January 4, 2016 — Steven Hayward

Coming Soon: Gulf War III?

Featured image Concerning the contretemps between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a few observations: • David Goldman thinks Saudi Arabia’s execution of the Shite cleric Nimr al-Nimr and others is a sign of panic among Saudi leadership, and perhaps this is correct. On the other hand, the sacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran can’t have taken place without the connivance or tacit approval of the Iranian regime (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?), who probably »
January 4, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff

What to make of the showdown at the wildlife refuge in Oregon

Featured imageA group of men armed with pistols and long rifles are occupying the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The group is led by Ammon Bundy. He’s the son of rancher Cliven Bundy, a key player in a months-long 2014 standoff with the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada. Ammon reportedly was tasered by the feds during that confrontation. Predictably, some on the left are insisting that »
January 4, 2016 — Scott Johnson

The Times stumbles onto…

Featured imageThe New York Times made itself a fool for the Rathergate film Truth. The Times not only published Stephen Holden’s breathless review of the film, the Times celebrated the film in a TimesTalks event featuring Robert Redford, Cate Blanchett, Dan Rather, and Mary Mapes, hosted by Times Magazine staff writer Susan Dominus. Holden also included Truth in his year-end best-of-2015 list (it’s number 7!). The Times went all in for »
January 4, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff

Middle East fires blaze hotter following U.S. capitulation to Iran

Featured imageIn a post about the Saudi Arabia/Iran crisis — the Saudi beheading of a Shiite cleric; the Iranian burning of the Saudi embassy — John asked, “the Middle East couldn’t possibly get worse, could it?” At NR’s Corner, David French examines the crisis and concludes “in the Middle East things can always get worse.” Things have indeed gotten worse under President Obama. They got worse when Obama withdrew from Iraq »
January 4, 2016 — Scott Johnson

O’Malley declines to answer

Featured imageNebraska attorney David Begley continues his series of reports for us on the appearances of the presidential candidates in Iowa as the Iowa caucuses approach. Yesterday afternoon Dave attended the appearance of Democrat Martin O’Malley in Council Bluffs. Omaha’s KETV 7’s report is here. Dave’s report is below, with Dave’s newsworthy question at the top. Today’s New York Post carries a brief editorial bearing on the question that O’Malley declines »
January 3, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff

$8 million of Bill Clinton speaking cash speaks for itself

Featured imageThe Wall Street Journal reports that more than two dozen companies and groups and one foreign government paid former President Bill Clinton a total of more than $8 million to give speeches around the time they also had matters before Hillary Clinton’s State Department. In addition, fifteen of these companies/groups donated a total of between $5 million and $15 million to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. In some »
January 3, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff

Chicago held hostage

Featured imageThe Washington Post features a story about Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago woes. The headline is “In Chicago, distrust toward mayor has turned ‘personal.’” I can’t think of any reason why it shouldn’t have. There are two key passages in the Post’s story. Here’s the first, which appears early on: On the streets of Chicago, the list of grievances is long — especially in the city’s black wards, where Emanuel won strong »
January 3, 2016 — Steven Hayward

The Perils of Leuchtenburg

Featured imageWhen I heard a few weeks ago that there was a new history of the presidency, The American President, by William Leuchtenburg, my first thought was—Leuchtenburg is still alive?? Indeed he is, 92 years old now. It was over 30 years ago that I read one of his best-known books, The Perils of Prosperity: 1914-1932, published in 1958! It was a smug and lazy liberal narrative of entirely typical of »
January 3, 2016 — Scott Johnson

The challenge of radical Islam

Featured imageIn the latest installment of his series of Conversations, just posted this morning, Bill Kristol talks with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I have posted the complete video below (about 60 minutes); it is divided into two chapters as posted here at the Conversations site. I admire her greatly. She is one brave lady. I met her for a brief interview after she spoke at the President’s Conference in Jerusalem in 2012 »
January 2, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff

Who’s lying, Hillary or members of several Benghazi victims’ families?

Featured imageThe question all but answers itself, I should think. Here’s why it’s being asked: On September 14, 2012, at a memorial service for the victims of the Benghazi attacks, Hillary Clinton spoke with members of the victims’ families. At least three of these people say that Clinton talked about the alleged role in the attack of a video produced by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Charles Woods, the father of former Navy »
January 2, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff

A racial achievement chasm in D.C. public schools

Featured imageColbert King reports on the enormous racial achievement gap in the District of Columbia public schools. White students, who make up 12 percent of the school system, scored proficiency rates of 79 percent in English and 70 percent in math. Black students, who constitute 67 percent of the school population, had a 17 percent proficiency rate in both English and math. (Hispanics, who comprise 17 percent of the school population »
January 3, 2016 — John Hinderaker

Can Hillary Go Out In Public? [Updated]

Featured imageHillary Clinton has many weaknesses as a presidential candidate. One of them used to be her primary asset: her husband Bill. Indeed, we never would have heard of Hillary if she hadn’t married Bill, and her appeal to Democrats consists largely of nostalgia for his relatively successful administration. But in an era that is exquisitely sensitive to sexual assault, serial sexual assaulter Bill Clinton may be turning into a liability. »
January 3, 2016 — Steven Hayward

Before Jimmy Discovered Iowa

Featured imageGeorge Will kindly gives a shout out to the first volume of my Age of Reagan books in his column today, specifically some of the narrative about how obscure Jimmy Carter was before he figured out how to exploit the hitherto ignored Iowa caucuses, which discovery has deformed primary election campaigns ever since. He also notes that Carter had appeared on “What’s My Line?” where no one on the panel »
January 3, 2016 — John Hinderaker

Top Ten Mideast/Israel Media Muffs of 2015

Featured imageThe Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) has published its list of Top Ten Media Mangles of 2015. They include the New York Times’s infamous list of Jewish opponents of Obama’s Iran deal (yellow highlighting in original): MSNBC features prominently, as with this graphic showing the fictitious country of Palestine, among other errors: The openly anti-Semitic BBC scores again, as you would expect. My favorite, however, »
January 3, 2016 — Scott Johnson

The mullahs thank Mr. Obama

Featured imageYesterday’s Wall Street Journal carries an incisive editorial (“The mullahs thank Mr. Obama,” accessible here via Google) on developments with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Every step along the way, Iran proves itself the mortal enemy of the United States, and yet President Obama thinks otherwise. Iranian intentions are clear. Their actions comport with their announced view of the world. When the mullahs chant “Death to America,” we have no »
January 2, 2016 — John Hinderaker

The Middle East Couldn’t Possibly Get Worse. Could It?

Featured imageThe Sunni-Shia schism goes back more than a millenium and has been a more or less constant feature of geopolitics in the Middle East for a long time. The closest the balance has come to being upset within recent memory was the Iran-Iraq war, in which the United States sensibly did what we could to prevent either side from winning. Now, though, the long-simmering feud is heating up, primarily, I »
January 2, 2016 — John Hinderaker

George Soros Regrets Backing Obama

Featured imageOne of the State Department’s newly-released Hillary Clinton emails comes from Neera Tanden, President of the far-left Center for American Progress. In May 2012, near the end of President Obama’s first term, Tanden told Hillary about a conversation with George Soros: The Democracy Alliance is the left-wing billionaires and millionaires club that we wrote about here and elsewhere. It is interesting that Soros, along with Tom Steyer the Left’s principal »