The French have made lots of important contributions to America. No one denies this. The Statue of Liberty. Lafayette. Tony Parker. French fries—though these were possibly ripped off from Belgium.
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) painted watercolors throughout his European childhood. Like his family, the dependents of the peripatetic Dr. Fitzwilliam Sargent, watercolors were portable and picturesque. Sargent continued to paint watercolors in the 1870s as a student in Paris and in the 1880s…
As we go to press, Donald Trump is visiting Paris. His visit can’t help but remind us of a famous trip to Paris by an American over three-quarters of a century ago. That American businessman, Rick Blaine, had little in common with Donald Trump—except perhaps a propensity to brand businesses with…
As we go to press, Donald Trump is visiting Paris. His visit can’t help but remind us of a famous trip to Paris by an American over three-quarters of a century ago. That American businessman, Rick Blaine, had little in common with Donald Trump—except perhaps a propensity to brand businesses with…
It did not take the attack on Charlie Hebdo to reveal that the Islamic world has a terrible problem. For quite some time, that’s been clearer than day. This is not an assertion made from outside Islam or against Islam. On New Year’s Day, the president of Egypt, in a major speech, called for a…
Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer called President Trump a traitor if he makes good on his promise and exits the Paris climate change agreement.
Partly because France surrendered to the Nazis before any harm could be done to Paris, Paris is the art capital of the world. Consequently, it has an impractically large number of great museums. Tourists can't reasonably be expected to visit all of them—Paris has a dozen or so museums dedicated…
Paris
Paris
"I bear the creature no ill-will,” William Hazlitt wrote of a spider in his 1826 essay, "On the Pleasure of Hating."
The greatest painting in Paris is not the Mona Lisa. It's a different portrait by a different renaissance master, conveniently located only a hundred feet away from the Mona Lisa, in an adjacent Louvre gallery. It's Rafael's Baldassare Castiglione.
After initial reports that the Nice attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was a self-radicalized lone wolf, French prosecutors said last week that he had a group of accomplices. Like Lahouaiej Bouhlel, all had been living in France for several years, some with dual citizenship. As the threat of…
Paris
The international conference on climate change attracted thousands of delegates from almost 200 nations. The Conference of the Parties21, so named for the parties that signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and had come to Paris for what was their 21st conference, came to an…
President Obama is in Paris for a conference on climate change. Today he met with the leader of China, President Xi Jinping, and discussed the importance of the U.S.-China relationship in regards to fighting climate change.
After the astonishing German break through the French lines in May 1940, Winston Churchill flew to Paris to meet his French counterpart, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, and army chief Maurice Gamelin. Reynaud had called Churchill in near-hysterics, but even Churchill wasn’t prepared for the utter…
In the confusion and horror of Paris in shock, the details stay with you. In the bleary early Saturday morning, behind the police barriers, a lone tour bus was still parked on Boulevard Voltaire in front of the Bataclan concert hall, where the Eagles of Death Metal gig had been bloodily interrupted…
For those of us who were in Mumbai during the 2008 terrorist attacks there, the bulletins from Paris on Friday night evoked queasy déjà vu. With each shocking addition to the story—drive-by shootings at one crowded restaurant and then another, explosions reported at the other end of town, casualty…
French President François Hollande vowed to conduct a “pitiless” war against the people responsible for Friday’s atrocities, and over the weekend, the bombings of ISIS targets in Syria began. Le président also temporarily closed all of France’s borders, but only for those seeking to leave the…
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie slammed Secretary of State John Kerry for remarks the top diplomat made Tuesday about the attacks in Paris and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January. Kerry contrasted the Paris attacks, which he called “indiscriminate,” with the attacks on the French satire…
In remarks today in Paris, France, Secretary of State John Kerry justified the terror attack earlier this year that targeted the magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. This latest attack, by contrast, was different, said Kerry.
Bernard-Henri Lévy has written an intelligent and forceful, if somewhat grandiloquent, piece on Paris and its implications. Highlights:
The fight between GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio continues to heat up. Cruz set things off last week with a direct hit against Rubio over the latter’s support for the Gang of 8 immigration plan, an attack that the Rubio camp seemed ready for. This week, their debate has moved…
Chris Christie reacted over the weekend to the terror attacks in Paris, France:
Bill Kristol joined ABC's This Week yesterday to discuss the terror attacks in Paris:
Alabama governor Robert Bentley is refusing to allow Syrian refugees to relocate to Alabama.
At the end of this month representatives of some 200 nations will gather in Paris for the opening of a United Nations-sponsored conclave to prevent the cataclysm that President Barack Obama, backed by the moral authority of Pope Francis, believes will befall the world if we do not slow the pace of…
Since the terrorist attacks in Paris Friday that killed more than 120 people and injured hundreds more, world leaders from President Barack Obama to newly elected Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, and from U.K. prime minister David Cameron to German chancellor Angela Merkel, have expressed…
During Saturday night's Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton was asked about bringing in Syrian refugees.
As a committed, long-standing Twitter detractor, I’ve exhaustively bashed the social networking site for all imaginable crimes, and even unimaginable ones. But through the gift of hindsight, I admit giving Twitter short-shrift in one department: it tends to work like they say old age does,…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the attacks in Paris, and whether they will shape tonight's Democratic debate.
Here's the most compelling and powerful reaction I've read so far to the attacks in Paris, by Mark Steyn, "The Barbarians Are Inside, And There Are No Gates."
The Department of Homeland Security says there is no threat of a terrorist attack like the one in France happening immediately in America.
President Obama condemned tonight's terror attack in France in a statement he delivered from the White House:
As he has for much of his post-presidency, Bill Clinton was on the road again in June, traveling to Europe at the end of the month for various conferences and other public appearances. After a few days in London, the president popped over to Paris for a day or two to shop at Hermès, a well-known…
Pope, President, Prices and Paris. That covers just about everything you need to know about the next step in the battle to prevent what has come to be called climate change, the title now preferred to “global warming” by those who worry that CO2 emissions are causing, er, global warming. The Pope…
President Obama referred to the Islamic terrorists who killed several French Jews last month as people who "randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris" in an interview with liberal website Vox.com. In Tuesday's press briefing, ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl asked White House press…
After the recent massacre by Islamic terrorists at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, people around the world took to social media to declare “Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie.” Solidarity is a nice sentiment, and journalists in particular are fond of uttering self-soothing words about…
The jihadists responsible for the most successful terrorist attack in France in decades hunted down cartoonists. They did not target a significant historical landmark, such as the Eiffel Tower, or any well-known French politicians. They did not seek to maximize civilian casualties in a suicide…
President Obama's former defense secretary and former head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, said this morning on CNN that we've entered into "a much more dangerous chapter" of the war on terror:
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Paris Friday in what was billed as a show of solidarity with the French people after terrorists attacked last week. The former Massachusetts senator brought fellow Bay Stater and singer-songwriter James Taylor to sing a slightly off-key rendition of…
John Kerry is going to France today to give "a big hug to Paris," a week after the brutal terrorist attacks there.
Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, will give a major foreign policy address next week in London. According to early excerpts of the address, Jindal will use the speech to bash Hillary Clinton, the likely 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, and…
The White House won't be calling jihadists adherents to "radical Islam." At least, that's the reasonable take away from this extraordinary exchange the White House press secretary had today with a reporter:
Under a cloudless Jerusalem sky, a crowd of thousands gathered at the cemetery at Givat Shaul on Tuesday, to bury the four Jews murdered at the Hyper Cacher in Paris. Yoav Hattab, Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, and Francois-Michel Saada were laid to rest in Har Hamenuhot, on the approach to…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Islamist terror, the Paris vigil, and President Obama's absence.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest offered this excuse to explain why President Obama skipped the weekend rally in Paris: it would've impacted "common citizens."
The terrorist attacks last week in Paris and the debate over the French government response brought back a simple discussion I had a few years ago regarding the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told the press today he doesn't know what President Obama was doing while world leaders gathered in Paris yesterday to rally:
The terrorist attacks in Paris were nightmarish in many ways, but perhaps the most worrisome news to come out of the Charlie Hebdo affair is that followers of a “pure” al Qaeda affiliate – al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula – and of ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – worked together.
Tablet has one of the best articles I've seen from Paris, capturing the mood of French Jews--and the meaning for them of the state of Israel. Here are excerpts:
Secretary of State John Kerry said that criticism that he and the Obama administration skipped the unity rally in Paris yesterday is "sort of quibbling a little bit." He made the comments at a press conference in India, after announcing that he'd be visiting France on Thursday.
House Homeland Security Committee chair Mike McCaul said on CBS that he expects to "see more and more" of the Paris style attacks take place around the world:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on terrorism abroad, and Jeb Bush's 2016 pitch.
CNN is reporting that the sounds of shots and explosions were heard near the Kosher market in Paris, where a terrorist has reportedly been holding several captives.
Roger Kaplan, a part-time Parisian and Weekly Standard contributor, reflects on the Charlie Hebdo murders:
There are new reports of a hostage situation in Paris at a Kosher market. The Associated Press reports:
White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained to reporters today that the United States needs to "redouble" efforts to explain "what the tenets of Islam actually are." He made the comments in response to a question about how the U.S. might respond to the terror attack today in France.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris.
In remarks from the Oval Office, President Obama warned that the kind of terror attack that took place earlier today in Paris can "happen anywhere in the world."
The Islamist terrorist attack on the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which, so far, has resulted in 12 deaths and many more wounded, should come as no surprise. The satirical weekly has been the target before, having been fire-bombed back in late 2011 after running a…
In remarks this morning from Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry said he agreed with the French imam who called the victims of today's murderous rampage in Paris "martyrs for liberty."
If you inhabit the Left Bank of Paris, you live left and vote right. The Left Bank is on the southern shore of the river Seine, and the heart of it is the Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a small, dense country you can cross on foot in half an hour. Around here they vote right, though you…
Paris
After two items last week on the cost of lodging for Vice President Joe Biden's early February trip to Europe, other news organizations began to investigate further. Wolf Blitzer's show The Situation Room on CNN uncovered a contract apparently also related to the same visit to Paris:
As it turns out, Vice President Joe Biden's London stay in February was not the most expensive part of his trip. A government document released on February 14, 2013 shows that the contract for the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand came in at $585,000.50.
I’m burning with envy. Here I’ve been plugging away of late in places like Oklahoma City and Scottsdale. Meanwhile, both Susan Mary Alsop and Kati Marton, heroines of two ostensibly different books, had a much better idea. The only possible way to provoke interest in their surprisingly similar…
ABC's Martha Raddatz asked, if there are American Marines in Paris, why are there not Marines in Tripoli?
Paris Ever since the news broke, a week ago Saturday, of the IMF head’s surprise arrest, for alleged attempted rape, in the first-class cabin of an Air France jet minutes from takeoff on the JFK tarmac, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn meltdown has caused France to experience a kind of cosmic O.J.…
Gauguin: Maker of Myth
And the Show Went On Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding Knopf, 416 pp., $28.95