Ansar Allah strongholds in Rafah after the latter group's leader declared an…

All the Living

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

Dear Mr. President, How nice to know you will summer on Martha's Vineyard at Blue Heron Farm, where the amenities are said to be fabulous. "The 28-acre estate, $20 million enclave is located in Chilmark," CBS told us. "The farm suits Obama to a tee with golf facilities, a pool, basketball court,…

Rise and Fight Again

Ultimatum

New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History

  I am a reapplier. If one were to do the math, one would likely find that, all told, I lost an entire summer of my youth reapplying my sunscreen while my friends were playing Marco Polo.

First, two volumes intended for the coffee table, well worth examining in detail. The West of the Imagination by William H. Goetzmann and William N. Goetzmann (Oklahoma, 604 pp., $65)--one William Goetzmann is a distinguished historian of the west at the University of Texas, the other W.G. a…

Obama vs. the 'Outside Agitators'

Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy

Talking to Terrorists

The Dawn of the Color Photograph

This has been a most unhappy summer for liberal health care reformers. As recently as May, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus could exclaim to the Washington Post, "The train is leaving the station. There's a sense of inevitability here." Yet as members of Congress begin their August…

The Conservatives

In his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned "against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." Last month, John McCain invoked that warning as he fought alongside the Obama administration and Senate Democrats to strip a…

During the early hours of March 28, 2002, elite teams from the Pakistani and American counterterrorism forces stormed more than a dozen locations throughout Pakistan. Their target was one of the most wanted men on the planet--the al Qaeda commander Abu Zubaydah. For weeks, America's intelligence…

Looking back on it, it's hard to understand how the recent Iranian revolution failed. Sure, the mullahs had guns, tanks, an air force, police, the Revolutionary Guard, the Basij, and imported terrorist thugs on their side. But the Iranian protestors had Twitter. Who could have predicted that an…

Annie's Ghosts

Trouble ahead. Almost exactly two years ago economists discovered that the problems in the housing and mortgage markets had spread to the financial sector. Subprime mortgages proved highly infectious, a couple of Bear Stearns funds collapsed, banks suddenly looked at their neighbors with such…

The program started late, cost $50 million to administer, crashed computers and ran out of money. All to see people spend money now that they would likely have spent later.

We do not think that there is any problem with the process by which the assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and the identification of resources required by the new strategy is being conducted. We had initially been concerned-and had raised questions in an article on THE WEEKLY STANDARD…

DOD Buzz's Greg Grant reports that "for all the talk about irregular and hybrid warfare, the driving force in the QDR strategic review currently underway is the High End Asymmetric Threat, or HEAT, team." That would be the folks studying how the Red Chinese will go about keeping the U.S. Navy and…

Ramesh Ponnuru: Obamacare opponents should target the individual mandate.

I guess since Obama's spent the last month insulting surgeons and otolaryngologists, it's no surprise that Obamacare supporters would have to get a fake doctor to come as Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee questions about it. The Houston Chronicle is just catching onto a story about Obamacare's non-doctor…

Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee nixed end-of-life counseling provisions in its version of the health-care bill. Sarah Palin had been criticized for using the phrase "death panels" to describe the government rationing that would inevitably occur under nationalized health care.

These are ordinary Americans, no different than anyone else, held hostage by health insurance companies that deny them coverage, or drop their coverage, or charge fees that they can't afford for care that they desperately need.

For all of the tough talk from Paksitan on defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban in their strongholds int he northwest, the latest strategy shows just how unserious the government is when it comes to taking on the Taliban. Syed Saleem Shahzad is a Pakistan-based reporter and has been ahead of the…

The Toomey campaign has done a good job of keeping track of Arlen Specter's flip flops--see this video at the 30-second mark where Specter flip flops on a public option:

From the very beginning, J Street's strategy has been to claim that it would represent a very large and very underserved segment of American Jewish opinion -- a moderate middle that has somehow been marginalized by groups like AIPAC. Yet it seems this mythical group of Jews who were heretofore…

Gary Schmitt writes:

If you regret missing out on THE WEEKLY STANDARD cruise this week, you're in luck. Spots on the upcoming TWS Online cruise are still available but, um, very limited. Make sure to sign up today.

Remember when Nancy Pelosi thought it was patriotic to disrupt speeches made by elected officials?

Charles Kratuhammer's column expounds on the CBO director's report that preventive care will raise, not lower, Obamacare's costs (contrary to claims by Obama and the Democrats):

Megyn Kelly makes a White House spokesman squirm.

The Hill's Michael O'Brien reports that the Senate Finance Committee has agreed to drop the end-of-life counseling provisions from its version of the bill. "We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly,"…

This morning, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent reported that "Dems are getting ready to jump on GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell over a local TV report in Kentucky saying that McConnell has acknowledged not reading the whole health care bill - even though GOPers challenged Dems to read the bill…

Although Lyndon LaRouche Democrats are standing up for the proletariat and opposing Obamacare because they want a single-payer system, the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto notes that the CPUSA is enthusiastically supporting Obamacare:

Last week, controversy erupted over the announcement of a British comedy that plans to make fun of Islamists:

The BBC's interview with Rabiah Hutchinson, the ex-wife of top al Qaeda operative Mustafa Hamid (aka Abu Walid al Misri), provides a fascinating look into the mind of a western woman who became a jihadist ideologue. Rabiah Hutchinson used to be known as Robyn Hutchinson until she was swayed by…

Is this the proper tone for a charmless blue senator from a red state?

The Lone Star Times and blogger Patterico reveal that a woman named Roxana Mayer, who claimed to be a general practitioner at town-hall event with Rep. Sheila Lee Jackson, is not in fact a doctor and was a Democratic National Convention delegate for Obama from Texas.

The Scottish government is reportedly considering releasing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the convicted terrorist responsible for placing a bomb aboard Pan Am 103 on December 21, 1988. That bomb killed all 259 passengers on the plane, as well as 11 civilians on the ground when the plane…

ABC News reports:

In June, Arlen Specter led Pat Toomey by 11 points: Toomey 39% -- Specter 50%. But that was nothing that a little talk about Obamacare couldn't fix. Now, Rasmussen shows Toomey leading Specter by 12 points: Toomey 48% -- Specter 36%. According to Rasmussen, "In Pennsylvania, 42% of voters support…

The failing Russian defense industry. Kiev

Can Obamacare withstand the August heat? When House Republican leader John Boehner left Washington less than two weeks ago, he predicted Democratic lawmakers would face a long, hot summer of discontent on health care with the folks back home. His prognosis now looks like a precise political CAT…

At a press conference on Capitol Hill this afternoon, Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) wouldn't say if she would allow a floor vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment to prohibit abortion coverage from the public health-care plan and private plans subsidized by taxpayer dollars.

Unlike Jessica Valenti, I do not have thousands of words to write about the gender constructs, ingrained sexism, and patriarchal sensibilities inherent in the great debate over whether women should take their husbands' last names when they marry.

Joseph Bottum reports the sad news that Karen Novak, a friend of many at TWS and wife of Michael Novak, has passed away after a long struggle with cancer:

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, has wisdom to share about health care reform that covers people while cutting costs, because he's done it in his chain of stores. Among his suggestions, which are just free-market enough to work (they already have at Whole Foods):

The White House, DNC, and leading Democrats keep piling on the unappealing rhetoric, labeling Obamacare critics pawns, lobbyists, un-American, and right-wing extremist mobs.

I never thought I'd enjoy a Democratic senator from California as much as I've enjoyed Dianne Feinstein for the past couple months. From vocally supporting the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, against her party's wishes, to vocally dressing down the White House for not keeping her in the loop on the…

A knotty question -- he's due to visit the blast site come November and loves to say "I'm sorry." On the other hand, the twin Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings served as a legitimate conclusion to a war that Japan initiated -- with a recent poll showing that 61% of Americans support Truman's decision to…

NY Daily News:

Last week, Think Progress produced four pictures of protesters linking Obama or his health-care plan to Nazism.

Last week, an article in the New York Times laid out the background details of the deal between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry -- or at least its representative in Washington, former congressman Billy Tauzin. In short, the drug companies promised $80 billion in "savings" and the…

Camille Paglia has had enough of Nancy Pelosi's attempts to smear town-hall protesters as "un-American" swastika-carriers:

Politco's Martin Kady reports that Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) is none too pleased with Obama's crediting him yesterday for the end-of-life counseling provisions in the health-care bill:

Palma de Mallorca, Spain We're about halfway through the TWS cruise--and so far, so good. Some great sightseeing in Rome, Tuscany, Monte Carlo and Barcelona; some great panels starring my colleagues and our special guests Elliott Abrams and Anne-Elisabeth Moutet; interesting and lively informal…

Surprise! Now the Nicaraguan president wants to change term limits. A few weeks ago, at a public celebration to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega moved one step closer to creating an autocracy. Speaking to a large crowd, Ortega called…

John Bolton on Mary Robinson's Medal of Freedom.

Two weeks ago, the GAO added the postal service to its "high-risk" list of government agencies. The report noted that "broad restructuring is needed" in order to avoid catastrophe. The USPS is likely to have a $7 billion net loss this year. The report further noted that without cutting expenses…

JTA reports:

Obama today in New Hampshire:

Jim Geraghty notes that Obama tells the crowd at his town-hall in New Hampshire: "I have not said that I am a supporter of a single-payer system."

Does this seem fishy to you? Over the weekend, Democratic Rep. David Scott of Atlanta yelled at one of his constituents, a urologist, who had the audacity to ask Scott about his support for Obamacare. Yesterday, CNN had a segment featuring Scott and the urologist, and Scott didn't come out looking…

Yesterday's article in the Wall Street Journal with the attention-getting headline "Taliban Now Winning" in Afghanistan has generated a lot of controversy, and according to some people I've spoken to, some anger in the Pentagon. Jim Hanson at Blackfive rightly noted yesterday that there was little…

The BBC reports:

Rasmussen reports:

CNN reports:

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that a poll sponsored by supporters of Nevada Republican party chairwoman Sue Lowden shows that she leads Harry Reid 48 to 42 in a matchup:

John Dingell (D-Mich) on MSNBC:

The LA Times reported on Sunday that "U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects."

The Heritage Foundation's Nina Owcharenko looks at the details of the Senate HELP Committee's work on health care legislation. She reports that the committee voted on a party-line basis to defeat an amendment offered by Senator Tom Coburn that would have ensured health care money went to health…

Turning Christians against Israel. In May, the Carter Center in Atlanta, with patron Jimmy Carter presiding, hosted liberal religious officials to talk about the Middle East, releasing a statement effectively calling for a more neutral U.S. stance towards Israel. In June, in between meeting with…

Reihan Salam: If Obamacare passes, the protests will only intensify.

Via Politico, the AP reports:

Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer decided to double down on some pretty distasteful messaging today, calling some of the opposition to health care reform, "un-American" in a USA Today op-ed. Specifically, this is what the Speaker finds so unpatriotic:

The Obama administration has made a point of extending an "open hand" to almost every malign regime on the planet. Former presidents, clear your calendars: On Sunday, the Iranian government confirmed that it's holding three American hikers in custody.

John Boehner has a statement on Nacy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer's op-ed calling rowdy protesters "un-American"

I reported last week that a vote on Rep. John McHugh's (R-N.Y.) nomination to serve as Secretary of the Army wax expected to happen by the end of the week. It didn't. Roll Call reports that "McHugh is the subject of a hold by Kansas GOP Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, who want assurances from…

ABC's Jake Tapper reports:

The wizards at Reason.TV have two new videos.

Renowned author and CNAS fellow Tom Ricks runs a series on his blog, The Best Defense, titled "Iraq, the unraveling." The series cherry-picks the worst stories from Iraq and is used to support his assertion that Iraq is falling apart and political reconciliation failed despite the positive effects…

After last week's jubilation over the purported death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, it is now starting to appear as if he survived the airstrike that killed his wife and several of his bodyguards. Five very senior Taliban leaders have come out and said Baitullah survived the attack…

It wasn't Iraq. It's not Afghanistan - at least for an increasing number of them. And the Global War on Terror doesn't exist anymore.

America's system of K-12 educational standards is confused and bothersome. Standards differ from state to state, and while some are quite good, many are dreadful, beset by sundry problems including mammoth omissions and factual errors.

Capitol Offense

Christopher Kimball knows what you are eating.

The Accidental Guerrilla

In the litany of criticisms leveled at President George W. Bush none was repeated more often than the accusation that he had "politicized the administration of justice." In endless television show appearances and congressional hearings, Democratic lawmakers like Senator Chuck Schumer railed against…

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of composer Felix Mendelssohn.

On July 29, 1981, barely six months into his presidency and in the face of an economic crisis of historic proportions, Ronald Reagan succeeded in persuading both houses of Congress to pass dramatic tax cuts that set the stage for nearly three decades of vigorous economic growth. In doing so, he…

Funny People

After hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11, taxpayers ended up spending a lot of money to aid the injured, rebuild public infrastructure, improve security, and help the jobless. But the private firms with property and workers in lower Manhattan fell back on their private insurers. And…

Lord Berners

When I labored at the New Republic, some 35 years ago, the TRB column was written by an amusing man named Richard Strout, who had arrived in Washington in 1920 to write for the Christian Science Monitor, had been moonlighting as TRB since 1943, and had three abiding pet peeves.

Since late 2007, when Michael Vick, the former star quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, was incarcerated for running a dog-fighting club out of his Smithfield, Virginia, home, a lot of things have broken his way. Vick, now 29, was able to spend the last two months of his sentence under house…

Watch out for Plan B. It's President Obama's fallback position on health care reform. It's Obamacare without the most controversial part, the creation of a government-run, "public" health insurance plan open to all comers at cut rate. And Plan B is something that Obama and the health insurance…

The English Premier League has dominated European soccer in recent years. Nine of the last 12 Champions League semifinalists have come from the Premier League, and an English team has been in the final for each of the last five years (two played each other for the trophy in 2008). The Premiership's…

Let's stipulate that Congress may yet pass some sort of health insurance overhaul by the end of the year, that the future in politics is never a straight-line projection from the present, that President Obama is a savvy and charismatic guy, that Democrats control both houses of Congress,…

David A. Kessler is a man of science--former dean of the medical school at Yale and a physician himself--but he is also a man of pudge, so not long ago he decided to combine the two interests in an experiment.

Relatively good economic news could help Obama. Washington will be a different place now that the Senate has followed the House of Representatives' flight from the city. On vacation? Certainly not. According to the official House schedule, its members are on their "Summer District Work Period", a…

Americans look to three sources for clues about the future of our economy: President Barack Obama, in charge of fiscal policy; Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke, in charge of monetary policy; and Warren Buffett, the revered "sage of Omaha" whose authority rests on his decades-long record…

U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials are pretty certain that Baitullah Mehsud, the top Taliban in Pakistan, is dead. Last night my sources were skeptical, and the reports have not yet been definitively confirmed, but Pakistani Taliban leaders, including one of Baitullah's senior deputies, are…

Last night, as reports began to emerge of unrest at two big health care town halls in Tampa and St. Louis, a man on Twitter claiming to work with SEIU, claimed a handful of arrests in St. Louis had been Obamacare critics, and they'd been arrested for assaulting SEIU members. His report was…

Egypt's official paper calls Israel's Ambassador to the United States "the most dangerous man in Washington."

General Chuck Wald has an op-ed on the viability of a US military strike against Iran in the Wall Street Journal today:

The statement from the DNC:

Democrats in the House order eight G5 Gulfstream jets for $550 million that will be used by the Pentagon to ferry around VIPs in Congress -- even though the Pentagon says it does not need or want the planes. The response from the White House is silence. Democrats in the House make a down payment on…

Oh, Blanche Lincoln, blue senator in a red state, you must act more wisely than this:

The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen writes of the White House's request for citizens to report "fishy" emails to flag@whitehouse.gov:

Via Newsbusters' P.J. Gladnick, left-wing talk show host Bill Press compares the town-hall protesters to Nazis in his latest column:

Florida Republican Senator Mel Martinez is resigning his seat. An announcement is expected today.

Did the White House know anything about Mary Robinson before she was selected for the nation's highest civilian honor -- the Presidential Medal of Freedom? There's no rule that says an administration can't choose a controversial figure to receive the honor, but it's hard to believe the…

Throughout the debate about the "surge" in Iraq at the end of 2006 and the start of 2007, Bush administration spokesmen consistently underplayed the military requirements, and some people within the administration and the military tried to constrain the resources available to the commanders. These…

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill: "I disagree that the people showing concern over some healthcare proposals are "manufactured" Real folks, strong opinions." Sen. Cardin (D-Md.) agrees.

Earlier this week, the White House asked people to forward "fishy" emails they receive that may be spreading misinformation about health-care reform to flag@whitehouse.gov. In response, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) wrote in a letter to President Obama that it's "inevitable that the names, email…

Lanny Davis writes in The Hill:

Voice of America reports:

RCP's Kyle Trygstad writes:

Rasmussen fact-checks Krugman on the popularity of Massachusetts health-care:

Now they're providing Obamabots with signs (!) -- will the assault on grassroots organizing never end?

From 1997 to June of 2009, Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), had a near perfect pro-life voting record. But since June he's gone 0 for 3 on pro-life votes. Why the change of heart? McHugh's press secretary won't say. But the likely reason is obvious: On June 2, 2009 President Obama nominated McHugh to serve…

The Democrats' health-care overhaul stands at a critical juncture in Congress. With public opposition rising, President Obama faces some key strategic decisions to advance the bill through the legislative thicket.

Gibbs backtracks on statement that Ahmadinejad is "the elected leader" of Iran.

It could be a meeting of the heads of the Five Families, the Cavalcantes, the Chicago Outfit, the Patriarcas, and the Detroit Partnership. But these murderers are Fatah terrorists, ex-terrorists (some, anyway), and a few who are just so old and infirm they're now terrorists in spirit only. They've…

That's right--he just sent an email from barackobama.com. Astroturfing!!!

When the "manufactured" outrage the Left is trying to demonize lines up so inconveniently with public polling, it's sometimes necessary to create evidence for the "manufactured" storyline.

J Street, the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian, anti-Joe Lieberman lobbying group, has joined with Americans for Peace Now, Churches for Middle East Peace, Brit Tzedek, and a bunch of other peacenik groups to pressure Democrats in Congress not to sign a letter to the president calling on him to pressure…

Reuters reports:

Democrats are accusing industry groups, Republicans, and anyone else who opposes the president's health care reform health insurance reform effort of "astroturfing" -- creating the appearance of grass roots opposition when grass roots opposition fails to materialize organically. The DNC puts out a…

Think Progress explains:

The anti-EFCA forces send around quotes from two pro-EFCA Dems who seem to understand that a secret ballot does in fact have some value. In particular, a secret ballot allows people to vote their conscience instead of being beholden to the political consequences of their vote. That's a good thing…

The Pakistani government is touting its move to ban major terror groups that operate in the country.

Health reformers ought to be beating the bushes for ideas about reining in health costs. Here's one, hidden in plain sight among today's op-eds: Give the patient a stake in health savings.

The White House call for people to inform on anyone spreading "disinformation about health insurance reform" didn't sit well with a lot of people -- Obama isn't running a political campaign anymore, he's supposed to be running the country (and in the event even those who spread video clips of the…

Apparently this has been making the rounds, but I only saw it today--and it's awesome. The friend who emailed it to me says, "Just when you think America is headed in the wrong direction, you realize that there are too many people like this wonderful man who won't let it happen."

There is so very much that is objectionable about the Left's and the DNC's response to opposition to the health-care bill at town halls across the country, that it's hard to know where to begin.

10 August recess questions for your representative.

As Sandhya Somashekhar reports in this morning's Washington Post, President Obama is sure to play a role in Virginia's gubernatorial race. But at the moment he seems to be more of a burden then a benefit to Democrats: Some voters who supported Obama are feeling a bit disillusioned and are wondering…

The BBC reports:

A few years ago at a meeting in Amman, Jordan, a Bush administration official suggested the time might be ripe for an Arab "democratic spring"--a flowering of democratic institutions in the Middle East. Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, delivered the predictably gloomy forecast:…

USA Today has a front-page article on the dramatic increase in demand for concealed handgun permits since Obama was elected:

Germany's Der Spiegel magazine reported over the weekend that the four Islamic terrorists charged with trying to blow up Frankfurt Airport on September 11, 2007 had informants inside Turkish intelligence that allowed them to obtain classified investigative material about their own group previously…

Bloomberg: Senators, advisers urge Obama to double Afghan forces.

Jen Rubin reports:

This analysis, from former Bush administration Asia hand Michael Green, caught my eye as I re-read a recent New York Times article on North Korea and the formerly detained journalists.

This past month, Heritage fired a loud warning shot at lawmakers responsible for the F-22's sustainment, cautioning against legislation that would exacerbate the problem of our swiftly shrinking fighter fleet. Though the entire paper -- The Growing Air Power Fighter Gap -- is worth reading, their…

The Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, has agreed to reconcile with one of the most dangerous Shia terror groups in Iraq: The prime minister, Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, met with members of the group, Asa'ib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous, over the weekend, said Ali…

The statement from the DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse:

Quoth Gibbs on A'jad: "He's the elected leader."

An email from Pounder in the GOP House Whip's Office:

The Obama administration's decision to award a Freedom Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor, to former Irish PM and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has left many in the Jewish community dumb-founded. How could the administration honor someone whose signal achievement at…

At the White House press briefing today, I asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if President Obama will read the health-care bill: TWS: At some point in the legislative process, will the president read the entire health-care bill? GIBBS: I assume the president will study the details of the proposal…

Presumably they don't want the great "success" of the program to detract from Obama's begging the Senate to pass $2 billion more. It's important to fund, then evaluate. It's the Obama way: The Obama administration is refusing to release government records on its "cash-for-clunkers" rebate program…

USA Today published an AP fact-check yesterday that got a number of very basic things wrong. First, the AP debunks Sen. Jim DeMint's statement that "People are starting to figure out that the president is on record, Congressman (Charles) Rangel's on record, for wanting a single-payer government…

This morning, the White House pushed back on Drudge's promotion of this video: Linda Douglass, formerly a totally objective reporter with ABC News, appears in the below video in an attempt to debunk the first video. She does this by saying, essentially, "Obama's critics are lying about the…

Mike Allen reports: TOP STORY -- Former President Bill Clinton was presented with a large bouquet as he arrived this morning in Pyongyang, North Korea, on a mission to win the release of two women journalists who have been detained since March 17. EXCLUSIVE BACKSTORY: North Korean officials told…

It's almost breathtaking how little connected the Obami seem to what Americans really believe about their best interests and their country's. It's hard to think of a single subject on which they've gotten it right: Stimulus, no; health care, no; Iran, no; Israel, no; North Korea, no; even outreach…

Big ol' deficit. Big, big, ol' deficit. G-I-A-N-T D-E-F-I-C-I-T! $1 million for Rangel in legal bills. The Daily Show whiffs on Cash for Clunkers. (link fixed) What people don't understand is that American racism is so powerful that it can cause The Joker to come unmoored from its very cultural…

On July 21, Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi pushing for a "common ground" solution to disagreements about abortion coverage in the health care bill. Ryan, who describes himself as pro-life and wrote that the bill should prohibit federal funding of abortion, believes that…

Death has its clichés, including that which marks the passing of a notable individual as "the end of an era." Corazon "Cory" Aquino, leader of the non-violent "people's power" movement that overthrew the Philippine dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, died in Manila on August 1, at 76. But the life of…

President Obama rightly observed in his speech to the Ghanaian parliament last month that "development depends on good governance." When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Trade Representative Ron Kirk attend a trade summit with African leaders in Nairobi this week, they should make good on…

McCain will vote against Sotomayor. Ross Douthat: "The president wants to govern America like a blue state. But for that to work, he'll need the nation's economy to start performing more like Texas." Edmund Burke and Yuval Levin on why it doesn't matter much whether health-care is a right. Michelle…

Mary Robinson does what her kind always do when questions are raised about their past statements and conduct vis-à-vis Israel -- play victim. Maybe Obama can get Chas Freeman to hang the Freedom Medal around her neck: But Ms Robinson hit back yesterday at what she described as allegations "totally…

Spencer Ackerman writes in response to today's NYT piece on the Iran sanctions moving through the Senate: Why would Russia and China agree to such a package? And why would, say, the United Nations agree to a move that would push the Iranians to dare the international community to confront it…

He played Che in the movies, to the acclaim of the few who actually sat through the 4-hour eponymous flick (most of them in Cuba). Now his portrayal of the famous poet, physician, lover of Beethoven, and murderer has garnered Benicio del Toro Cuba's International Tomas Gutierrez Alea Prize, named…

Politico: Baucus has until Sept. 15 to reach an agreement with Republicans -- and that is still the goal. "But if we don't, it is not going to stop us from moving forward with health care," Schumer told reporters Monday. "If the Republicans are not able to produce an agreement (by then), we will…

Greg Sargent reports: An internal poll conducted for House Dem leaders, which I've obtained, tested a range of Dem and GOP messages and concluded that the anti-insurance industry line is the most convincing of all messages from either side.... The survey - taken in 60 battleground districts - found…

Thanks to the cancelation of the F-22 program, a two-year delay on F-35 development, and an upcoming QDR likely to shortchange F/A-18 sustainment, the Pentagon is projecting gaping holes in our active-duty Navy and Air Force fighter forces for the next 6-9 years. With fewer active duty airframes…

A salient point from Michael Yon, embedded with the UK's 2 Rifles. I was up on a watch post with a soldier from Ghana while we waited for soldiers who have been fighting to return to base. The war is serious here; earlier in the day, another soldier from 2 Rifles had been killed upriver at Kajaki.…

I enjoy Jeffrey Goldberg's constant attacks on Roger Cohen -- because they're funny and true. Today he offers this handy little synopsis/translation of Cohen's piece in the Times magazine for those who have neither the time nor the inclination to read the piece for themselves: The Making of an Iran…

Classic Mark Steyn, on the the duties of legislators. A legislator is elected to legislate - so, if he doesn't read the law before he makes it law, he's not doing the only job he has. When you go to see Barbra Streisand, she has an orchestra and a conductor and arrangers and lighting designers and…

If you thought the Brits were going soft on Afghanistan, the UN has one-upped them by demanding direct negotiations with the senior most leaders of the Taliban, including, presumably, Mullah Omar himself. The Brits have also been aggressively pushing for negotiations with the Taliban, but last…

So says David Sanger in the New York Times today, echoing reports late last week from Ha'aretz that the administration is weighing throwing its support behind Joe Lieberman's bill (S. 908) that would impose gasoline sanctions against Iran: The Obama administration is talking with allies and…

I think there should be a new reality show called "America's Worst Senators at Town Hall Meetings." No more hearings on C-Span to lull citizens into thinking members of Congress are merely stultifying blowhards. This way they could get to know how really cringe-inducingly awful their legislators…

House Republican Leader John Boehner has a new video, calling President Obama's "medical judgments" into question with a great soap opera tune in the background. Watch it here:

FDR v. The Constitution

And That's the Way It Wasn't

On Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, across from the Harvard campus, the Maoist proprietors of Revolution Books provide reasonably priced pamphlets from the Revolutionary Communist Party (Mao Tse-tung's Immortal Contributions, $4.95) and offer for purchase "many volumes" of Stalin's writings. If…

Cynics

Is President Obama an economic illiterate? Harsh as that sounds, there's growing evidence he understands little about economics and even less about economic growth or job creation. Yet, as we saw at last week's presidential press conference, he's undeterred from holding forth, with seeming…

The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski was just a few months shy of his 82nd birthday when he died at his home in Oxford on July 17, after what his daughter Agnieszka described as "a brief and very sudden illness." For anyone inclined to despair that we live in intellectually diminished times,…

The House Committee on Education and Labor is having a busy summer. (Everybody in Washington is having a busy summer!) Earlier this month, for example, one of its essential subunits--the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education and Healthy Families and Communities, or…

Rob Fleming, the hero of Nick Hornby's pleasurable novel High Fidelity, approaches life as something to be ranked. He doesn't just have to hand the usual lists men of a certain obsessive temperament make--top five films, top five songs. When his live-in girlfriend Laura leaves him, practically his…

President Obama's strategy to pass sweeping health care legislation rested on stealth and speed. The idea was to fill the conversation for months on end with vague talk about expanding coverage, "bending the cost-curve," improving quality, and rooting out waste, without showing the public how the…

Democracy Denied, 1905-1915

I arrived at the church promptly at 9 A.M. Five millimeter pearl studs graced my earlobes; my hair was swept back into a neat bun. Remarkably, I was up, dressed, and ready to go with only one cup of coffee in my system. It's rare that I wear pearls, and even rarer that I skip my second cup of…

The cocktail is a lovely simple thing: a mixture of spirits and flavorings that whets the appetite, pleases the eye, and stimulates the mind. It is one of our conspicuous contributions to cultured living, up there with the Great American Songbook and the tuxedo. Yet, like almost everything else to…

Frank McCourt, who died in New York City on July 19 after a battle with melanoma, was known to millions as a late-in-life literary sensation, the author, at age 66, of Angela's Ashes, the 1996 Pulitzer Prize-winning account of his impoverished childhood in Limerick, Ireland. But to a few lucky…

Detention policy is one of the least discussed but most important aspects of the war in Afghanistan. The handling of prisoners gets publicity only when there is a major screw-up such as at Abu Ghraib or the smaller-scale abuses that occurred in Afghanistan in the early years of the U.S. presence…

At the Biloxi, Mississippi, gathering of the National Governors Association in mid-July, Tennessee's Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, told the New York Times he feared the Obama-backed health system overhaul would be the "mother of all unfunded mandates." He was speaking from experience.…

This is kind of an amazing statement by Isabel Kershner writing in the New York Times: Separately, in Tel Aviv on Sunday the police continued hunting for a gunman who fled after killing two Israelis and injured 10 others at a center for young gays and lesbians on Saturday night. The shock over the…

Boston ranks fourth, after the Obami, Upper-Northwest (and Upper-West Side) liberals, and Patrick Fitzgerald, on this die-hard Yankee fan's most-loathed-Americans list. (Did I mention that world peacemaker George Mitchell is a team director?) But even I--who curse the Bosox with the fury of a…

Via Allahpundit, this is worth watching:

David Freddoso writes: Twenty-eight percent of Republicans believe President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and 30 percent are "not sure," according to this poll. But before liberals begin to smirk, here's a poll from 2007, in which 35 percent of Democrats said that…

Elliott Abrams writes in the Wall Street Journal: no other administration, even among those experiencing considerable dissonance with Israel, started off with as many difficulties as Obama's. There are two explanations for this problem, and the simpler one is personal politics. Mr. Netanyahu no…

The Hill's Michael O'Brien writes: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) isn't much for calling names, but defended calling health insurers "villains" this past week. "I don't like using words like 'villains,' but people call me a villain all the time, so I figure it's probably okay to use it…

"It started out like a song we knew we had a good thing going. And if I wanted too much, was that such a mistake?" President Obama's answer to composer Stephen Sondheim's question would be "yes", were he not a president who rarely admits error.

Vice President Biden had just completed a successful visit to Ukraine and Georgia last week when he created a new controversy with dire predictions about Russia. His comments, arguably ill-timed for his boss's efforts to reset relations with Moscow, were not the only ones in the past few days…

Blue Dogs Bart Gordon (Tenn.), Baron Hill (Ind.), Mike Ross (Ark.), and Zack Space (Ohio) vote yes. Blue Dogs Jim Matheson (Utah), Charlie Melancon (La.), John Barrow (Ga.), and non-Blue Dog Democrats Bart Stupak (Mich.) & Rick Boucher (Va.) vote no.