Monthly Archives: January 2003

Bob Woodward has a balanced

Bob Woodward has a balanced article in tomorrow’s Washington Post about the Administration’s decision to begin releasing classified information on Iraq’s concealment of banned weapons of mass destruction. Woodward nicely articulates the competing considerations: desire to persuade doubting Americans and Europeans, ambiguity in much of the evidence, and fear of compromising intelligence sources that will be crucial if and when war begins. Today Tom Daschle–who has a remarkable record of »

The Daily Telegraph joins in

The Daily Telegraph joins in the praise for Hans Blix’s report to the Security Council in this article titled “The Damning of Saddam.” It includes a good brief summary of the failings on the part of Saddam’s regime that are itemized in the inspectors’ report. The Telegraph says: “Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, stated unequivocally last night that Saddam Hussein had failed to disarm, greatly strengthening the »

For readers in Minnesota, the

For readers in Minnesota, the Trunk and I will be on FM radio (I think the number is 107; correct me if I’m wrong, Trunk) tomorrow morning at 7:20. We will be talking about our article (mostly Trunk’s) in the St. Paul Pioneer Press this morning, on the University of Michigan cases. We linked to the article this morning. One caveat: the show’s producer warned us our segment could be »

My nine-year-old daughter Alexandra is

My nine-year-old daughter Alexandra is a kid who, like her dad, leans Republican. When her fourth grade teacher gave her class an assignment requiring the students to write biographies of figures of the students’ choosing, she chose to write about President Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes. As part of my daughter’s project, she wrote Mrs. Hughes two weeks ago and sent her a set of questions seeking information on »

Israel’s Knesset election is tomorrow,

Israel’s Knesset election is tomorrow, and Haaretz reports that Labor is virtually conceding defeat: “‘We will support Mitzna after the elections. We will accept the verdict handed down by the voter, and we will deduce the message sent to us,’ Ramon [Labor’s public relations directir] said at a press conference at the party’s headquarters…. He also expressed confidence that no one at the top of the Labor brass would try »

This column by Jackson Diehl

This column by Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post on the upcoming Israeli elections demonstrates the usual Post bias in favor of the Labor Party and its peacenik candidate. However, the column is noteworthy because it chastises the Europeans for failing to follow through on promises to insist on Palestinian reform and to promote new Palestinian leadership. But, of course, the Europeans are no more interested in the emergence of »

Another issue that President Bush

Another issue that President Bush will not be discussing tomorrow night, according to Michelle Malkin, is the parlous state of our borders. Malkin adds that the Republicans avoid this issue even in RNC national mail order surveys, where it is not listed among important national issues. »

The Associated Press is reporting

The Associated Press is reporting that President Bush will discuss Iraq in broad terms in his State of the Union speech tomorrow night, but will not offer new evidence of Iraq’s possession of banned weapons or of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. If this is true, a lot of people will be disappointed. The plan, apparently, is to assign the task of revealing such evidence to Colin Powell, probably »

We’ll be commenting on the

We’ll be commenting on the Blix and ElBaradei reports when we have had time to digest them, but in the meantime, here is the BBC’s take: “The report of the chief UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix was not so much the ‘mixed bag’ he had promised as the sandbagging of Iraq…What he said enabled the United States to increase the intensity of its diplomatic assault on Iraq, which might »

Reuters reports that Colin Powell

Reuters reports that Colin Powell told an Italian interviewer that the U.S. will, “in the next week or soon after,” make public “a good part of [the] material… which come[s] from the work of our intelligence that show[s] Iraq maintains prohibited weapons.” Powell also said: “The war is not on for tomorrow but the longer we wait, the greater the possibility that this dictator, who has clear links to the »

Michael Ledeen for National Review

Michael Ledeen for National Review Online explains why Jacques Chirac is no Charles De Gaulle. The article arguably paints a somewhat flattering picture of De Gaulle, but is spot-on when it comes to Chirac. »

Paul Wolfowitz addressed the Council

Paul Wolfowitz addressed the Council on Foreign Relations last Thursday; here is the text. Wolfowitz’ speech is a masterly exposition of the history of the Iraq situation and the uses and limitations of weapons inspectors. His detailed recitation of the ways in which Iraq had frustrated the inspections process over a period of years is infuriating. Wolfowitz makes the case for destroying Saddam’s regime brilliantly. Let’s hope President Bush does »

Hadley Arkes for National Review

Hadley Arkes for National Review Online notes that Colin Powell has “put himself through one of the priciest ventures in adult education as he was sandbagged last week by the French, and discovered that his scheme of working through the United Nations was not only a path leading nowhere, but a path leading off course.” Arkes recommends that President Bush give a “Sam Spade” style State of the Union address, »

This morning’s St. Paul Pioneer

This morning’s St. Paul Pioneer Press runs Rocket Man’s and my take on the University of Michigan cases pending before the Supreme Court: “‘Affirmative action’ and ‘diversity’ are misleading terms for gross discrimination.” Steve Dornfeld of the Pioneer Press editorial page invited us to submit the piece as the counterpart to a pro-affirmative action piece by Joe Bollettieri: “President Bush has the right words but the wrong actions on affirmative »

Deborah Orin in The New

Deborah Orin in The New York Post reports that the Democrats are concerned about Al Sharpton’s campaign for the presidency. This piece by J.D. Cassidy in FrontPage Magazine shows why they should be. »

The editors of the Washington

The editors of the Washington Post once again call on the United Nations Security Council to “follow the resolution.” That means declaring Iraq in material breach and forcing Iraq to disarm. The Post notes that there is no way to square ongoing inspections with the terms of the Security Council resolution. By claiming otherwise, says the Post, Paris and Berlin are undermining the credibility of the United Nations and handing »

E.J. Dionne is at his

E.J. Dionne is at his most fatuous in this piece from today’s Washington Post. Dionne’s thesis is that President Bush can be “a commanding and unifying leader who rallies the country behind the war on terrorism and major foreign policy endeavors” or he can be “a partisan ideological leader who tries to transform domestic policy and politics” but “he cannot succeed at both.” But why not? Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, »