February 6, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Fathers and Schools: Presidential Parallels

Featured image Michael Medved has an interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal reflecting on the strange continuity that this election marks the seventh in a row featuring either a privileged son or a man with no relationship with his biological father, and wonders why: In one sense, these extreme backgrounds now dominate the presidential process because that process itself has become so extreme. A rising politico can no longer wait for »
February 5, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Crisis and Commitment

Featured imageI had a hectic week last week–ten flights in seven days. But one of my travels was for pleasure, not business, as I spent the weekend in Palm Springs participating in the Koch brothers’ semi-annual seminar. It was my first visit to Palm Springs; compared to Minnesota in January, it was paradise–perfect temperatures and soft, dry desert air. If you’ve never been there, you should consider going: The seminar was »
February 5, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Liberal Bullies to Besiege CPAC

Featured imageI’m not going to make it to CPAC this year; too busy in the office. This headline, though, really makes me wish I could attend: “Big labor plans ‘Occupy CPAC.’” That’s right–union goons are going to try to interfere with the conservative gathering. The D.C. AFL-CIO sent a call out to its members: What do Wisconsin Governor SCOTT WALKER, presidential candidates MITT ROMNEY, NEWT GINGRICH, RICK SANTORUM and House Budget »
February 5, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Pre-Game Notes

Featured imageNo, not that game.  (Though my chicken wings are marinating.)  The election game.  I watched the “Meet the Press” roundtable this morning, and I was struck with the firestorm David Brooks set off by criticizing the Obama Administration’s moves against the Catholic Church that we have discussed here on Power Line, which Brooks says is being under-covered by the mainstream media.  Brooks, a secular Jew, thinks it is a “huge »
February 5, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Communism Collapsed: Who Cares?

Featured imageIn the Daily Telegraph, Janet Daley asks a question that has often occurred to me, as well: why has the collapse of Communism had so little impact on political discourse in the West? [I]n spite of the official agreement that there is no other way to organise the economic life of a free society than the present one (with a few tweaks), there are an awful lot of people implicitly »
February 5, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Sewage Stalemate In Samaria

Featured imageIt seems sewage has been much in the news lately, from perhaps the most epic of the epic greenfails that Steve has documented to the appalling personal hygiene of the Occupiers. Today’s sewage story comes from Samaria, where the Israelis are trying to provide proper sewage disposal in twenty Arab villages, and the Arabs want nothing to do with it: Swirling in the strikingly green valley below the southern Samaria »
February 5, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Super Bowl Ad Watch

Featured imageCourtesy of The Hill (and an Instapundit link), the following ad from MoveOn.org was rejected for the 2004 Super Bowl because it was “too political.”  But they miss the obvious irony here: watch it all the way to the end (it’s only 30 seconds long), and ask yourself if MoveOn.Org would run this ad today.  (In fact, it looks a lot like one of the runners-up in the Power Line »
February 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Occupiers Scrubbed From McPherson Park

Featured imageThe Occupy movement is winding down, as protesters in most cities have slunk away. Washington’s McPherson Park is the home–so to speak–of one of the last Occupier outposts. But even Washington has had enough; early this morning, District police officers descended on McPherson Park to enforce the no-camping law: Dozens of U.S. Park Police officers in riot gear and on horseback converged before dawn Saturday on one of the nation’s »
February 4, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Obamacare against the Church

Featured imageWe’ve been following the story of the Church’s response to the assault perpetrated by the Obamacare regulation on “preventive care” with a religious exemption so narrow that will require most Catholic institutions to comply. In the new issue of the Weekly Standard Jonathan Last provides an excellent journalistic account of events leading up to the regulations. As soon as Sebelius released th[e] decision [regarding the scope of the regulation], the »
February 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Was Today’s Jobs News Good?

Featured imageThe administration trumpets the fact that nonfarm payrolls increased by 243,000 in January, dropping the unemployment rate to 8.3%, only .5% higher than when Barack Obama took office. This is what counts as good news in the beleaguered West Wing! But how good was today’s news, really? What is mainly going on is that fewer Americans have any intention of working; therefore, they cannot be unemployed. That is the Orwellian »
February 5, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Deconstructing Romney, Part 1

Featured imageGiven the increasingly likelihood that Romney is on his way to the GOP nomination, and noting the continued resistance to the idea both in comments here on Power Line and out in the general world (despite John’s endorsement!), I’ll start a new series evaluating how to think about whether he’ll make a good president, or what is required of him to be a good president.  Now, it’s a pretty low »
February 5, 2012 — Scott Johnson

What would Plato do?

Featured imageIt wasn’t enought for President Obama to claim the endorsement of Judaism, Christianity and Islam for his policies of class warfare in his National Prayer Breakfast speech this past week. Obama also cited Plato as stating a version of the Golden Rule supporting his policies. Where’d he get that Idea? Apparently from a statement made by Socrates in The Republic, but no version of the Golden Rule lends support to »
February 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker

A Lousy President and a Lousy Theologian

Featured imageScott wrote yesterday about President Obama’s attempt to enlist Jesus in his campaign for higher taxes: “But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’” In drawing this equivalence, Obama implicitly substituted the government for God; in Jesus’s teaching it is God, not any earthly ruler, who gives us much and expects much from us in »
February 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker

The Church of Government

Featured imageLiberals tell us that the most important principle is the separation of church and state. That applies, of course, only until liberals want to enlist the church in support of the state. The state, in their view, is the real church. So Michael Ramirez envisions our president as the Pope of the Church of Obama, who destroys all lesser faiths. Like Christianity, for example: Is liberalism the only acceptable faith? »
February 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Budget? Who Needs A Budget?

Featured imageBarack Obama and the Democrats in Congress have set a new standard of irresponsibility: for the third year in a row, Harry Reid announced that he would not allow a vote on a FY 2013 budget to come to the floor of the Senate. “We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year,” Reid told a conference call with reporters. This year? How about last year, »