Monthly Archives: June 2003

June 25, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

Strange bed-fellows

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June 25, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

Arnaud de Borchgrave

is the former editor-in-chief of the Washington Times. Currently, he is editor at large. De Borchgrave is also rabidly anti-Israel and a supporter of various Arab interests. The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz is more than happy to report (and I am more than happy to pass along) the extraordinary lengths to which de Borchgrave went to try and obtain an interview with Saddam Hussein. His efforts included telling Saddam that »
June 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Oops. Never Mind.

More evidence on Iraq’s WMD programs has been released by the Administration. Recent discoveries include “millions of documents” relating to Saddam’s WMD programs, some of which describe “how to hide materials and deceive U.N. weapons inspectors,” while others “related to the concealment of VX nerve gas.” American troops have also found “plans for a gas centrifuge and components of a uranium enrichment system” hidden in an Iraqi scientist’s back yard, »
June 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

On to Tehran

One basic purpose of the Democrats’ “missing WMD” attacks is to sow doubt about the Administration’s credibility so as to prevent it from taking military action in the future. This Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests that so far, most Americans are failing to get the point. By a 56% to 38% margin, respondents support “the United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.” This »
June 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Debka File on Iraq

Debka File says that U.S. forces are building two giant intelligence centers in Iraq, one in Baghdad and one in Mosul. The intelligence centers are intended to provide electronic surveillance to protect our troops in Iraq, and equally important, to collect information about surrounding countries. Debka also has a good word for Paul Bremer: “These assaults are harmful but they do not detract from the overall American control over security »
June 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Bush: “Dismantle” Hamas

Reports that a truce that would include Hamas is being negotiated are circulating in Jerusalem, but President Bush reacted coolly to the idea of a Hamas cease-fire today. “In order for there to be peace, Hamas must be dismantled,” Bush said. That’s good, obviously. One basic precondition for Middle East peace is that the U.S. and other third parties must stop treating terrorist organizations as legitimate political players. That assumes, »
June 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Some Minorities Are More Equal than Others

Michelle Malkin points out the effect of the Supreme Court’s approval of race discrimination on the minority that the University of Michigan (and all other institutions that engage in race discrimination) forgot: Asian-Americans. Michelle says: “[T]he high court upheld the university law school’s stealthier scheme of ensuring a ‘critical mass’ of racial and ethnic minorities. “Except, that is, for Asians. “Out of political expedience, you see, ‘minority’ has been redefined »
June 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Teddy Roosevelt on Immigration and Terrorism

Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901 when President William McKinley was murdered by an anarchist. When Roosevelt delivered his first State of the Union address a few months later, he had this to say about his predecessor’s assassin: “They and those like them should be kept out of this country; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came; and far-reaching provision should be »
June 25, 2003 — Scott Johnson

The Greenhouse effect

Linda Greenhouse provides a modernist twist to Justice O’Connor’s rewriting of civil rights law in the Grutter case: “Context and the court.” The article runs with a photograph of someone who looks suspiciously like Queen Sandra I: The article includes a less regal photograph of the man who takes his bearings from the proposition that all men are created equal and the related legal propositions that were tubed in Grutter. »
June 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

GOP Moves Against Filibusters–Ineffectively

The Senate’s Rules and Administration Committee approved yesterday–by a 10-0 vote, with all Democrats boycotting the session–Bill Frist’s anti-filibuster proposal. Under the proposed rule, the number of votes needed to end a filibuster would decline with each vote taken until only a simple majority would be required. However, the proposal appears to have zero chance of passing the Senate, where 67 votes would be needed. It is unclear to me »
June 25, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Saddam Survives, Apparently

Administration officials are now saying there is “no indication” that Saddam Hussein or his sons were in the convoy that was attacked near the Syrian border a few days ago. Intelligence sources report hearing “chatter” that points both toward Saddam being alive and toward his being dead, but the likelihood apparently is that so far, he has survived. »
June 24, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

A court without a compass

Virtually every page of Justice O’Connor’s opinion in the Michigan law school case yields evidence that the Supreme Court has lost its moral compass when it comes to racial discrimination. The disorienation starts as early as the second page, when the Court lumps together “soft variables” in the admissions evaluation process that “are all brought to bear in assessing an applicant’s likely contributions to the intellectual and social life of »
June 24, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

More on our racialist Supreme Court

A second reading of Sandra Day O’Connor’s opinion suggests that she (though probably not the four Justices who gleefully joined her) may have been troubled momentarily by the racialist grounding of her ruling. O’Connor seeks to head off this criticism, as did the University: “The Law School does not premise its need for critical mass on ‘any belief that minority students always (or even consistently) express some characteristic minority view »
June 24, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

One thing that puzzles me

about the Court’s decision in the Michigan law school case is the use of a racialist analysis to supply the “compelling interest” that justifies the use of racial classifications. Normally when one considers what constitutes a compelling state interest for doing something that the state generally should not do, one thinks of protecting the national security or the public safety or (in this context) of remedying past discrimination by the »
June 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Retire, Hans. Please.

Hans Blix is making a farewell tour prior to his retirement at the end of the month. Yesterday he attacked the U.S. again at a meeting of the U.N.’s Council on Foreign Relations. The quotable Mr. Blix said: “It is sort of puzzling, I think, that you can have 100 per cent certainty about the weapons of mass destruction’s existence, and zero per cent certainty about where they are.” Actually, »
June 24, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Now She Can Say what She Really Thinks

Ann Coulter is about to become a blogger; she will be part of Human Events’ web site. A blog will be ideal for Ann; she won’t have to be as restrained as she is in her columns. Her blog is to be called CoulterGeist. Really. »
June 24, 2003 — Scott Johnson

The day after

Two of the best columns on Gratz and Grutter the day after the decisions are Peter Kirsanow’s “The abominable snow job” and George Will’s “Race grows increasingly irrelevant.”. The guys at RealClearPolitics have posted the Los Angeles Times news story on the fallout: “State finds itself hemmed in.” In yesterday’s CIR press release (quoted below in “In search of a silver lining”), the CIR reminded us of its then-momentous victory »