Monthly Archives: December 2003

December 22, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

Desperate times call for desperate comments

Hugh Hewitt notes that the Dean campaign has seized upon the raising of the Homeland Security alert level as validation of the doctor’s comment that the capture of Saddam has not made us safer. It’s difficult to respond to comments that are this deranged, but Hugh is up to the task. Don’t miss his commentary. »
December 22, 2003 — Scott Johnson

The Democrats’ Greatest Hits: The WMD Collection

Laurie Mylroie has e-mailed us the following collection of quotes on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, with thanks to Peter Huessy. Although the underlying point has been made frequently elsewhere, the accumulation of these quotes has a power of its own: “One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our »
December 22, 2003 — John Hinderaker

More on Daschle and Clark

As supplements to the Trunk’s posts last night on Tom Daschle and Wes Clark, check out these side-by-side articles in today’s Washington Post: “Democrats Forced to Work on Margins” and “Clark In Search of Following as Antiwar Warrior”. On the Democrats’ problems in Congress: “Many Democrats figured they had hit bottom last year when Republicans captured control of the Senate, completing their federal government takeover. Then the bottom dropped out, »
December 21, 2003 — Scott Johnson

Israel’s national debate

Caroline Glick has a terrific column in Sunday’s Jerusalem Post on Israel’s national debate, addressing issues that Deacon has discussed at length here. The column also reports developments I have seen reported nowhere else. This is an important column, all of which is worthy of your attention. I have previously expressed some consternation over the insipidity of the Israeli national debate (or the lack thereof) on Israel’s vital security issues, »
December 21, 2003 — Scott Johnson

Daschled hopes

Jon Lauck is an attorney and historian on the faculty of South Dakota State University. He is also a maven of South Dakota politics with a gimlet eye for the life and times of Tom Daschle. Professor Lauck is the perfect reviewer for Daschle’s new book, Like No Other: The 107th Congress and the Two Years That Changed America Forever, recounting Dashcle’s two-year stint as Majority Leader of the Senate. »
December 21, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

General goofy

Howard Dean’s Gore endorsement and Dean’s recent pronouncements on issues such as the effect of Saddam’s capture have shifted the focus away from his Democratic rivals. Ironically, this seems to have helped Wesley Clark, whose ballyhooed candidacy seemed to wilt rather rapidly during the period, shortly after he officially entered the race, during which it was subjected to scrutiny. Jeff Jacoby, in the Boston Globe, reminds us why Clark is »
December 21, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Al Jazeera Channels Madeline Albright

Al Jazeera reprints the twisted, hateful musings of the Arab News’ M.J. Akbar. If you want to see how anti-American Arabs will spin the capture of Saddam Hussein until, by the time they are finished, it is a triumph for the Islamofascists and a defeat for the United States, check out this piece. What is most interesting to me, however, is that Mr. Akbar’s view of the capture of Saddam »
December 21, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

Is the end of the insurgency in sight?

Mark Steyn recaps “a good week for cowboy unilateralists.” Now that Saddam has been apprehended “looking like a department-store Santa sleeping off a bender in the sewer,” Steyn expects that the insurgency will “peter out, like the dictator, not with a bang but with a wimper.” Hiwa Osman, an Iraqi Kurd journalist, writing in the Washington Post, agrees. Osman says: “Some foreign observers and journalists have expressed doubts about the »
December 21, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Myers on WMD

Politicians are always hostages to events, of course; incumbents are always betting that things will go well and challengers that they will go poorly. But still, the Democrats this year seem to have placed themselves uniquely far out on a limb. Unless they nominate Lieberman, or possibly Gephardt, they are committed to running on the proposition that the Iraq war was based on a “lie,” or at best on deeply »
December 21, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Bush’s Approval on Economy Rising

The latest Associated Press poll shows 55% approving of President Bush’s handling of the economy, compared to 43% disapproving. The poll also reflects increasing confidence in the economy’s performance over the coming months. »
December 21, 2003 — Scott Johnson

Requiem for a bum

Kate Stanley is a member of the Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial board and one of the folks who has made the Strib a national laughingstock for its thoroughgoing political correctness and zany leftism. The great Hugh Hewitt conducted a memorable interview with Stanley a while back, seeking to introduce her to a national audience as a specimen of a particularly noxious brand of solipsism cloaked in the garb of a »
December 21, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Shining A Spotlight on AFP

The caption of this l’Agence France-Presse (AFP) photo, by one Said Khatib, reads: “A Hamas militant aims a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) at Israeli soldiers during a raid of the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army demolished seven Palestinian houses during the raid in the area near Rafah.” That could be true, I suppose, but I very much doubt it. The photo was shot at night; »
December 21, 2003 — Scott Johnson

Don’t mess with Wes

Matt Drudge has flagged the following exchange with Wesley Clark, carried live on C-SPAN: “Moments after praising his opponents in the Democratic presidential race as worthy running mates, Wesley Clark said, in no uncertain terms, how he would respond if they or anyone else criticized his patriotism or military record. ‘I’ll beat the s— out of them,’ Clark told a questioner as he walked through the crowd after a town »
December 20, 2003 — Scott Johnson

Walter Mondale loses it

Rocket Man and I rewrote the “Reflections on BDS as manifested in WFM” post from last weekend and reduced it to column length for submission to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The Star Tribune publishes the rewritten piece in its expanded Sunday editorial lineup tomorrow, although the paper ditched our title for the rewritten version of the piece: “Walter Mondale loses it.” Here’s the column. George W. Bush seems to have »
December 20, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Hell Freezes Over. Twice.

We noted yesterday the New York Times editorial giving President Bush credit for Libya’s stunning turnabout. Today the Washington Post followed suit, in the person of Dana Milbank, the White House correspondent whom we have long derided as a DNC spokesman. Today, however, even Milbank had to concede that the President has achieved a coup: “It has been a week of sweet vindication for those who promulgated what they call »
December 20, 2003 — John Hinderaker

Greetings From Basra

Zeyad of Healing Iraq has been in Basra for a few days, and out of touch. He has now returned to Baghdad with an interesting account of his trip: “We also passed through about 20 IP checkpoints between Baghdad and Basrah (good), but very few coalition soldiers were to be seen. I saw what looked like Polish or Ukrainian soldiers near Kut and a few convoys of Brits in both »
December 20, 2003 — Paul Mirengoff

Safety still begins at home

Michelle Malkin, in the Washington Times, warns that “the euphoria over Saddam Hussein’s capture abroad must be tempered by the lingering reality of national security deficiencies here at home.” She relies, in part, on “a little-noticed report released this week by the federal homeland security commission [which] cautioned that anti-terrorism ‘momentum appears to have waned’ and efforts are often hampered by ‘the lack of a clear, articulated vision from the »