Monthly Archives: April 2003

April 25, 2003 — Scott Johnson

48 peace and justice organizations…

On the Friday before the war commenced, the students at Minneapolis South High School sponsored a forum on Iraq at which I was one of five speakers. Student teacher and Iraqi exile Adnan Shati, profiled by Kay Miller in last Sunday’s Star Tribune, was the first of the five speakers; he simply told his life story and took no position on the (then-coming) war. One of the two antiwar speakers »
April 25, 2003 — Scott Johnson

Blacklist envy

Our radio hero Hugh Hewitt has another excellent Weekly Standard column that includes a look at Jim Sleeper’s second Yale Daily News column attacking Little Trunk: “Blacklist envy.” In that column the first of four “lies” alleged by Sleeper was Joe Scarborough’s statement that he had been invited to appear on Scarborough’s show with Little Trunk and her co-author. Hugh looked into that alleged lie and notes parenthetically that Scarborough’s »
April 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Mother Jones or the Onion?

Reader C.S. pointed out this article: you can judge for yourselves whether it is a real Mother Jones piece, or an Onion parody: “These are not easy times for American peace activists. Support for the war in Iraq has surged — even in the quintessentially liberal Bay Area — and protesters are meeting ugly resistance, both from jeering Bush patriots and disturbingly aggressive police.” Well, I had hoped that was »
April 24, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

The McCarthyite left

At Jim Sleeper’s suggestion, I checked out the “history news network” web site where Professor Gilmore’s rather personal anti-war comments appear. As I noted yesterday, her comments are as Little Trunk reported them. The site itself is not for the faint of heart. It includes such articles as “How South Koreans Can Save Themselves From Bush’s Madness,” “Shiites in Revolt: Why Paul Wolfowitz Is in a State of Shock,” and »
April 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Put Me In Coach, I’m Ready to Play

This cartoon is by Bill Deore. »
April 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Intelligence Report on al Qaeda

ABC News reports that U.S. intelligence agencies are circulating an optimistic report on the state of the al Qaeda terror network. The assessment is that “the terrorist organization may lack the command and control, the resources and coordination to conduct an operation of the same magnitude as 9/11.” According to ABC, intelligence analysts say that al Qaeda has fragmented into two “leadership committees;” one, headquartered in Iran, is said to »
April 24, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

Double or nothing with Iran

Constantine Menges of the Hudson Institute offers this commentary in the Washington Times about Iran’s efforts to bring about a pro-Iranian regime in Iraq, or at least in large portions of that country. The issue may boil down to this: can we find a way to help the Iranian people remove their unpopular theocratic rulers before these rulers succeed in gaining control over the Shiite institutions in Iraq, and thereby »
April 24, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

The Long March to nowhere

The excellent Noemie Emery of the Weekly Standard on how, like Baghdad, the major networks and New York Times appear to have crumbled from within. Emery’s brilliantly-stated conclusion is this: “In the 1960s, the left was sent on the Long March through the institutions of information and culture, hoping in time to control all the bullhorns: the schools and the churches; the films, arts, and music; the publishing houses; the »
April 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

This Guy Runs as a Republican

Here is the Missing Linc, Rhode Island’s own Lincoln Chafee, on why he opposes the Administration’s tax cut proposal: “CNN: The White House suggests that if you have a bigger tax cut, you can have a greater opportunity to create more jobs in this country. Why do you disagree with that position? “Chafee: Well, fundamentally, in the beginning of the ’90s, when President Clinton came in, despite all the criticism »
April 24, 2003 — Scott Johnson

How to read the Washington Post

Our reader Dafydd ab Hugh actually read the Washington Post story Deacon linked to and commented on yesterday, and he noticed an oddity about the source quotations that seemingly buttress it. He says he was jolted, so much so that he actually plucked them out of the story and pasted them together in Word without the intervening blather: “It is a complex equation, and the U.S. government is ill-equipped to »
April 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

The BBC is Shocked…

…that American media outlets were “gung-ho” about the Iraq war, according to Greg Dyke, the BBC’s director general. Dyke used the prowar tendencies of the American media to support his opposition to “legislation proposed by the Government would allow American media companies to take a greater share of British television and radio, which could lead to a loss of impartiality in news coverage.” Actually, I think he’s right. If Americans »
April 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

What Wellstone and the Chicks have in Common

One bad thing about being a liberal, you tend to get death threats. That’s how it seems, anyway. Yesterday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune headlined “Wellstone’s life threatened at least six times.” The paper reported, based on FBI files, that “Sen. Paul Wellstone received at least six death threats from anonymous callers during his 12 years in office.” Whether that’s above or below average for a Senator, I have no idea. Now »
April 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Tariq Aziz Captured; George Galloway Exposed

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has been captured. Surprisingly, he was only the eight of spades. He should feel insulted; apparently he was only a figurehead. And Fox News has the latest on the George Galloway scandal. Galloway, the U.K.’s most prominent antiwar leader, was on Saddam’s payroll; documents uncovered in Baghdad reportedly indicate that Saddam paid Galloway $600,000 per year. »
April 24, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

Ignorance is no excuse

Stanley Kurtz of National Review Online offers a fine analysis of the comments of Sen. Santorum to the goofy AP reporter, and the subsequent dishonest characterization of those comments by the New York Times and others. Kurtz notes that much of the media criticism of Santorum stems for sheer partisanship and bad faith. But he believes that something more is at work. Kurtz concludes that “the profound ignorance in the »
April 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Still Hope for Tax Cuts

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April 24, 2003 — Scott Johnson

A letter to the editor

This morning the Yale Daily News allows Little Trunk to respond briefly to Jim Sleeper’s two columns calling her a Stalinist and a liar: “Giving anti-Semitic lies the forceful condemnation they warrant.” In addition, Hugh Hewitt advises us that he is devoting his column to be published on the Weekly Standard Web site tomorrow to Tim Robbins and Professor Sleeper. »
April 23, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

The Shiite quagmire

This Washington Post story claims that “U.S. planners” are surprised by the strength of Iraqi Shiites, and at a loss as to how to deal with the Shiites’ unexpected strength. It is certainly possible that this is the case. Statements by President Bush and others have expressed a far too sanguine view of “the religion of peace,” and it may be that Bush and others actually believed what they said »