January 2010

Top White House adviser David Axelrod believes the U.S. government properly handled the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, despite the fact that Abdulmutallab stopped talking to interrogators after having had Miranda rights read to him.  In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press,…

In a hard-hitting, must-read op-ed that will run in tomorrow's Washington Post, former CIA Director Michael Hayden writes that the decision to Mirandize Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a mistake. "We got it wrong in Detroit on Christmas Day."

Last night the moon was not only full, but it was about as close to the Earth as it will be all year.  Looking up at its magnificence in the night sky, one cannot help but feel a sense of loss in knowing that President Obama does not want us to go back there.

No one loves Barack Obama more than the District of Columbia. This goes without saying. During the 2008 presidential election, the nation's capital delivered all 142 precincts to the president, which amounted to a whopping 93 percent support. So when the city council decided to formally invite…

In the weekly Republican address, Maine senator Susan Collins hammers the Obama administration for reading Miranda rights to the Christmas Day terrorist after 50 minutes of questioning. You can watch her address here. Collins says:

Markets hate uncertainty, so the conventional wisdom goes. And it is true. But the reduction of uncertainty can be a mixed blessing, especially if what becomes more certain is likely to interfere with recovery from the recently ended recession.

 The vice president published an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal.  At first glance, it appears to be a more or less typical example of SOTU follow-up, in which administration officials blanket every available inch of print space and second of airtime pushing this or that component of the…

Cleanup on aisle 3: Education secretary Arne Duncan says Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans."

On Monday, senators will vote on Barack Obama's nomination for the solicitor of labor in the Department of Labor, Patricia Smith. Like the president, Smith is a community organizer, primarily responsible for the "Wage and Hour Watch" in the state of New York. But Smith has a problem, causing…

President Obama supports a three-year freeze on non-defense discretionary spending. The plan is likely to pass despite liberal opposition. The Speaker of the House of Representatives -- remember: she is second-in-line to assume the presidency -- says she would only back the freeze if it applied to…

During the past week, THE WEEKLY STANDARD surveyed United States Senators on the U.S. government's handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber.  The questions we asked were simple: Does Senator XX believe that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should have been read his Miranda rights?…

Yesterday the Senate voted 60-39 to increase the United States debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion. It's likely that if Scott Brown were in the Senate instead of Paul Kirk, the increase would not have passed and Democrats would have had to negotiate a different version.

The video is here. It's worth watching.

President Obama traveled to Baltimore today to address a meeting of the House Republicans. You can read the New York Times report here. The meeting was definitely positive for Obama: he was able to tout his willingness to work with the opposition; he was, as usual, thoughtful in his speech and…

Regarding Obama v. SCOTUS majority in Citizens United, which continues to be a story at least in Washington: Count me among those who believe that a president may criticize an opinion by the Court. As Lincoln once said (though before he became president) a Supreme court decision is not a “thus…

There's a new crowd-sourced site dedicated to keeping track of all of Google's privacy, anti-trust, bias concerns--it's called Google Monitor.It aggregates all sorts of interesting Google news, like this WSJ story about the search giant using house ads to advertise its China policy. (Unmentioned on…

It's much more entertaining than your average Obama speech, and it's on C-SPAN right now. You can watch online, here.

You can watch Jay Leno's entertaining interview of Scott Brown here. Meanwhile, Ben Smith astutely observes that Brown freely speaks his mind on almost any topic--something that could cause problems for the new senator when the media swarm him in Washington.

The New York Times reports: "With Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul stalled on Capitol Hill, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said in an interview that Democrats would try to act first on job creation, reducing the deficit and imposing tighter regulation on banks before returning to the…

SusanAnne Hiller at RedState notices that Sen. Paul Kirk of Massachusetts is still voting--some measures, such as the raising the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, passed on 60 to 40 party line votes. As Fred Barnes reported, "Massachusetts law says that an appointed senator remains in office 'until…

As Alito might say, what Obama claimed was not true: "While the Court reversed a 1990 decision allowing such a ban, it left standing current restrictions on foreign nationals and “entities.” Also untouched was a 100-year-old ban on domestic corporate contributions to political campaigns to which…

While much focus is on Pakistan's struggle against insurgents in tribal areas along its western border with Afghanistan, the real danger to regional stability -- indeed, to Pakistan's survival as a viable state -- is on the other side of the country, in Punjab, which borders India. Punjab is…

It’s likely that those of you lucky enough to receive a high definition television or Blu-ray player for Christmas – or happened to pick one up in the after-Christmas sales – have spent much of your time viewing modern releases in all their glory. Don’t get me wrong, the Blu-ray versions of Star…

From the New York Daily News:

Andrew Breitbart's very fun interview with David Shuster.

After a new poll showed his GOP Senate primary challenger Marco Rubio taking a narrow lead, Florida governor Charlie Crist met Barack Obama today in Tampa Bay, where the president announced $8 billion in stimulus funding for high-speed rail stations. Having been needled relentlessly by Rubio for…

Walter Russell Mead on the American future (extended metaphor alert!):

Senator Feinstein is the latest Democrat to oppose the trial of KSM in Manhattan:

With the death of Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger, it is worth revisiting an extensive essay on the man written by former Weekly Standard editor David Skinner, who currently edits Humanities magazine. Published in 1999, it was entitled "The Sentimental Misanthrope":

President Obama relegated the foreign policy section of his first State of the Union address to the fourth quarter of the speech.  There were some worthwhile elements – he made a strong statement about his commitment to fighting “terrorists who threaten our nation.”  However, on both Afghanistan…

Last night Virginia governor Bob McDonnell delivered the GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union address. It was the third time in five years that a Virginian delivered the response to a State of the Union--clearly Virginia is an electoral battleground! You can read a transcript of…

Hugo Chávez and his cronies must have been very happy with President Obama’s first State of the Union address, which completely ignored the challenges to democracy in Latin America. Obama cited the brave Iranian activists who are fighting for freedom in the streets of Tehran, if only very briefly,…

The hermit whose Catcher in the Rye was the Bible for generations of miserable, disaffected teenagers—especially boys—has died in his self-imposed New Hampshire isolation at the age of 91. Are we going to see another round of dirty-laundry airing from Joyce Maynard, who had an affair with the…

Last night, between criticizing Supreme Court justices and insisting that Republican leadership is necessary for his Democratic supermajority to pass anything, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) says Obama forgot to chart a path forward:

"President Obama has not changed his view on whether the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks should face trial in New York City, a White House spokesman said today," the New York Times reports. White House spokesman Bill Burton tells reporters that Obama "agrees with the attorney…

President Obama repeatedly invokes the problems he inherited when he assumed office. He has a point--the Bush administration departed while Americans were fighting overseas, the country was under threat from jihadists, the economy was in recession, unemployment was more than 7 percent, and a…

New York's junior Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand joins mayor Michael Bloomberg in opposing a trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in civilian court in Manhattan. The New York Daily News reports:

A new Rasmussen poll should have Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold worried:

Last night President Obama reminded us that "one year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt." Later, he imagined what some on the right would argue: "That if we just make fewer…

Apocalypse will not likely be the result of our reform plan, said the White House spokesperson. When you've reached this argument, you are losing badly. The White House's Dan Pfeiffer made this encouraging pitch for health-care reform today:

Marc Ambinder writes of Obama's speech:

In a State of the Union address that was already too light on national security and foreign policy, one of the most pressing security challenges of the day --Iran-- received barely a mention.

Many immediately proclaimed last week’s Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision as a huge win for business “special interests.”  But those quick draw reactions are based more on ideology and political rhetoric than hard facts.  While this latest change in the campaign finance landscape…

It seems the Israeli settlement-freeze scheme, which in its most recent, Obamic, incarnation began to flounder almost as soon as it was born last October, is lingering like an aqueous floater in the mind's eye of Mr. Obama’s Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell. The other day, exchanging…

Sen. John McCain (via Twitter): "I agree with the Mayor...the trials of terrorists should be held in military courts at GITMO."

The latest from Keep America Safe:

The State of the Union address Obama delivered last night gave new meaning to the term "laundry list." It was an endless parade of campaign promises and presidential initiatives. It had no theme. The text literally could have been clipped together from the hundreds of speeches, press conferences,…

Haven’t we heard that speech before, practically every word of it?  Maybe it was a year ago when President Obama first addressed Congress.  Maybe it was during the campaign.  Maybe it was at one of those town halls?  Maybe Obama can’t help himself.  His speeches just insist on sounding the same.

Read the boss's take on Obama's State of the Union speech at the Washington Post's PostPartisan blog.

Barack Obama's full remarks, as prepared for delivery:

According to President Obama's State of the Union remarks, as prepared for delivery, he mentions jobs and tax cuts (or credits or the like) a total of 51 times. He mentions "health care" or "health insurance" 10 times.

Late in the speech, Obama says (according to the text that's been released):

Reuters reports:

It is my private hope that this evening's speech to a joint session of Congress will be President Obama's final State of the Union address. This is not because of any animosity toward the president, but because I support abolition of the State of the Union address.

The consensus in Washington is that the Obama presidency is at a crossroads. His filibuster-proof Senate majority is gone. His approval rating is slightly below 50 percent. His agenda is stalled. The Republicans have all the momentum. His State of the Union address this evening will provide the…

The New York Times reports:

Ahead of tomorrow's London conference, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced her country would be deploying an additional 500 troops to Afghanistan—far short of what the Obama administration was hoping for, namely, 2,000 more soldiers. In addition, reports the Financial Times, "Germany would…

Robert Kagan writes in today's Washington Post:

Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner was president of the New York Federal Reserve when the government nationalized insurance giant AIG and paid counter-parties to the company's credit default swaps 100 cents on the dollar. That was in 2008. In January 2010, taxpayers have poured $180 billion into…

Today the president will deliver the State of the Union to Congress. But before doing so, he's coming under fire on a host of issues--health care, terrorism, etc. Add to the list: Iran. In a letter to the president, a bipartisan group of senators says, "We stand read to work alongside you to do…

President Obama is set to give a State of the Union address this evening in which he'll say he made "mistakes" in communicating to the American people why health care reform, cap and trade, and a huge increase in social spending is necessary for economic recovery. Which is to say: The White House…

It is on this day that it's important to give your readers "fun facts" about the State of the Union address because, even though it is steeped in the glorious history and tradition of this great nation, let's face it—it's not that fun on its own.

In recent days, Venezuela has been rocked by large demonstrations and political turmoil. The protests began on January 23, when Venezuelans poured into the streets of Caracas (the capital) to mark the 52nd anniversary of their democratic revolution and also to protest against the failed,…

Via Daniel Foster, Nebraska's Democratic senator Ben Nelson now claims that his big plan all along was to filibuster for the Stupak language if it wasn't included in the conference report. But that's not what Nelson was saying after he provided the 60th vote to pass cloture. Here's Nelson's…

Senate majority leader Harry Reid expects to hold a vote to reappoint Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on January 28. Bernanke needs 60 votes for a second term. Late last week, Bernanke's nomination appeared in jeopardy. But a last-minute triage operation performed over the weekend by White House and…

President Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address (or SOTU in D.C.-speak) today, in the midst of a full-scale Democratic panic attack. Read Jim Treacher's preview. Drinking game here.

Via Ace, the New York Post reports:

This morning on Fox and Friends, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to answer the question of where KSM will be tried. Here's the video:

The top Republicans in the Senate are preparing a scathing letter to Attorney General Eric Holder concerning the handling of the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.  The letter, signed by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and top Republicans on committees with national security…

The old saw about generals who err by fighting the last war instead of the present one may offer the best explanation for the peculiar inability of a surprising number of Democrats—including, it seems, President Obama and his top advisors—to heed the message that the people don’t want them to…

David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear report:

A new CNN poll shows that 58% of "adult Americans" oppose the House and Senate health care bills, while 38% generally support the legislation. I'm willing to bet that opposition would be higher among more attentive "likely voters." The poll "also indicates that nearly half the public, 48 percent,…

Delaware Republican Mike Castle leads top potential Dem challenger by 29 points.

My friend John Buckley, who works for an investment company in New York, called me the other day with explicit advice: "Whatever you do, don't use the headline 'What Can Brown Do For You?'" with regard to Senator-elect Scott Brown's historic win in Massachusetts.

He's innocent until proven guilty, but things do not look good for James O'Keefe—until recently a conservative folk hero for having busted ACORN by posing as a pimp with colleague Hannah Giles and secretly taping his interactions with the non-profit's employees, who were more than willing to help…

Check out Walter Russell Mead's take on the American future:

Chuck Schumer, probably the Senate Democrats' next leader, and Republican Orrin Hatch have an interesting proposal for a payroll tax cut in today's New York Times. They want to suspend employer payroll taxes in 2010 for workplaces who hire employees who have been out of work for more than 60 days.…

Let's just say there might be political and psychological benefits to backing Obama on this one. Read along with me:

She may have $5 million in the bank, but she knows it won't save her if she's part of reconciliation on health care:

A friend and I were joking the other day about the comedy of errors, and failures, that has come to define Democratic control of Washington. Of course the collapse of health care reform was the spark for this conversation; it is the most obvious and overwhelming failure of the Obama administration…

This morning, the Politico reported on a strategy memo from DSCC Chairman Bob Menendez, urging Democrats to define their opponents early by asking a series of questions designed to pit Republican moderates and Tea Party activists against each other:

Detroit 

Over the weekend, President Obama threw his weight behind a proposal to establish a commission that would recommend changes to spending, taxes, and entitlements. But Obama's support couldn't save the Conrad-Gregg deficit commission legislation in the Senate. Today the bill was defeated 53-46, with…

In a letter to Eric Holder, Democratic senators Webb, Lincoln, and Lieberman join Republican senators Collins, McCain, and Graham in asking the attorney general to reverse course on his decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and his co-conspirators in civilian court in New York City:

Mary Katharine notes below that President Obama tells ABC:

President Obama is a highly polarizing figure. The Gallup organization says that the "65 percentage-point gap between Democrats' (88%) and Republicans' (23%) average job approval ratings for Barack Obama is easily the largest for any president in his first year in office, greatly exceeding the…

Indiana Republican congressman Mike Pence will announce today that he will not challenge Democratic senator Evan Bayh in 2010. "I am staying for two reasons," Pence will write in a letter to supporters, according to Red State's Erick Erickson. "First because I have been given the responsibility to…

Yesterday in Cyprus, police authorities arrested "the largest ever smuggling ring" in the island, including ten Cypriots (most likely Greek), one Syrian, and four others still unknown. They will face charges for "illegally possessing and trading in antiquities," as Menelaos Hadjicostis reported…

Paul Krugman, probably the world's most influential columnist, has long been skeptical of Barack Obama. These days, his skepticism is turning into disdain. If you read Krugman's blog, he often writes about Obama as if the president were a Republican--i.e., not favorably!

After several weeks of denial, Obama is ready to 'fess up to breaking the C-SPAN promise:

President Obama has proposed a freeze on non-defense discretionary spending. Following Bill Kristol's advice, John McCain backs the freeze. Meanwhile, the president has endorsed a bipartisan commission to examine spending and entitlements. And despite reports that the Democrats might use the…

When Marco Rubio challenged popular incumbent governor Charlie Crist for Mel Martinez's U.S. Senate seat, no one thought he had a chance. What these skeptics assumed was that the current state of affairs would persist indefinitely. They ignored electoral dynamism. Events have a way of showing that…

From Marc Caputo at the St. Pete Times:

The instinctive Republican response (see, e.g., this RNC release) to President Obama’s call for a domestic discretionary spending freeze is to dismiss it as not serious—saying, oh, no, it’s not a real freeze because the baseline is high, and anyway he doesn’t mean it, and here’s what he said in the…

First up, we have what will certainly be an excrutiatingly long and boring SOTU speech outlining billions in new spending despite the fact that Obama just announced a spending freeze.

"Polls suggest that upper-middle-class voters, a crucial source of strength for the Democrats in the last election cycle, are souring on the president, and his support among non-college-educated whites remains as weak as ever. Again, this doesn't represent an embrace of Republican orthodoxy.…

On the local Fox news, I just watched a segment on the death of Daniel Kerrigan, father of Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan. The 70-year-old Mr. Kerrigan was reportedly having an argument with his son Mark that took a physical turn—police found the elder Kerrigan unconscious, and he died shortly…

In the new movie The Young Victoria, the mother of Victoria and her chief overseer meet with the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, to discuss what role they’ll play now that Victoria has become queen of England.  They’ve waged a fierce struggle to retain control over Victoria.  Suddenly Melbourne…

Senator-elect Scott Brown was quoted Thursday by Politico as saying: "I think [President Obama]'s done a great job with North Korea and Iran and the war in Afghanistan."

Regarding President Obama's extraordinary "Well, the big difference [between] here and in '94 was you've got me" comment to Arkansas congressman Marion Berry: Well, in '94 they had Bill Clinton--who had won statewide in a pretty conservative state (Arkansas) something like seven times, and who was…

One of the big payoffs from the much touted (yet deeply underwhelming) "reset" of relations with Moscow was sustainment of the northern distribution network, a logistical lifeline to Afghanistan which cuts a hot path through several former Soviet republics. This was to be step one in a larger…

The two top senators on the Senate Homeland Security Committee have written to Attorney General Eric Holder and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to urge the Obama administration to treat Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as an "unprivileged enemy belligerent" and transfer him to the…

Hey, to be fair, if it hadn't been for Virginia, New Jersey, Copenhagen, Copenhagen II, and Massachusetts, I'd have thought the same thing. Must be that Nobel Prize Obama's vibing on. How else do you explain this unearned bit of self-assurance?

After the Obama administration announced a new policy of "engagement" with odious military regimes last year, Burma went back to relative obscurity. Engagement yielded the predictable result (nothing), and other issues -- namely various manifestations of uncouth behavior emanating from Beijing -…

Sunday was the seventy-fifth birthday of the beer can. Made in America!

Time columnist Joe Klein is angry that the public doesn't think the stimulus succeeded:

In all likelihood, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be gone by June, probably after having led his Labour Party to a singularly humiliating defeat at the hands of David Cameron and the Conservative Party. However, recent events indicate that his exit may be even messier than originally…

Over the weekend, President Obama reversed his position on a congressional proposal to create a bipartisan commission examining taxes and spending.

Andrew Kohut at Pew has released a fascinating survey on public priorities. No surprise, the economy and jobs are numbers one and two, respectively. Number three is terrorism. Where does health care rank? Eighth. It trails behind Social Security, education, Medicare, and deficit reduction.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, calls for another policy change -- on Iran:

Imagine my surprise upon discovering that Walter Russell Mead, the Council on Foreign Relations scholar and author, has a blog. Read it!

Mark Shields gets it:

The first hint came this weekend, when Joe Biden (careful as always) seemed to prematurely run his mouth about this decision to a Delaware political columnist.

The conservative blogosphere is buzzing this morning about news that President Obama relied on a teleprompter for his remarks to students at the Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia.  And it would surely be funny if he had.  But it doesn't appear that he did.

"Security sources say an Egyptian was stopped last Saturday as he tried to board an American Airlines flight to Miami. A man from Saudi Arabia was banned from boarding a United Airlines flight to Chicago the next day and sent back to Saudi...Anti-terror officials said the past week had seen an…

A new Rasmussen poll on the 2010 Indiana Senate race shows Republican congressman Mike Pence leading Democratic senator Evan Bayh 47 percent to 44 percent. Pence is the only Republican leading Bayh in the poll (though Bayh doesn't get more than 45 percent against any potential GOP challenger). The…

On Saturday, January 23, the Iranian opposition community from the environs of the nation’s capital gathered in a George Washington University auditorium.   They were drawn to a ceremony that imported the idiom, if not the total experience, of the Green Movement against clerical tyranny in their…

One of the big payoffs from the much touted (yet deeply underwhelming) "reset" of relations with Moscow was sustainment of the northern distribution network, a logistical lifeline to Afghanistan which cuts a hot path through several former Soviet republics. This was to be step one in…

It has been a month since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab nearly killed 289 people on Flight 253. In the weeks since the Christmas Day attack, we've learned some very disturbing things about the Obama administration and terrorism.

“The Democratic Party is lashed to health reform—even in the face of polls showing tepid public support.” Thus Politico’s Carrie Brown paraphrases senior Democratic aides. As unappealing as that predicament may sound, Brown writes that those same aides say “it would be politically disastrous to…

Peace in the Middle East has been on the Obama administration’s mind from the beginning. Two days after his inauguration the president traveled to the State Department to announce the appointment of George Mitchell as his Middle East peace negotiator. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described…

Queen Victoria

Me and Orson Welles

“This cannot work,” says New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, “unless it’s seen as totally bipartisan and fair.”

January 17 promises to be a landmark occasion in the long, proud history of German cabaret musicals examining the role of African-American politicians and their wives in U.S. presidential elections, so you can imagine our frustration that deadlines prevent us from seeing Hope!—the Obama Musical…

Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego

Rendezvous with Destiny

Start-Up Nation

Denialism

Abortion rights activists have long preferred to hold themselves at some remove from the practice they promote; rather than naming it, they speak of “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” But those who perform abortions have no such luxury. Instead, advances in ultrasound imaging and abortion…

President Obama is a slow learner. For all his brainpower, he’s saddled himself with three ideas about the economy and job creation that aren’t working, either substantively or politically. And he appears to be too ideologically rigid or stubborn to consider the evidence and jettison the failed…

Hard as it seems at times to remember, Barack Obama never ran against George W. Bush. That pleasure went to Al Gore and John Kerry, who did not seem to enjoy the experience. Obama ran in 2008, and won the election, but in 2010, into his second year as president, he still thinks he is running, and…

Barack Obama has now been center stage for two years—one as a presidential candidate (and president elect) and one as president. Americans have begun to take their measure of the man, judging him to have been a remarkable success in his first role and struggling in his second. Obama recently…

President Obama’s response to the Haitian earthquake has been sure-minded and swift. He saw the situation as “one of those moments that calls out for American leadership” and has acted accordingly.

I am not a free man. I have kids, a wife, a job. I am, as they say, tied down. This means that no matter where I go, I remain tethered by invisible strings of love and obligation to people who depend on me—and on whom I depend.

Toward a New Public Diplomacy

For a sense of the depth of political trouble Harry Reid faces back home—the latest poll shows more than half of Nevadans have an “unfavorable” view of him—you need only read the accounts of Democrats on the Las Vegas City Council discussing the ethics of buying off senators to support Obamacare.

While riding in a taxi in my native Costa Rica recently, I saw the country’s magnificent new national soccer stadium rising—it is scheduled to open later this year. The Chinese government bankrolled the $83 million stadium project after Costa Rica ended its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and…

Sebastián Piñera’s victory last week marks the first time in over half a century that Chileans have elected a conservative as their president. It also marks the successful conclusion of Chile’s transition to democracy.

One of the big payoffs from the much touted (yet deeply underwhelming) "reset" of relations with Moscow was sustainment of the northern distribution network, a logistical lifeline to Afghanistan which cuts a hot path through several former Soviet republics. This was to be step one in…

The Associated Press has a fascinating blow-by-blow account of the interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab that adds several new details to previous reports on his handling. Overall, however, this news does not change the disturbing picture of the reflexive, law-enforcement-first approach the…

It was recently announced that three prisoners from Guantánamo Bay will be transferred to Slovakia, just as previous inmates were sent to Great Britain and Bermuda. The Slovaks insist the prisoners pose no harm, which makes me a bit more worried for them. For what happens if the three arrivals are…

Obama's approval rating according to Gallup's tracking poll has hit a new low of 47%.

The Washington Post adds itself to the growing chorus of critics of the Obama administration's handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab after his botched bombing attempt on Christmas Day.  And, in what should be a worrisome sign to the White House, the Post editorial reverses their previous…

Enough is enough. That is the message the most reliably Democratic state in America sent to President Obama and his Democratic congress Tuesday when its voters chose Republican Scott Brown to represent them in the U.S. Senate. The majority of Americans style themselves as somewhere between centrist…

Thirty-seven years ago today the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees the right to abortion on demand. Obama celebrates. Read "Mugged by Ultrasound" by David Daleiden and Jon A. Shields in the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

So much has happened this week that this story about the president reaching a deal with congressional leaders over a fiscal commission got little attention. The president's plan differs greatly from the Conrad-Gregg proposal I wrote about in the magazine this week.

This was the editorial from the local paper in Lorain, Ohio this morning as Obama prepared to speak to the public yet again:

An 83-year-old woman at Obama's Ohio town hall today asked him why seniors on Social Security didn't get a COLA increase this year. The reason was, of course, because deflation meant the cost of living actually went down, so a COLA wasn't needed.

TPM is to be commended for putting this together. It's a left-of-center reporting outlet, but it's a reporting outlet, and this video represents what has become a real problem for Obama. It is perhaps one of the principal impediments to reform that Obama thought he could just say it would happen…

Geographically New York’s 23rd is known as one of the largest congressional district east of the Mississippi, and the mountains and lakes of the North Country are renowned for their magnificence. But in terms of national politics the district was strictly a backwater—until last November’s special…

For the first time ever, Obama trails a potential match-up in PPP's 2012 polling:

ABC News reports that "the Senate Democratic leadership isn't sure there are enough votes to re-confirm Ben Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve." Bernanke's current term expires on January 31.

Well, calling the administration's financial reform proposal a "plan" is something of an exaggeration. According to the White House's own release, the administration simply wants to "strengthen the comprehensive financial reform package that is already moving through Congress," though there are…

J Street releases its first round of endorsements for the 2010 elections. Most of the seats are relatively safe, as far as I can tell, so it should be easy for the lobbying group to claim victory, though the outcome will have nothing to do with their endorsement. Any way, here's who not to support…

In case you missed it, be sure to listen to this radio clip from a local Pennsylvania show, in which Senator Arlen Specter gets testy with Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. Specter accuses Bachmann of interrupting him and says “I am going to treat you like a lady, so act like one.”

Piggybacking on Elliott Abrams's article in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Jeffrey Goldberg interviews the former deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration on his blog. The exchange can be found here. 

Josh Marshall on health care: "Let's say it's among the Undead."

The man who asked Chas Freeman to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Dennis Blair is the subject of an important piece by James Kirchick in the new issue of The New Republic. In addition to the Freeman failure, Blair’s other problems include: An unworkable relationship with the…

The most striking aspect of Extraordinary Measures is its total lack of an aesthetic: There’s not as much as a spark of visual ingenuity or camera trickery. The average scene consists of a camera focused on two people talking, broken up by the occasional shot-reverse shot. Combined with the…

Kiev

The Obama administration has reportedly transferred two Algerians from Guantanamo to their native country. Given the allegations levied against them at Gitmo, it is likely that the two are in Algerian custody. There is no transparency with respect to detainee transfers. So, we do not know how the…

A press release from Senators Collins and Lieberman:

Rep. Paul Ryan says so:

I leave it to others to parse Mr. Obama’s self-adulatory answers to the “questions” put to him by Joe Klein in this week’s Time. But one instance of Mr. Klein’s classic and bodacious obamasequiousness cannot be allowed to pass unnoticed:

When two former Secretaries of State, a former Secretary of Defense, and one of the leading Senate experts on defense issues during the latter half of the 20th century join their voices to speak as one on an issue, one’s instinct is to pay attention.  When two of them happen to be Democrats and two…

When Obama populism meets free speech, it's not pretty:

Middle East peace won't be made by this president. But, of course, it isn't his fault. Here are his words, in Time magazine: 

Arise, oh you underemployed therapists of America, and rejoice! For relief is at hand: Not only can you anticipate a profitable surge in gay-couples-therapy sessions, as gay marriage, and divorce, become commonplace—nay, even humdrum (and by the way, thank you, Ted Olson!)—but you can also expect…

Marc Thiessen, whose book Courting Disaster comes out this week, confronted CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour about her misleading reporting on interrogation techniques used to extract information from suspected terrorists at Guantanamo.  

I like it. I tend to think Sen. Scott Brown would have looked a bit like a stunt, and Bob McDonnell is a solid choice.

After one year in office, the Obama administration's foreign policy has been defined by an odd role reversal. The rogues gallery of the world, from Burma to North Korea to Iran to Russia to China, have been largely embraced by the White House and State Department --while relations with key…

Every schoolboy knows George Orwell's famous essay on "Politics and the English Language" (1946), the point of which is that politics misuses language, and injures it in the process. You don't have to search very far to find examples, especially here in America where the language of politics tends…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this morning: "In its present form without any changes I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House.... I don't see the votes for it at this time." (More quotes from Pelosi here.)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is pressing the Obama administration on questions about the handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, and makes some news in the process.  McConnell notes that several top national security officials offered disturbing testimony…

The famous Capra film about an optimistic outsider's impact on a jaded, entrenched Washington is getting a lot of attention this week, as a friendly populist with a common name rides down to D.C. in his truck.

Boston 

The ruling will remove decades-old limits on the amount corporations can spend on campaign ads and repeals part of McCain-Feingold, which prohibited advertising within the last days of an election.

An e-mailer makes a good point regarding my "Obama’s Condescension" post, which commented on Obama’s statement: "Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office.”

You know things are looking better for the GOP when the editor of a women's magazine—a genre reliably, reflexively liberal in the little political/cultural commentary content it offers— is jumping on the publicity coattails of the newly elected Republican Senator from Massachusetts.

You can't smoke outside in L.A. now.

Who, exactly, is it the misogyny-frenzied brutes in charge of administering “justice” to the Saudi distaff side are protecting—and from what?  When they condemn a woman who’s been gang-raped to 200 lashes for “having sex outside marriage,” or give a destitute 75-year-old widow 40 lashes for…

There is one reason that White House should be thrilled about the Massachusetts Senate race. It crowded out news that came out of the stunning testimony of Obama administration officials Wednesday on the Christmas Day terrorist attack. Four top counterterrorism officials testified before a…

In case you were wondering what U.S. military forces are doing in Haiti, allow Hugo Chávez to explain: “I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war,” the Venezuelan leader said Sunday on his national TV show. “They are occupying Haiti undercover.”

Representatives of organized labor met in the White House last week and cut a deal exempting union members from paying higher taxes as part of health care reform. It was a tawdry affair in many ways. But the meeting seems to have had an unintended consequence: Massachusetts has just elected a…

On a dark winter’s day in Sweden some eight years ago, one of the most remarkable and beloved figures in modern Iranian culture died on a sidewalk.  His name was Seyed Khalil Alinejad. While is largely unknown among non-Iranians, since little is written about him in English, his story continues to…

One of the more annoying moments of President Obama's Q&A with George Stephanopoulos came when the president said, "If there's one thing that I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some…

"Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," President Obama said today in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

The Foreign Policy Initiative provides an analytical piece on President Obama's foreign policy. It's worth your time.

In a controversial move, the Obama administration has decided to lift Tariq Ramadan’s ban from the United States. Who is Tariq Ramadan? By birth, he is the grandson of Hassan al Banna – the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). By word and deed, he is today a leading member of the European branch…

In Newton, Massachusetts, 67 percent of folks voted yesterday for Democrat Martha Coakley (32 percent voted for Republican Scott Brown, and 1 percent chose Libertarian Joe Kennedy). In short, the town is a liberal outpost, just miles outside of Boston. 

House Republican Leader John Boehner announced yesterday that his former long time aide Barry Jackson would return as his new chief of staff. Jackson replaces Paula Nowakoski who passed away unexpectedly last week.

Before it becomes the received wisdom on the left that Scott Brown won because Martha Coakley lost, permit me to express the opinion that Coakley may not have been the most skillful candidate in American political history, but she was defeated not by her own deficiencies but by national trends and…

George Stephanopoulos interviewed the president:

James Cameron, the director of mega-blockbuster Avatar, isn't worried that some people may not like the film's political message.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) just spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD about the prospects of the House passing the Senate bill unamended, the path to a health care overhaul that liberal commentators think is most viable in the wake of Scott Brown's victory.  "There is no plan B," Stupak said. "There are so…

Now that voter discontent has appeared in the bluest of blue states, and it's focused on the president's handling of terror, taxes, and health care, it's become much harder to marginalize Tea Party activists and other critics of the administration as:

In November, the House passed the health care bill on a 220 to 215 vote. Since that time, Florida's Robert Wexler has retired, and Reps. Bart Stupak, Joseph Cao, and Steve Driehaus have pledged to vote against the bill if it includes the Senate bill's abortion-funding language. So, Pelosi has at…

Scott Brown appeared on the "Today Show" this morning, where a slightly sad Meredith Vieira asked him about how he was able to pull off his historic win.

Perhaps the decisive moment in the Massachusetts special election happened at the debate, when Scott Brown told Martha Coakley that he was running not for Ted Kennedy's seat but "the people's seat." The line cut through the idea that Democratic victory in the special election was inevitable simply…

The consensus in Washington, now that Scott Brown has been elected the first Republican Senator from Massachusetts in more than 35 years, is that President Obama needs to recalculate and move to the center. But will he? Since early this week, the White House has signaled otherwise.

Reihan Salam has an excellent post on America's newest senator.

Barney Frank's statement last night, read by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, was a huge blow to health care reform in its current incarnation. Frank clearly gets it. Key quote: "If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care…

Of all of the memorable moments from the Massachusetts special election, the one that stands out most--and the one with real implications for 2010--did not directly involve either of the two candidates in the race.

The impact of Republican Scott Brown’s capture of the Massachusetts Senate seat held for decades by Teddy Kennedy will be both immediate and powerful.  It’s safe to say no single Senate election in recent memory is as important as this one.

Real Clear Politics has video of Rachel Maddow reading it. You won't believe it. Hard to imagine Dems passing health care when folks like Frank and Weiner are against the rough-shod strategy.

When Dean Barnett died at age 40 in August 2008, it was a loss of a unique voice in politics, and those who admired him could console themselves only with the thought that he had been needed for some pressing business above. Now, a year and a half after it happened, we know what it was: Only…

In 2008, Barack Obama won Massachusetts by 26 points. Tonight, Scott Brown won a Senate seat in Massachusetts by 5 points. That's a 31-point swing. Obama won just one state by more than 31 points: Hawaii. So while Democrats should be panicking everywhere else in the country, at least they can relax…

From Scott Brown's victory speech (rough paraphrase): "And the message we need to send in dealing with terrorists: Our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them and not lawyers to defend them."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

In two elections in the last six months, Democrats have launched culture war attacks against popular Republicans. In Virginia in 2009, Democrats went after Republican Bob McDonnell for his master's thesis and his decades-old views on social issues, on women in particular. In Massachusetts in 2010,…

Bill Kristol has been able to procure a new and improved--and final--version of "Scott Brown's Ride," in honor of his apparent victory...

Coakley has conceded, according to the Globe. Scott Brown continues to lead Martha Coakley by about seven points as two-thirds of the vote are in. For the last several weeks, ever since Scott Rasmussen's poll showed Brown had a chance, Republicans have been worried that nationalizing the election…

The Boston Globe reports that Democrat Martha Coakley has conceded in a phone call to Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special Senate election.

The votes are coming in, and things look good for Scott Brown. First thought: Will Democrats want to campaign alongside President Obama this fall if the chief executive does not move to the middle? Obama campaigned for Creigh Deeds. Deeds lost. Obama campaigned for Jon Corzine. Corzine lost. Obama…

I think the Cook Political Report's David Wasserman is one of the smartest election analysts out there--he writes on Twitter that he projects a Scott Brown win: 

Still early, but many smart folks feel good about Brown's chances.

Via Ace, oh my:

Here's a number to keep in mind as you watch the Massachusetts election returns tonight: 52 percent.That's the proportion of independents who voted for Obama in 2008, according to the CNN exit poll. Since 2004, independents have been trending Democratic.

The Coakley campaign held a conference call this evening to allege "voting irregularities" reported several supporters, who claimed they got ballots pre-marked for Brown.

Dana Goldstein at the Daily Beast is bummed, along with her fellow feminists from Massachusetts who put their weight behind Martha Coakley early on in the primary, only to be disappointed during the general election as Scott Brown moved ahead in the polls with the support of the Tea Party movement…

As Mary Katharine notes below, Ben Smith reports that a Coakley adviser is sending around a memo blaming national Democrats for Coakley's current predicament, and Washington Democrats are firing back. The Coakley adviser is right (as I write below) that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda put Coakley in a…

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said he will issue a letter to the winner of the election if the win is decisive, but that the U.S. Senate must ultimately decide whether the winner is seated.

Back during the Massachusetts primary, I posited that "without a national symbol whom we are compelled by history and a constant barrage of media retrospectives to think of as a symbol of our national coming of age, hope lost and later lionized, Democratic primary politics can be a real bore,…

The Massachusetts election is by no means a done deal, but Democrats are furiously spinning the race under the assumption that Brown will win. There are a number of misconceptions being spread by those trying to pin blame mostly or solely on Coakley, but one of the more puzzling Democratic talking…

Back in the 1930s, when Glen Bell was a teenaged migrant worker riding trains in California looking for a job, he probably didn't imagine that he'd one day found a fast-food empire of Mexican-American fare that earns billions of dollars in annual sales and be forever connected to a talking…

A Politico/InsiderAdvantage poll released yesterday showed remarkably high support for Scott Brown, especially among two groups that many would assume to be sure bets for Martha Coakley: women and youth.

Well, presumably the president didn't cause Martha Coakley to call Curt Schilling a Yankee or to take a six-day vacation in the middle of a campaign, but the Coakley campaign argues there's plenty of blame to go around.

From the White House press briefing today, on what the president thinks of the state of the race in Massachusetts:

In this video posted by Real Clear Politics, a reporter with a video camera appears to get yelled at and kicked out of a Coakley campaign office by a man sporting a UFCW union shirt. Another man refers to the reporter/cameraperson as "Nazis like you" at the end of the video. Click here to watch.

The president's adviser, David Axelrod has praise for Brown and oblique criticism for Coakley today. It's amazing how quickly a helping hand becomes backhanded when it comes from the White House, no?

There's snow falling in parts of Massachusetts today.

Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports that Coakley's fellow Democrats are turning against her.  They're blaming Coakley not only for her “inept campaign,” but also for her aloof personality and poor relationship with the Kennedys and Obama:

Assuming that the Massachusetts election results page (update: see results here) doesn't crash due to a tremendous amount of traffic, what should one be looking for after the polls close at 8:00 p.m. and numbers begin pouring in? The Cook Political Report's election whiz David Wasserman writes in…

The Byran York of the Washington Examiner reports that even her fellow democrats are turning against Martha Coakley.  As things keep looking better for Scott Brown, democrats are distancing themselves from Coakley, blaming not only her “inept campaign,” but also her aloof personality and poor…

Well, this is an interesting tidbit from the Politico-commissioned Insider Advantage poll today, which shows Brown up 9. Said Insider Advantage CEO Matt Towery:

Israeli doctors and rescuers, who have been doing heroic work on the ground in Haiti since the earthquake, have decided they must stay put to help for another month. Donations have been pouring in from the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and poor Lebanon, as well. Even the butchers of Iran have risen…

Stu Rothenberg: "If you are looking for an analogy for a Republican victory in Massachusetts, the best one for Democrats may well be the stock market crash of 1929. Come Tuesday night, you could have Democrats jumping out windows and off roofs ..."

“I think you can make a pretty good argument that health care might be dead,” Rep. Anthony Weiner said on MSNBC's “Morning Joe.”

Happy Massachusetts special election day. As Bay State voters head to the polls, political scientist Charles Franklin concludes: "Republican Scott Brown holds a lead in all 18 alternative models of the Massachusetts Senate race polls, now including all polls released through 6:00 p.m. Monday. Our…

Coakley: "We think the polls are inaccurate," she continued. "It's just very difficult to figure out in a short race, special election, in a state race we've never had before. So until those votes are counted tomorrow, I don't think anybody knows what's going to happen."

Writing about lost technology last year, I noted how worrisome it was that today NASA would have trouble building even a Saturn V rocket, which was, once upon a time, the engine of the entire agency.Well, a friend sends along this video of an enthusiast who built his own 1:10 scale Saturn V last…

Never have so many procedural corners been cut, accounting tricks played, and sweetheart deals arranged in an effort to pass legislation so unpopular with the American people.  I’m talking about the Democratic health care bill--ObamaCare--and the desperate but oh-so-clever steps taken in hopes of…

From the New York Times website:

On Sunday, the Washington Post tried to discredit the Safeway model of health care reform — clearly hoping to make ObamaCare look better in comparison.But if one reads the story carefully, it offers further evidence of the wisdom of the Safeway approach and the folly of ObamaCare.

Nate Silver: "The FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecasting Model, which correctly predicted the outcome of all 35 Senate races in 2008, now regards Republican Scott Brown as a 74 percent favorite to win the Senate seat in Massachusetts...."

From Politico:

This video is nothing short of disturbing:

52-45:

The recent news that Google might be shuttering operations in China after government officials there tried to hack into email accounts of human rights activists has given Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) an opportunity to publicize a piece of legislation he’s been touting since 2006. On Capitol Hill last…

Where's Madisonianism when you need it, asks Boston College's law school dean?

Even the New York Times has come around to the idea that the Christmas Day underwear bomber could have been stopped:

The latest Research 2000 poll, conducted January 15 to 17 for Daily Kos, shows Brown and Coakley tied at 48%. In sharp contrast to last night's PPP poll, the Kos poll shows Coakley with a higher favorable/unfavorable rating than Brown:

Perhaps he can combine the hostage-tape demeanor of his web ad with the occasional bumbling and stale promises of yesterday's speech. And, of course, a super-awesome attack on Brown's GM truck.

Ben Smith reports:

A Republican tracking poll shows—amazingly—a slight uptick for Scott Brown over the weekend. He leads—amazingly—outside the margin of error in virtually every turnout model. The “rape” charge seems to be backfiring among independent women. While there is some increase in partisan Democratic…

Beware of overconfidence, but had to share this striking paragraph from Pollster. For what it's worth, Democratic sources are telling ABC that Coakley's internals showed her up by 2 last night.

Martin Luther King's last speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop."

President Obama and Senate Democrats have pledged to make the 2010 midterm elections a referendum on Obamacare. "If Republicans want to campaign against what we have done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to…

Public Policy Polling, a respected Democratic firm, has released its final poll on the Massachusetts Senate election. Republican Scott Brown leads Democrat Martha Coakley 51% to 46%.

Last Tuesday, President Obama updated the American people on the progress of the “security reviews” he had ordered administration officials to perform in the wake of “the failed attack on Christmas Day.” The president spoke of the “corrective actions” that would be taken so that another bomber with…

On the evening of January 20, 2007, U.S. soldiers serving in the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, Iraq, were attacked by an Iranian-backed terrorist squad. The raid was carried out with precision. At 5 p.m., a convoy of five vehicles made to look just like SUVs used by U.S.…

On Monday December 28, three days after Umar Farouk -Abdulmutallab tried to bring down Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, President Barack Obama stepped up to a podium in Honolulu, to make his first statement about the attacks. “This incident, like several that have preceded it,…

Tel Aviv

The Blue Pages

Up in the Air

For the last many years, my New Year’s Eves have had a ritual sameness: Put on my party heels, pour several warm-up pops, then take off for a friend’s house to join him, his lovely wife, and a circle of regulars, who, as my friend delicately puts it, “come to watch you make an ass of yourself.”…

"America is grateful to Brian Lamb,” said President Bush a couple of years ago, when he awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to the founder and CEO of C-SPAN. The network Lamb founded more than 30 years ago may be the greatest boon to American…

Beyond the Frontier

The Scrapbook enjoys a good chuckle every morning, to start off the day. And what better way to do it than to turn to the op-ed pages of the Washington Post and get a dose of E.J. Dionne Jr.? 

On the first day of Christmas, we were attacked.

Irving Thalberg

We have met the enemy and he is us. So Pogo might have described the situation that the business community has created for itself. There is no question that the Obama administration, and even more the Democratic leadership in Congress, harbor something between skepticism and hostility towards free…

Boston

The good news for Republicans in 2010 is they’re ahead in 6 races for Senate seats now held by Democrats and lead or are tied in 6 open seats where Republicans are retiring. In the House, Republicans figure to win a minimum of 20 seats, as things now stand. They’re a good bet to have a majority of…

The panel on Fox News Sunday discussed the Massachusetts Senate race and health care today. Here's the full transcript:

Byron York sums up Obama's lackluster performance at today's rally:

Watch a bit of Coakley to begin with, so you get an idea of just how uninspiring a candidate Obama is lending his mojo to:

After a rousing speech from Obama about how people power can make a difference by electing a lackluster Democrat to the Senate, etc., unnamed sources are following on the president's efforts by saying they expect Coakley to lose:

Here's a transcript of Scott Brown's remarks, as prepared for delivery, at today's rally in Worcester:

President Obama will take his traveling Skillful Oratory Show to Massachusetts today. I'm sure he dislikes the circumstances under which he must travel to the Bay State—state-wide disillusionment and anger with an overreaching Obama agenda combined with a gaffe-prone Democratic candidate,…

The Swing State Project offers a very helpful map and chart of voting patterns across Mass., which even the most devout politicos have rarely had reason to study, as a Senate seat is never competitive. Check there for notes on how to read early returns Tuesday.

In a piece today, the New York Times follows the thread of evidence connecting former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg and failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (emphasis added):

In a Republican tracking poll, last night Scott Brown held on to a stable if narrow lead. Even if the results are adjusted to reflect a more Democratic-friendly turnout model than the pollsters expect, Brown maintains an edge.

Appointed Senator Paul Kirk will lose his vote in the Senate after Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts of a new senator and cannot be the 60th vote for Democratic health care legislation, according to Republican attorneys.

So the Massachusetts Democratic Party is alleging, in a mailer, that "1,736 women were raped in Massachusetts in 2008. Scott Brown wants hospitals to turn them all away."

Well, it's no Rape Mail (the closer from the politically gifted minds at Camp Coakley), but Scott Brown's counting on his calmer argument being more effective: "There's only one tax cutter in this race, and it's not Martha Coakley."

Another report from a friend on the bus:

The Massachusetts Democratic Party sent out a mailer today that claims Scott Brown wants hospitals to turn away all rape victims in the state:

Chefs and restaurateurs have always been known for fundraising—Escoffier raised money for victims of the Titanic and, more recently, a woman donated $25,000 for cancer research and in return supped at the home of Jacques Pépin—so it's not surprising that someone like Ashok Bajaj is doing his part…

A report from a friend in Massachusetts:

Pithy and appropriate: "I've been called a lot of things, but never, and I mean never, could anyone ever make the mistake of calling me a Yankee fan. Well, check that, if you didn’t know what the hell is going on in your own state maybe you could…."

Once again, the margin of error is 4 percent, so his lead falls within it on this likely voter poll. But a slim lead for Brown is becoming less and less surprising by the day:

Politicians on both sides of the aisle here have been devoting almost all of their energy and attention to two things: the battle over the president’s plan to take the health care sector under the government’s wing, and the battle over competing plans to solidify the current fragile economy…

Less than 72 hours after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, what was United Nations special envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton doing to help the Haitian people? Why campaigning for Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, of course. You see, Clinton told National Review's Robert Costa Friday,…

Audio, here, where Ben Smith notes:

A senior Democratic official on Friday described Ms. Coakley’s chances as “within striking distance.”

Liberal MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz gets positively End Times when talking about the possibility of Scott Brown beating Martha Coakley in Massachusetts:

The seven-termer is leaving the "greatest professional honor of [his] life," and leaving a "toss-up" race in his wake with high hopes for a GOP pick-up:

Republican takeover of the Senate is no longer impossible in 2010.  If Scott Brown wins in the special election Tuesday for the Senate in Massachusetts, it would mean Republicans would have to net 10 seats to take control.  If he loses, 11 would be needed.

As he should be, the press secretary is really getting it on the president's broken promise to show health-care negotiations on C-SPAN. His response, which consists of referring reporters to his two previous non-answers, is not good. Perhaps for Year Two of the Obama presidency, Gibbs will just…

As the D.C. crew and the president swoop in to save Martha Coakley, Scott Brown is up with this folksy radio ad:

Kristina Koehler, Germany’s new Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, has come under sharp attack from the political left for stating the obvious, namely that it is important to fight all forms of extremism. Last October, just a few weeks before the 32-year-old…

Most news outlets are reporting that sources in Massachusetts and the White House say Obama will be campaigning for Coakley in Massachusetts, as the Tuesday special election nears. Sunday will be the day, ABC News reports.

Echoing Stuart Rothenberg's switch on the race, which cited Democratic "desperation" in part, CQ moves the Massachusetts senate race to the "toss-up" column today:

Well, this is just stunningly inept. The ad has since been pulled by the DSCC, naturally, but here's a copy of it in its original form:

Now that we’re two weeks into 2010 and the Obama administration’s end of 2009 deadline for progress with Iran is quickly disappearing in the rear view mirror, one would expect that the administration would be moving towards the “crippling sanctions” that Secretary of State Clinton threatened Iran…

I spoke with two pros, each of whom has seen tracking polls from last night. The data are similar. There’s a stable Brown lead at around the Suffolk/7 News public poll level (+4). Brown lost some Democrats and saw some increase in his negatives (what you’d expect, given a massive, late partisan…

It's still undecided whether Obama will actually go to the Bay State to campaign on behalf of Martha Coakley, but he has cut a robocall for her, funded by the DNC. I kind of like the intro, here, but let's hope it has more spirit than yesterday's web ad if they want it to do any good:

We have already learned to our sorrow just how little President Obama and his dogsbody Hillary Clinton are interested in China’s dismal record on the rights of its citizens or the brutalizing of demonstrators in Iran. Now, an internal memo circulating around the State Department’s Human Rights…

The Massachusetts Senate special election is shaping up as a referendum on the health-care debate in Washington. And its outcome may well determine whether Massachusetts seniors get to keep the Medicare benefits they currently enjoy.  

Axelrod elevates Rove in WaPo op-ed that takes the tone of a 9th-grader's burn book: "Rove has some impressive campaign victories to his credit. But given the shape in which the last administration left this country, I'm not sure I would solicit his advice. And given the backhanded advice he…

The uproar sparked by the decision of Israeli deputy foreign minister Daniel Ayalon to treat the Turkish ambassador to a public tongue-lashing this week has been painful to behold. The Turkish Jewish community is quaking in fear of a new round of anti-Semitic violence, Shimon Peres has grovelled,…

Just in case you had any doubt about whether Brown's line, "It's the people's seat" went over well with the people, the Coakley campaign has Kennedy's widow repeating it in the ad she cut for the lackluster Democrat:

In Massachusetts, gloomy Democrats are using the Creigh Deeds comparison. In November, Democrats eager to distance Obama from the losing campaign accused Creigh Deeds of Virginia of running such a bad gubernatorial campaign that it could only have been a reflection on him, not a referendum on Obama:

Whole Foods--once the darling of cultural liberalism--is now being criticized by the left. Mother Jones denounced Whole Foods twice last week and attacked the company for being insufficiently serious about climate change. (If Whole Foods isn't, who is?) It's funny how no one on the left seems to…

Washington loves liberal power couples. Remember Tina Brown and Harold Evans swooning over the Clintons? And the campaign Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson waged against the Bush White House?  Book deals and good favor are up for grabs to those who best play professional victim.

When Iceland's financial system collapsed in the fall of 2008, the country's future became scarily uncertain. Simultaneously, Iceland's stock market crashed (down 77 percent in one day), the krona rapidly devalued (down more than 50 percent against the euro), the housing bubble burst, unemployment…

Last year’s unsurprisingly dismal budget numbers contain a surprising revenue story.  While overall federal revenue fell precipitously, payroll tax revenue barely dipped at all.  This divergent tale of two taxes has one conclusion but many implications.  America’s tax system, decidedly tilted…

It’s often said that January is a cinematic wasteland, and for good reason: The awards season art house releases were pumped out the month prior in order to gain eligibility for the Oscars; kids are headed back to school after a holiday break, limiting box office potential and dampening studio…

The Boston Herald reports that a Suffolk University/7News survey conducted Monday through Wednesday has Republican Scott Brown ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley by 50 percent to 46 percent. This is the first major independent public survey I’ve seen with Brown in the lead—though one should note the…

Anybody curious about how and why Yemen became a place where al Qaeda and other jihadist groups operate with apparent impunity--while its government claims to be a reliable ally of the United States--should simply look at a map of the Middle East. Throughout its history Yemen has been different…

The notice in the Washington Post was tiny, buried on page B2, under the headline "Sex trade crackdown": "D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles announced a crackdown Wednesday on massage parlors, health spas and social clubs that officials have found to be associated with prostitution and illegal…

This just in, from John Shadegg's website:

Another Brown ad hits Coakley on her 11th-hour fundraising event with health-care lobbyists in Washington, D.C.:

Stuart Rothenberg today cites Dem "desperation," Coakley's inability to own "change" message as annointed Democratic successor to Kennedy, and Brown's winning of "earned media" as reasons to change the race from "Narrow Advantage for the Incumbent Party to Toss-Up."

Soul legend Teddy Pendergrass died yesterday at Bryn Mawr Hospital outside of Philadelphia. His son informed the Philadelphia Inquirer that he never fully recovered from recent colon cancer surgery. He was 59 years old. You might not be too familiar with Pendergrass, but you probably would still…

There's been much gnashing of the teeth over the new defense budget, which is reported to top out at a towering $708 billion. The lamentations are premature. The budget won't be finalized for an additional month, while the Quadrennial Defense Review —a force structuring roadmap— isn't expected to…

On the ol' Inspiro-meter, I'd say the president has hit that rarely reached sweet spot right between Droopy the Dog and Eyeore. Note, in particular, the deadness in his eyes as he closes out his appeal:

For what it’s worth:

The combination of Obama's blatantly broken pledge to show health-care negotiations on C-SPAN and his approaching one-year anniversary of his inauguration has spurred a round of reflection on just how transparent the administration has been.

When rioting broke out between ethnic Han Chinese and Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim people, in far western China last July, the longtime regional Communist Party head, Wang Lequan, accused Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur leader, of instigating them from abroad.  The riots, he said, “revealed Rebiya’s…

I don't know how Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector and left-wing hero, avoided jail the first time he got caught chatting up an underage girl on the internet (though you can read here the pathetic defense he offered at the time), but he did. Ritter is now a repeat offender. Laura Rozen…

Obamacare is in trouble in the House.  Passage of whatever compromise health care bill is agreed on by White House, Senate, and House negotiators had been taken for granted in the House – until now.

A well-meaning class of elementary school kids from Syracuse wrote President Obama a letter asking him to come build a snowman with them. They knew he probably couldn't come, but expected more than a form letter dated a week before they even sent their letter.

The candidate of hope and change has now become a president of fear and doubt. This is hampering the economy and the American people's sense of security.

There's growing evidence that now that Republicans are the party out of power, they're finally closing the gap between Republicans and Democrats, when it comes to new technology. Long plagued by the question, "When will the GOP catch up online," necessity has now bred tech-savvy.

Today at 10:00 a.m., the so-called "doomsday clock"—a masterful PR effort run by the anti-nuclear Bulletin of Atomic Scientists—will be reset for only the 19th time in its 62-year history.

Video: The earthquake.

For the perpetual adolescent, one of life's little joys is the weekly trip to the comic book shop. But, as I've written before, President Obama's omnipresence has reached into even this little corner of the world: Nearly every week I find some new bit of Obama-worship in comic-book form. But this…

Keep America Safe seeks interns:

The latest dose of literature for the snarky smart set is here. Its title? twitterature. This brief book sums up over eighty works in the Western canon in "twenty tweets or less," each one comprising, of course, no more than 140 characters.

Sen. Chuck Schumer sent out a plea from Ted Kennedy's widow today with this charming introduction:

Lee Smith, a frequent contributor to the Weekly Standard, Hudson Institute scholar, and a close student of Middle East politics, has been pondering the Arab world, with particular urgency, since 9/11. Resident in Cairo, Beirut, and New York, with a wide and varied acquaintance throughout the Arab…

In a stunning post on its corporate blog, Google Senior Vice President David Drummond detailed a massive cyber attack on the companies proprietary information, including attempts to hack into the Gmail addresses of individuals who work on human rights in China. While never explicitly accusing the…

A remorseful Michael P. Meehan called today to apologize (see here for background).

Google has learned the hard way about the difficulty of dealing with a repressive regime. After years of bowing to China’s demand for censure, Google systems have reportedly been hacked (or compromised) by the Chinese government. The reason: The Chinese government hoped to uncover emails from human…

Hilarious react from the hero of the anti-tree-hugging movement:

ABC News, 1/11/10:

I’m told reliably:

The most closely watched Senate race in the country keeps getting worse for the Democrats. Harry Reid's years of partisanship and brass-knuckles politics is catching up with him. And when an incumbent becomes as unpopular as Reid, it's extremely hard for him to recover. Couldn't happen to a nicer…

BBC reporter Peter Taylor recently interviewed former Guantanamo detainee Mohammed al Awfi in Saudi Arabia. Al Awfi is one of the 11 former Gitmo detainees who was included on the Saudi Kingdom’s most wanted list in early 2009. After participating in the Saudi rehabilitation program, and feigning a…

In December 2007, when the recession began, 7.7 million Americans were out of work; the unemployment rate was 5.0 percent.

The White House can't be happy with a new set of polls evaluating President Obama's job performance. The CNN poll showed the public evenly divided on the question of whether Obama's presidency has been a success (so far!). The poll also showed that 46 percent of the public feels that Obama is too…

“Our thoughts and our prayers are with the people of Haiti at this critical time. The president is very focused on his top priority, which is saving lives in this critical, initial 72-hour period. We’re also very focused on protecting American citizens who are in Haiti, and identifying them and…

A tipster tells me that the man who was pushing me outside of a Capitol Hill fundraiser Tuesday night for Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley is Michael Meehan.

Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley attended a fundraiser at the Capitol Hill restaurant Sonoma tonight. After the event concluded, Coakley took two questions from the media but declined to say whether or not she stands by her statement at last night's debate that there aren't…

At the very least, the mess that NBC has embroiled itself in will probably cause ratings to rise for both Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, right up to their final shows next month. How would both men react to the network strife? Would they simply brush over the news or tackle it head on? As it turned…

"The most volatile factor in our politics in the first decade of the 21st century," Michael Barone writes in the 2010 Almanac of American Politics, "is the balance of enthusiasm." Enthusiastic Republicans turned out in droves to support the GOP and President Bush in 2002 and 2004. By 2006 and 2008,…

The Onion News Network has another classic:

Dave Weigel reports that the newest Rasmussen poll will show Scott Brown and Martha Coakley neck and neck--with the Democrat leading 49% to 47%. This is in line with PPP's poll over the weekend, as well as more recent private polls, according to sources.

Scott Brown's rejoinder to David Gergen in his debate with Martha Coakley the other evening--"With all due respect, it's not the Kennedy seat and it's not the Democrats' seat. It's the people's seat"--is a great line and a memorable line, and may well survive the special election next week and…

I mentioned in an earlier post that there's an abundance -- perhaps over abundance -- of opinions about U.S. nuclear forces, but a shortage of expertise. In an exquisitely timed op-ed, James Carroll makes my point for me:

Democrats must really be worried about the Massachusetts special election. The DNC dispatched partisan fire-breather Hari Sevugan to help with Martha Coakley's communications strategy. Coakley's in trouble because the Democratic health care bill is unpopular in Massachusetts, Democratic incumbent…

A new poll released by CBS News finds that:

With each passing day, it is getting harder and harder for Hugo Chávez’s remaining political and journalistic allies to defend his policies. Last week, the Venezuelan president announced a significant devaluation of the bolívar, Venezuela’s national currency, thereby making a major inflation…

Via Jammie Wearing Fool who says, "Heckuva job, Martha." In the paid-for line, Coakley's campaign writes:

The Scott Brown campaign tried to raise $500,000 in one day online. It ended up with nearly three times that much:

It's one of the hallmarks of recent promising Republican campaigns to take an Obamaesque approach to attacking opponents. "No-drama" Obama always got his licks in, but rarely sounded unpleasant doing it. On the campaign trail and in office, he's had no problem with any number of surrogates making…

The administration says goodbye to "created or saved."

Yesterday io9 carried a fantastic story on the Antikythera machine, a bit of ancient tech that's becoming more and more interesting:

On Monday night, Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown sparred for an hour over health care, taxes, terrorism, abortion, and the death penalty. In what was the campaign's final debate and the only one broadcast live in Massachusetts' largest media market, Coakley committed at least one…

In my piece Al Qaeda’s Trojan Horse, I pointed to several reports coming out of the British press connecting Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (UFA) to former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg and Begg’s organization, Cage Prisoners. The British press first noted that Begg and one of…

Martha Coakley opposes, and Scott Brown supports, the surge in Afghanistan. During tonight's debate, Coakley asserted that terrorists are no longer in Afghanistan--they've apparently all made their way to Yemen and Pakistan.

A big day for Republican Scott Brown: he's already raked in $735,000, and he won the endorsement of the right-leaning Boston Herald editorial page.

I'm betting Jeff Zucker is wishing he could take it all back. As head of NBC/Universal, Zucker thought he found a way to have his cake and eat it too, i.e., retaining both Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien and saving money at the same time. But as Variety reported over the weekend, the arrangement proved…

In a story that will appear in the February issue of Esquire magazine, which will hit stands on January 19, Rod Blagojevich says,

In a story that will appear in the February issue of Esquire magazine, which will hit stands on January 19, Rod Blagojevich says,

Stephen Goldsmith, the former Indianapolis mayor and current professor at Harvard, has a must-read column over at E21 on America's burgeoning debt crisis. In the past, Goldsmith writes, state and local governments have dealt with red ink in five ways: they've turned to the feds, they've incurred…

As if Roger Ailes didn't have Fox News on track to make enough money already. It likely galled the New York Times to report this on Sunday, in a piece on the "most successful news executive of the last 10 years:"

Liberals like to talk about the federal budget deficits during the Reagan years (while exonerating congressional Democrats of all responsibility for them).  So, how did those deficits, at the height of the Cold War buildup, compare to current ones? 

Last week, the Glover Park Group -- one of Washington's largest PR/communications firms -- launched a strange attack on the Wall Street Journal over its recent op-ed on nuclear warhead modernization. The Journal's editorial, which laid down some fairly basic points on the importance of properly…

In 2009, President Obama made several courageous national security decisions, including extending his campaign timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and sending tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan.  Both contravened many in his party who wanted U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as…

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house the other morning at Georgetown’s Holy Trinity Church, favored sanctuary for local left-wing Catholics, as prominent Democrats said farewell to Smith Bagley. Bagley, a Reynolds tobacco heir who, with first wife Vicki raised money for Jimmy Carter and were social…

Read Matt Labash's new advice column at the Daily Caller. And no, Labash is obviously not the person referred to in the column as "the sexiest man alive."

Hugo Chavez announced this weekend that the Venezuelan currency, the bolivar,  will be devalued for the third time since 2004. The oil-rich banana republic increasingly resembles Mexico prior to its 1994 economy crash. So, socialist policies enacted by a bombastic Latin American strongman are…

After Sen. Byron Dorgan unexpectedly announced his retirement last week, many suspected the move may have been precipitated by a tip that popular GOP Gov. John Hoeven was planning to run against him.

The people's paradise of Venezuela continues to ration electricity, and other scary things.

After last night's shock poll showed Brown up 1 point (i.e. a statistical tie), we have a Boston Globe poll that shows Brown is trailing Democrat Martha Coakley by 15 points. But the Globe reports that "Brown matches Coakley - both were at 47 percent - among the roughly 1 in 4 respondents who said…

Thanks to Weekly Standard reader Cole Kendall who kindly passes on to me the rather extensive (and much misspelled) inventory list for the R.W. Apple wine auction since I had complained that in the Washington Post article, only one vintage had been mentioned.

Scott Brown touts his opposition to constitutional rights for enemy combatants in his latest ad:

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, releases a stunning new poll:

In light of President Obama's decision to forgive Harry Reid's remarks about Obama's skin color and lack of a "Negro dialect," check out what Obama said about Trent Lott in 2002:

Yesterday, Marc Ambinder quoted the following from the new book Game Change:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD is seeking an entry-level design assistant to work with the magazine's design director. Responsibilities will include magazine page design, online photo research, scanning and image correction. A working knowledge of Adobe InDesign and Photoshop is needed. Email resumé and…

Today is one of those days that reminds me why I still have a subscription to the dead tree version of my local newspaper, the Washington Post.  The reason: an interesting front-page story by long-time China hand John Pomfret on China's increasingly effective lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill (the…

On a few occasions and much to its credit, Der Spiegel has gone out in search of that odd species (to most Germans, at least) known as the conservative—and in particular, conservative intellectuals who make powerful arguments. (Some Germans with whom I've spoken could not admit to being persuaded…

The Boston Herald reports that interim Senator Paul Kirk says he would "absolutely" vote for Obamacare even if Scott Brown wins the election, and the Massachusetts secretary of state wouldn't certify the election results until February 20 if Brown wins, so congressional Democrats would have enough…

Harry Reid got his worst unfavorable rating yet in a Mason-Dixon poll commissioned by the Las Vegas newspaper this week, but the 70-year-old Majority Leader promises he will not be stepping aside to avoid a possible loss, as Sen. Chris Dodd did.

Haaretz reports that “Washington is now considering the possibility of launching ‘proximity talks’ between Israel and the Palestinians, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continues to object to direct talks.”

Thankfully, it seems finally to have dawned on President Obama that al Qaeda is an indefatigable enemy of the United States, and will seize any and every opportunity to kill Americans. And it appears to have surprised Janet Napolitano to realize how determined al-Qaeda can be, whether commissioning…

The Hamas terrorists who rule Gaza see negotiations for Gilad Shalit’s release as a nerve-racking game which Israel is bound to lose. And they are right: It is a nerve-racking game, and Israel will lose, no matter how things turn out. Either the Jewish State will release a thousand terrorists in…

The latest web ad from Keep America Safe...

The Hill is reporting that Robert Gates will retain his post as Secretary of Defense, as least for the next year. This decision will mercifully spare us from the rumored alternatives, among them Chuck Hagel and John Kerry. Here's a few of Gates's directives that should absolutely be sustained.

Remember the headline from a few days ago about the impending supernova from "nearby" recurring nova T Pyxidis? T Pyxidis is a star which goes boom every 20 years, but hasn't had an event since 1967. This week some astronomers suggested T Pyxidis is headed for supernova, one of the aftereffects of…

Today, a Rasmussen poll found that 44 percent of Americans believe Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the game today.

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, is finishing up with a poll on the Massachusetts Senate special election:

[img nocaption float="center" width="504" height="640" render="<%photoRenderType%>"]8946[/img]

Maybe Ben Nelson's right and the federal government should have waited on health care in order to offer more economic incentives for new jobs.

The news that Timothy Geithner instructed AIG not to disclose information concerning its 2008 federal bailout is sure to cause more trouble for the embattled Treasury secretary. Report:

Neither the determination of al Qaeda, nor the tactic used in this incident seem particularly shocking or new. Perhaps this kind of thing has something to do with a news search for "Napolitano" today bringing up three calls for her resignation.

When trying to recover from an intelligence "screw-up that could have been disastrous," it is wise to use spell check.

“None of us is irreplaceable,” said retiring senator Chris Dodd. The sentiment not only applies to beleaguered incumbent senators who enjoy smashing portraits on the ground at fine restaurants, but also to the fine restaurants themselves. For as the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, New…

Ted Koppel: "I would classify it as an absolute triumph for al Qaeda."

Viewers of cable television have been inundated with advertisements for the new Michael Cera picture, Youth in Revolt, to the point that my girlfriend literally cries out in disgust when she sees them now. The distributors have gone all out to get promos of this comedy – starring Mr. Cera as a nice…

In Massachusetts, Anxiety for Favored Democrats By Abby Goodnough  New York Times  January 8, 2010   BOSTON — Martha M. Coakley, the Democrat running for Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts, had seemed so certain of winning the special election on Jan. 19 that she barely campaigned…

The AP reports that the American Future Fund will spend $400,000 on an ad in the Massachusetts Senate race contrasting Republican Scott Brown's opposition to taxes with Democrat Martha Coakley's statement that "we need to get taxes up."

With the New Year, enhanced fears of, and challenges to, the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda, other local jihadists, and their allies among violent Muslim fundamentalists, have become visible across the Indian subcontinent. Intra-Muslim tension inside India, between moderate Barelvi-Sunni…

When people talk about the midterm elections, they often say unemployment will be the most important factor. An unemployment rate at 10 percent on Election Day 2010, the argument goes, will ensure heavy Democratic losses in the House and Senate. For sure, jobs and the economy are likely to dominate…

The only way to control the cost of health care is to spend less on health care, not less on health care insurance. The only thing that lowering health care insurance costs will accomplish is to reduce overall access to care as providers of care will not be able to afford to treat as many patients…

A few years ago—as you probably remember—Duke University received a lot of bad publicity when a group of lacrosse players were (falsely, as it turned out) accused of brutally gang-raping a black stripper in Durham, North Carolina. Today, with the recent changes in the school's sexual misconduct…

Analysts are predicting that the blast of cold weather over much of the country will damage this year's orange crops, ultimately leading to more expensive orange juice at your local supermarket, thus adding to the burden of Americans with tighter budgets. According to the Associated Press, "The…

Via Jennifer Rubin, the Cook Political Report thinks Scott Brown has a chance:

At Tuesday's press briefing, Robert Gibbs took this tack in talking about the Christmas bomber and Obama's responsibility for breaches:

The timely retirement of Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) seems to have garnered much of the attention in political Washington. But the departure of Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) is likely to have more historic consequences. That is because Dorgan's decision not to seek re-election leaves his…

In an interview with the Pittsburgh newspaper, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), Arlen Specter's opponent in the Democratic primary, blamed Democrats for the plummeting popularity of the health-care bill.

After President Obama's November 2009 trip to Asia was widely panned by the media and commentators, the White House spin machine kicked into high gear in a vain attempt to make it seem like less of a disaster than it clearly had been.  One of their main lines of attack was tocastigate the "rush to…

Joe Klein saw Avatar the other night, and he came away pleasantly surprised:

A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows Arkansas Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln trailing four different Republican challengers. State Senator Gilbert Baker leads the pack with 51 percent over Lincoln's 39 percent. No wonder Lincoln took a hard tack the other day on Ben Nelson's Cornhusker Kickback.…

The estimable Allahpundit is pretty fatalistic about Obamacare: Nancy Pelosi says the House and Senate are "very close" to a deal, Obama's weighing in to pressure House Dems to accept something close to the Senate bill, you can't rely on Blanche Lincoln to stop it--and, so, "Dude, I think it's…

Gallup is out with a new poll showing that 40 percent of the public identified as "conservative" in 2009. The percentage of self-identified "liberals" stood at 21 percent. Moderates dropped four points, to 36 percent.

The only way for Republican Scott Brown to win is energizing the Republican base while appealing to moderate Massachusetts voters at the same time. So far so good, writes Michael Graham, who sees Scott Brown harnessing the power of, and giving hope to, the tea party movement, despite his relatively…

Al Qaeda has taken credit for the suicide attack that killed seven CIA operatives, including a station chief, and a Jordanian intelligence operative. In a statement released on the Internet, Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda's leader in Afghanistan, said the attack was to "avenge" the leaders and…

According to Radio Farda's Golnaz Esfandiari, "Iranian state television has produced a documentary suggesting the shooting death of a young woman whose final moments were captured on video during postelection protests was a fake." What's more, Neda Agha Soltan is accused of spying on behalf of the…

The only way for Republican Scott Brown to win is energizing the Republican base while appealing to moderate Massachusetts voters at the same time. So far so good, writes Michael Graham, who sees Scott Brown harnessing the power of, and giving hope to, the tea party movement, despite his relatively…

What the Obama administration is saying now:

Surprise: Humorless Media Matters unable to decipher ridiculous, humorous attack on them.

Legislative battles sometimes produce unlikely victims. After clashing with Republicans for months, Democrats appear poised to win a major partisan victory on health care. 

It wasn't for lack of a good reason that the administration fought so desperately to avoid being pinned down on whether detainee transfers to Yemen would continue. Days before the Christmas Day attack, a "senior administration official" told the New York Times that the White House was "gaining…

Press reports indicate that the latest Pentagon assessment of recidivists who were once held at Guantanamo “shows about one in five detainees released” have returned to terrorism. That, of course, is a recidivism rate of “about” 20 percent. Although these same press accounts do not note the total…

When I saw Monday’s LA Times story about the debate on the Nuclear Posture Review, I didn’t make much of it because it didn’t reveal anything that someone who has been following the issue wouldn’t already know.

Joe Biden makes the case for trains…about 150 years after the argument was settled.

Obama's taking a good shellacking after breaking his pledge to put health care negotiations on C-Span. Fred Barnes warned Obama in December 2008 about the trouble he'd created for himself on this issue and others:

With Obama taking a good shellacking after breaking his pledge to put health care negotiations on C-Span, it's worth recalling that Fred Barnes's warning in December 2008 about the trouble ahead:

The president's well-known penchant for "making himself perfectly clear" has, in this case, created quite a quagmire for his press secretary to navigate.

Both Republican state senator Scott Brown and Democratic attorney general Martha Coakley support legal abortion, but during yesterday's debate Brown made a point of contrasting his position on this issue with Coakley's extremist record. Coakley would be a "social crusader" on the issue in…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that in very recent private polling, Bay Staters, when asked whether Congress should pass the current health care reform legislation or start over, split 36-53 in favor of starting over. That may be why Coakley’s first general election ad, in a race for Ted Kennedy’s…

Republicans woke up this morning with a spring in their step: Sens. Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd both said they wouldn't run for another term. But the news may turn out to be an electoral wash. North Dakota governor John Hoeven, a Republican, is expected to run for Dorgan's seat and win handily.…

I would have been more interested in J. Freedom du Lac's tale of the widow of R.W. Apple auctioning off the Timesman's wine collection had he elaborated a bit more on what vintages were actually up for sale. The only ones he specifically mentions are two bottles of 1945 Chateau Lafite. Still, it's…

In October, the Left and the media reveled in Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement of Obamacare, but my, how times have changed.

Both Republican state senator Scott Brown and Democratic attorney general Martha Coakley support legal abortion, but during yesterday's debate Brown made a point of contrasting his position on this issue with Coakley's extremist record. "I'm not in favor of partial-birth abortion. I am not in favor…

Mark Leibovich's cover story in Sunday's Times magazine, on the Florida Senate GOP fight between Marco Rubio and Gov. Charlie Crist, is online:

 Solid score from Josh Rogin over at Foreign Policy, who reports that the much anticipated Nuclear Posture Review -- a DoD force structuring plan for America's nuclear weapons -- will be delayed an additional month. The Pentagon announcement comes on the same day that the Los Angeles…

The "retirement" of Sen. Christopher Dodd reminds me of Enoch Powell's observation that "all political lives ... end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs." Whether or not this is strictly or generally true, it certainly fits the experience of the Dodd family.

Earlier this week, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb sent a letter to the Democratic leadership asking them to "open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage." No word from the Democrats on whether they'll accept Lamb's offer--stranger things have…

The razorback senator got prickly today about the special deal Harry Reid gave Ben Nelson in exchange for his vote on health care:

Check out this Gallup article comparing job approval at the start of a president's second year in office. Obama is at 50 percent in the Gallup poll. Only Reagan, at 49 percent, started his second year with lower job approval. What's interesting is that President Clinton began 1994 with 54 percent…

With respect to closing the Guantanamo detention facility, President Obama said the following on Tuesday:

Two weeks before the special election to replace Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Boston Globe brings attention to criticism Democratic candidate Martha Coakley got in 2005 for seeming lax in the treatment of a rape suspect. Coakley's camp cannot be happy with the recounting of this story in the local…

You know he's bad off when MSNBC calls the Democrat "embattled."

A former intelligence officer called my attention to the, as he put it, "creepy" statement Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair issued yesterday:

Looks like Dodd will retire, too, making Connecticut's seat a somewhat harder pick-up for Republicans as Democrats will find a candidate who's less scandal-ridden. Too bad. I had hoped exposure to Kennedy had imbued him with enough of the "I'm an untouchable legacy whom the nation needs in…

Another Democrat to abandon statewide office:

That's a big, whopping, surprise retirement:

Buried in Peter Baker's article for the New York Times magazine, "Inside Obama's War on Terrorism" are a few revealing nuggets about the President's approach to, dare I say, the GWOT. 

President Obama wants to close Gitmo. Closing Gitmo means sending terrorists abroad or to the United States. Both are serious mistakes—the terrorists abroad can go rejoin the fight, the ones taken to the U.S. would get all kinds of consitutional rights which might then allow them to rejoin the…

Laura Rozen posts the list of some 51 NGOs, think-tanks, universities and human rights groups that have been designated as "subversive" by the Iranian regime, which will now forbid Iranian citizens from having any interaction with these organizations. As Rozen notes, "The New America Foundation,…

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab provided "usable, actionable" intelligence upon his capture on Christmas Day.

I can't say it any better, so I'll steal Talking Points Memo's reaction: Oh, snap!

Another Massachusetts resident writes:

A correspondent from the Bay State writes:

Boston

 A strong statement from the People's Governor:

Middle-East commentators—including the sensible ones—have spilled mucho ink congratulating Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad on his “bottom-up” approach to preparing for the Palestinian state-to-come. And indeed, with the aid of Israeli investment and cooperation, his economic policies have…

For those of you not obsessed with the celebrisphere, Casey Johnson--equally famous for being a Johnson & Johnson heiress and Tila Tequila's "fiancé"--died last night from an apparent drug overdose. It's all very sad, of course. But what's interesting--in a horrifying, end-of-civilization kind of…

If you are a heroin addict in New York, and you want to learn how to shoot up “safely,” there’s a free flier, “Take Charge, Take Care,” produced on the taxpayers’ dime by the health department of the City of New York that will come in handy. Tip #6: Take Care of Your Veins:

In an essay likening Barack Obama to Herbert Hoover (favorably!), John B. Judis lets it rip:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported last night that a private poll last week had the Massachusetts Senate race at 50-39 for the Democrat, Martha Coakley. Scott Rasmussen will apparently soon report that his survey last night has Republican Scott Brown down by nine points, 50-41. Two weeks to go, Brown…

Yesterday, several outlets reported that the Democrats would "almost certainly" forgo the official conference process to get a health-care bill passed, opting instead to negotiate largely behind closed doors. Now, C-SPAN and other media outlets are criticizing the plan's lack of transparency.

The newly revealed third party crasher at the White House's first State Dinner was a D.C. party promoter who reportedly arrived with the official Indian delegation and was waved in without a background check or invitation.

Flashback: The Left whined about Gallup in 2004.

One of the many problems with funneling our nation's health-care system through our nation's political system is that it would politicize health care. The health-care bill that recently passed the Senate could hardly provide better evidence of this claim.

I have nothing but sympathy for those economists compelled, or who feel compelled, to deliver detailed forecasts of GDP, prices, the value of the dollar, the unemployment rate and other economic variables at the beginning of each year. And this year their crystal balls must be cloudier than ever,…

"We're in the role of the supplicant." The Obama administration is already ready to cut a deal with the Christmas Day bomber. There were no U.S. combat deaths in Iraq last month. Nothing sells in Europe like an anti-Israel Holocaust survivor. Spencer Ackerman interviews an Iranian dissident who…

There has been a notable absence of public polling in the January 19 special election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. That will begin to change tomorrow, when Scott Rasmussen releases the results of a poll that he's conducting tonight. But THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained the…

Debra Burlingame makes some solid points regarding TSA checkpoint screening. During a flurry of recent holiday travel, I also took note of TSA's reaction to the underwear bomber, jotting down some observations while waiting in the infinite airport security lines. The bureaucratic suck that is TSA…

Via Greg Sargent: A top House progressive, in a statement sent my way, ripped the Dem leadership's emerging plan to skip the traditional process to merge the House and Senate bills, claiming it will make it even tougher to improve the bill and slamming it for stifling real debate. The statement is…

Jim Geraghty sums up Republican state senator Scott Brown's prospects in the January 19 special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts: "Anecdotes for Cheer, Data for Gloom." The anecdotes are indeed hopeful: Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democrat in the race, is hiding from…

Today's LA Times has an admirably even piece on the shadowy barfight between Pentagon officials and White House staffers over the future of our nation's nuclear arsenal. President Obama's ambitious plan to begin phasing out nuclear weapons has run up against powerful resistance from officials in…

Debra Burlingame sends in a smart note about the TSA: We need to address the TSA's history of knee-jerk responses after terrorist plots are attempted or revealed which do nothing to increase security and which may, in fact, be counter-productive. I have heard passengers, after being put through…

Christopher Caldwell talks to Der Spiegel: SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Caldwell, Switzerland recently banned minarets in a referendum. What was your first thought when you heard the news? Caldwell: The most stunning thing about it is the gap between the clear rejection of the ban in public opinion polls…

Several months ago we warned that Tara O'Toole who recently became Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security would reward her friends resulting in millions of dollars in gifts to John Murtha cronies who supported her nomination. And it now…

In my piece last week ("Al Qaeda's Trojan Horse"), I wrote about Mozzam Begg, a former Gitmo detainee, and his ties to Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab ("UFA").

Obama on health-care reform process, January 2008: "That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are, because part of…

Here's a handy little chart from the Old Grey Lady, breaking down three years worth of benchmark data from the Global War on Terrorism Overseas Contingency Operat-- er... Global War on Terrorism. Though there's still some knifework to be done, Iraq is looking like Eden compared to the trying…

The First Circuit Court of Appeals in New England just handed down another horrible Second Amendment ruling, very similar to the ruling that recently came out of Georgia. In the case in question, the court ruled that a police officer acted appropriately when he not only detained a man for lawfully…

Zimbabwean farmer Mike Campbell has been terrorized, threatened, beaten, and, this past fall, victimized by a vicious arson attack that left him homeless. His crime? Refusing a government order to abandon his mango farm, which the Campbell family purchased legally and has worked for decades.…

The city of Washington, D.C. is suing AT&T. Why? Because some customers who buy its prepaid calling cards don't always use up all the minutes. The city isn't suing on behalf of the customers, of course (though even that would be sort of silly). It's suing on the notion that when a customer doesn't…

Jen Rubin flags Brennan's response to Fox News' Chris Wallace this Sunday about the administration's decision to put the Christmas bomber in the criminal court system instead of treating him as an enemy combatant. Just as in the case of the decision to try certain Gitmo detainees in NYC, the…

Al Qaeda vs. Yemen's government: "They have called for a tribal rebellion against Saleh. The attack could be an assassination attempt on President Saleh. It could be a Western embassy or some other target in Yemen." The pollster is not the problem. The web makes the black market smoother in Cuba.…

We survived 2009.

As a candidate, Barack Obama pledged to meet with leaders of rogue states "without preconditions." He said the foreign policy of the United States had become too aggressive, even domineering, under George W. Bush. We had made too many demands and spent too much time lecturing and too little time…

Journalists, long on confidence but chronically short of knowledge, have been lately offering end-of-decade summations. The fact that the first decade of the 21st century doesn't actually end until this time next year hasn't slowed them down; and there's universal agreement that this was, as Andy…

In the Democrats' rush to pass some kind of health care legislation before public opposition overwhelms them, tactics have long since overtaken substance. Their only remaining goal is to pass a bill, any bill. As the endgame has unfolded, all eyes have been fixed on the unseemly process taking…

Since my late teens I have had a deep fear of women lurking behind pianos. This is probably because of early exposure to the work of Nina Simone. Dubbed--not without justification--the High Priestess of Soul, Simone was an imperious, striking-looking woman who would take up her position behind her…

Germany has finally discovered the nuclear threat. For years, German politicians and press played down American concerns about the nuclear ambitions of, first, the Iraq of Saddam Hussein and, later, the Iran of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Crazy Heart

American Heroes

When I first encountered the Persian word mofangi, I struggled to grasp its meaning. It implies a certain timidity, physical weakness, and awkwardness. Seeking to put some flesh on that definition, my language tutor told me to envision Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri. "He's more than a little…

Kandinsky

Rising China and Its Postmodern Fate

Lionel Trilling

My wife, back from walking the dog in a rainstorm, was drying her wet sox by the electric space heater in my attic office. I told her to be careful.

"They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama," Senator Sheldon Whitehouse roared about his Republican opponents in the closing hours of the Senate health care debate on December 20. "The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in…

THE SCRAPBOOK wanted to give some of its space this holiday season to an email from our friend Jim Hake, founder and chairman of Spirit of America. This terrific non-profit supports our troops' efforts on the front lines by supplying materiel they judge will be helpful in accomplishing their…

The title of the legislation is innocent enough: the Free Flow of Information Act. The motivation behind it is a seemingly worthy one. It would give anyone in the media a shield--special protection--against being forced to reveal the names of confidential sources of information. And the result…

Was 2009 the dawn of a new liberal era? Or was it, rather, the apogee of Democratic power (for now)? In November 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president, liberals weren't content to say his sweeping victory was due to public disapproval of President Bush and the deepening recession. They…

Defend the Realm

A piece in Politico claims "Democrats are turning their fire on Scott Rasmussen, the prolific independent pollster whose surveys on elections, President Obama's popularity and a host of other issues are surfacing in the media with increasing frequency." In fact the piece quotes only one Democratic…

The American and British embassies in Yemen have been closed reportedly in response to an al Qaeda threat. The Associated Press reports: 

The Shmavens (apologies to Edgar Allan Poe) When the air about him thickens, a sweet sensation rises, quickens-- Heart a-quiver, Chris feels words Obamunist deliver legthrills he's not able to ignore. It's all New Testamenty, really, churchy Super-Tuesday zealy, He teeters on the edge of torpor,…

An interesting piece from Politico's Ben Smith and Carol Lee examines the mentality inside the Hawaiian White House that led to the administration's inept response to the Christmas Day attack, but there's one line in particular that jumped out at me: Aides also say Obama wouldn't necessarily be…

In a video address discussing the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack, President Obama said this:

The White House spin on Yemen continues. Today, a "senior administration official" tells Mike Allen that the administration has been getting tough in Yemen for a year. Throughout this year, the President has urged greater focus on and investment in the fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian…

President Obama said in his radio address today that "our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred." He also reported about the latest attack, on Christmas Day by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, that "an affiliate of Al Qaeda...Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, trained…

Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director, took to the official White House blog Wednesday to post a response to critics of Barack Obama and his handling of counterterrorism. Pfeiffer believes that the intelligence failure that led to the failed bombing on Christmas day -- nearly a year…

Bloomberg reports that recently-released British hostage Peter Moore was held, at least for a time, in Iran. CENTCOM commander David Petraeus told reporters in Baghdad: ""Our intelligence assessment is that he certainly has spent part of the time, at the very least, in Iran, part of the time that…

David Broder: You know who deserves a gold star for her performance during the Christmas Day terrorist response? Janet Napolitano. Obama pledges to act quickly on solving security failures as soon as he gets back from vacation. Wikipedia pronounced Rush dead. Photos: Thank God it's 2010. Yes. Oops.…

Be sure to read Charles Krauthammer's latest column.

In today's Washington Post, the boss writes that we can and should do more "to try to help the Iranian people change the regime of fear and tyranny that denies them justice."