May 23, 2013 — Steven Hayward

They’re Right: Obama Is No Tricky Dick

Featured image There’s an old adage in the public relations trade that if you’re on the defensive, you’re losing the PR battle.  And so it is rather delicious to watch Obama’s defenders on the left furiously spinning that no, no—no way is any of this like Nixon!  Scott already took down Steve Chapman’s “false equivalence” column; the Washington Post editorial board—and who is more authoritative on Watergate than them??—thinks the comparison risible.  »
May 23, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Environmentalists for Nuclear Power

Featured imageI’ve had occasion to write before about my enviro-dissident pals Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute in Oakland (here, here, here, and here, and also in National Review), describing them on one occasion as “my existentially-challenged progressive pals.”  Well, now they’ve really done it: a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal on why environmentalists should support nuclear power. Along the way, they really deliver some well-deserved smack »
May 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Did Lois Lerner waive her Fifth Amendment protection?

Featured imageWilliam Taylor III, the lawyer Lois Lerner selected to represent her before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, is part of a firm that’s about as tight with the Obama administration as it could be. According to Washingtonian Magazine, the firm, a boutique litigation shop called Zuckerman Spaeder, has sent a higher percentage of partners into the Obama administration than any other law firm. But did Lerner’s lawyer do »
May 23, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Judge Davis and the Muslim-American muddle

Featured imageMinnesota is home to the largest Somali community in the United States, numbering at least 25,000. If it takes a village, we have a couple. Yet we know amazingly little about the Somali community, probably because we are afraid to ask the relevant questions. We know they are mostly Muslim — we can see the hijabs, we are familiar with the many local controversies to which their faith has given »
May 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Investigate reporters, but only when there’s something to investigate

Featured imageThe emerging conservative line on the Obama administration’s aggressive investigations of journalists is that national security leaks should be dealt with by going after the leaker, not the reporter. I’ve heard this line from a number of conservative commentators, most notably Karl Rove. I couldn’t disagree more. Reporters are not above the law. And, as John has explained, the law (per the Espionage Act, 18 US Code Section 793) prohibits »
May 22, 2013 — Steven Hayward

The Great Liberal Death Wish, London Edition

Featured imageThere’s an old saying in journalism—a story just “too good to check out.”  You can tell the media’s bias not only from what they won’t check out, but what they won’t even consider checking out, let alone reporting. News item: a deranged young man, James Holmes, shoots up a Denver theater last summer killing 12, and ABC News’s Brian Ross goes on the air to note that there’s a “James »
May 22, 2013 — John Hinderaker

I Think They’re Trying to Tell Us Something

Featured imageOne of my favorite adages goes like this: Any damn fool can learn from his own experience, what you want to do is learn from other people’s experience. Actually, you could say that the ability to learn from other people’s experiences is the only thing that makes human progress possible. The Europeans have had a lot of bad experiences. A few of them we have learned from; most, sadly, we »
May 22, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Green Weenie of the Week: Tornado Alley Edition

Featured imageNow I know what you’re thinking: the obvious Green Weenie winner should be that former congresscritter who liked to tweet his big banana and who announced yesterday that he’s going to run for mayor of the Big Apple, to the audible squeals of delight from within the soundproof walls where Daily Show writers work.  And Anthony Weiner certainly qualifies for a Green Weenie, as it turns out he was in »
May 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Advancing the IRS story

Featured imageMy daughter Eliana has a carefully reported piece at NRO on the IRS scandal that was posted late yesterday afternoon. The piece is titled “Oversight from Washington, all along.” I hesitate to highlight or praise the work of my own daughter, but Hugh Hewitt is under no such inhibition. Hugh praises the work of Eliana as well as that of his Townhall colleague Carol Platt Liebau as “The real reporting »
May 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Media alert

Featured imageI will be on the nationally syndicated radio show “Chuck Morse Speaks” tomorrow morning at 10:00 Eastern Time. I am scheduled to be on for an hour. We will discuss Ted Cruz as a possible presidential candidate and, to the extent I can do so intelligently, whatever else the host wants to talk about. »
May 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Community organizing, Obamacare style

Featured imageA subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform held a hearing today on the government’s Obamacare “outreach” program. Obamacare authorizes the government to provide information to the uninsured, and to assist them in obtaining insurance, through the use of “navigators.” Today’s hearing addressed concerns of Republican committee members about how this process will work in practice. The only witness was Gary Cohen, deputy administrator of the Department »
May 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Obama keeps hands off Benghazi terrorists while lawyers build criminal case

Featured imageWe’ve always viewed the Benghazi scandal in terms of (1) the Obama administration’s failure to provide requested security before the attack, (2) its conduct, or lack thereof, during the attack, and (3) its cover-up after the attack (along with, as we recently learned, its retaliation against those who didn’t feel comfortable about the cover-up). But there’s always been a fourth element — the administration’s failure to bring the attackers to »
May 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson

On section 1203

Featured imageA reader with a long background of employment at the IRS writes on an aspect of the IRS scandal that hasn’t received much attention and that draws on his experience at the agency: I’m a fan and regular reader. Thanks for your yeoman’s work on the IRS scandal. I’m also retired from a 35-year law enforcement career, 22 of which were at the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, so I have »
May 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Live-blogging the latest IRS hearings

Featured imageThe House Oversight Committee hearing on the IRS scandal is underway. I missed the beginning because I was appearing on Chuck Morse’s radio program. I’m tuned in now and will do a bit of live-blogging. I understand that, as expected, IRS official Lois Lerner has invoked the Fifth Amendment and, after saying she would answer no questions, has been dismissed from the hearing. I caught the end of the questioning »
May 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson

NR on Watergate

Featured imageWriting from memory yesterday morning, I recalled the role George Will had played as National Review’s Washington columnist during Watergate. I was faithfully reading the magazine in 1973 and 1974, and I think I was remembering Will’s NR columns accurately, but I was also recalling an inside account written, I thought, by William Buckley or NR senior editor Jeffrey Hart. I couldn’t find what I was thinking of in Buckley’s »
May 21, 2013 — John Hinderaker

A Crack in the IRS Dam

Featured imageThe dam protecting the IRS scandal began to crack today when Lois Lerner, the IRS official who announced, and apologized for, the improper singling out of conservative-leaning organizations by IRS employees under her command, announced through her criminal defense lawyer that she will not testify as scheduled tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee. Rather, she will assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. This marks a milestone in the IRS »
May 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

The common thread in the Obama adminstration scandals

Featured imageJohn Yoo identifies the common thread in the major Obama administration scandals: Add up all the recent scandals and the message is clear: the Obama administration is showing that it cannot be trusted with the basic functions of government: law enforcement (surveillance of reporters), taxation (IRS scandals), and national security (Benghazi). How, then, can we trust the administration when it comes to immigration — an area in which it already »