Monthly Archives: March 2004

Terrorism’s European “root causes”

Reuel Marc Gerecht had an important piece in last week’s Weekly Standard called “Holy War in Euorpe” (I don’t think it’s linkable at this point, if it ever was). Gerecht’s thesis is that al Qaeda is, or soon will be, a Eurocentric organization. This is true because Europe has become a great breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, comparable in Gerecht’s estiminaton to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. This has happened »

Winning the peace, if not the hearts and minds

Fred Barnes, in the Weekly Standard, reports on the bumpy transformation of Iraq into a peaceful, free market democracy. Barnes finds the attitude of Iraqis to be perhaps the biggest bump. “Like the French,” he says, “they may never forgive America for having liberated them.” And “having been cowed by Saddam, many Iraqis seem to be making up for it by distrusting their American occupiers and hectoring them whenever the »

The cause for which Fern Holland died

On Thursday evening, I attended a memorial service for Fern Holland and Salwa Ali Oumashi at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. Holland (my opposing counsel in a labor law case two years ago) was the point person for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq for women’s political empowerment. Oumashi was Fern’s translator and close associate. Most accounts of Fern’s death referred to her as a human rights or »

Jan Berry, RIP

Jan Berry was the tenacious musical genius who brought the Jan and Dean duo to life in the 1960’s and profoundly influenced the evolving sound of his colleague Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. We briefly recalled Jan and Dean when Dean made a memorable appearance on behalf of Arnold Schwarzenegger this past October 8 at a surfers’ rally for Arnold: “Dean Torrence appears for Arnold.” Berry became famous before »

Clarke Fallout Hurts Bush

On the Northern Alliance Radio Network today, we spent most of the first hour bashing Dick Clarke. Given his contradictions and, in some instances, obvious falsehoods, it’s almost too easy. But I don’t agree with the optimistic theory that the Democrats made a mistake by launching such a patently misguided attack. The reality is that the vast majority of people don’t read blogs, don’t listen to talk radio, and get »

The party of hate (RCP remix)

The best column in the RealClearPolitics lineup today is Rocket Man’s “The Party of Hate,” featured here last night. Thanks to the great Hugh Hewitt for goading Rocket Man to the task via yesterday’s show. »

Dead man talking?

Fox News optimistically headlines its interview with the new head of Hamas “Dead man talking.” It’s an excellent story, less for what Rantisi has to say (not much, though he does allude opportunistically to “The Passion of the Christ”) than for the evidence of the effects of the Israeli efforts against Hamas on Rantisi’s freedom of action. »

Rebellion In Indian Country

Last night I noted that Don King is supporting President Bush; another unlikely Republican is Indian activist Russell Means. I missed David Yeagley’s article on Means when it appeared in yesterday’s FrontPage Magazine, but was led to it by Jon Lauck’s Daschle v. Thune. Here are excerpts: There has been little improvement in Indian country under the Democrats. Conditions in South Dakota reservations certainly haven »

A sad and sorry disgrace

Professor David Gelernter sets an example of deep learning and humanity in rendering judgment on the Democrats’ weird juggernaut of misdirected hate regarding the war to liberate Iraq. His article in the issue of the Weekly Standard out this morning is “The Holocaust shrug.” Gelernter writes: I could understand the Democrats’ insisting that this was no Republican operation; “we were in favor of it too, we voted for it too, »

Quiche-Eating Warmonger

Henry Payne of the Detroit News is one of the few sort-of conservative editorial cartoonists. He’s good, too, which is even rarer. Here are a couple of gems from the last couple of weeks: »

Some “Spiritual Leader”

At a memorial for Sheik Ahmed Yassin, generally described as the “spiritual leader” of Hamas, young men pose wearing fake explosive belts. The handgun that one of them carries is real: I think it sums up Yassin’s “spiritual leadership” quite well to note that teenage boys could, perfectly appropriately, wear masks and fake explosive belts to a memorial service in his honor. Unfortunately, this pretty much exemplifies the quality of »

Deacon’s revenge

Although I’m a passionate fan of University of Maryland basketball, I’ve always liked Wake Forest. The main reason is that they are not Duke, North Carolina, or the Universtiy of Virginia. But, in addition, they tend to have likeable-seeming stars such as Tim Duncan, Mugsy Bogues, and Frank Johnson. A few months ago, though, my like-affair with Wake ended when its legal department told me to desist from using the »

Don King, Republican?

Boxing promoter Don King is hosting a Bush campaign event tonight. The Republican National Committee has also announced that King is supporting the President’s re-election campaign by contributing his voice to the “Kerry vs. Kerry” boxing match website. King has contributed to Democratic candidates, too, during this election cycle, but it does appear that he is in Bush’s camp for the general election. He brings a hairstyle not previously seen »

The Party of Hate

To an extent that, in my judgment, has no precedent in American history, the contemporary Democratic party has defined itself as a party of hate. The current frenzy over the self-contradictory and in some instances patently false claims of Richard Clarke has shown the Democrats at their most vituperative. A case in point is Paul Begala’s hysterical attack on Condoleezza Rice earlier today on CNN’s Crossfire. Begala said: [Dr. Rice] »

Raines Blasts Times

The Guardian reports that the forthcoming edition of the Atlantic includes an article by Howell Raines lambasting the New York Times. The Times’ former editor writes that the newspaper is on a “glide path toward irrelevance”: I felt on the day I became executive editor and on the day I drove away from West Forty-third Street for the last time that the Times badly needs to raise the level of »

E.J. Dionne’s premature victory celebration

E.J. Dionne takes an understated view of Richard Clarke’s testimony, describing it as “democracy’s revenge” against President Bush. I always thought that democracy exacted its revenge at election time. However, Dionne explains: “One great thing about democracies is that they make it very hard for secrets to be kept forever, for claims to go unchallenged indefinitely and for those in power to escape responsibility. The Sept. 11 commission is democracy’s »

Declassifying Clarke

Republicans in Congress are moving to declassify testimony that Richard Clarke gave to the House and Senate intelligence committees in July 2002 for the purpose of determining whether Clarke committed perjury, either in that testimony or in the testimony he gave, also under oath, to the terrorism commission. Sounds like a good move. We know that last year, Clarke told the exact opposite of his current story to reporters in »