Monthly Archives: April 2004

Inside/Outside

Jamie Gorelick is the Clinton administration’s agent on the 9/11 Commission. She was also a critical player in elaborating the constraints that handicapped cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement prior to the adoption of the PATRIOT Act. She would be an important witness to explain the evolution of “the wall.” Today’s Washington Times reports the latest disclosures that show why her participation on the commission renders it a farce: “Memos »

Parsing Kerryspeak

Our radio hero Hugh Hewitt has staked out a journalistic beat that involves paying attention to the words uttered by (or on behalf of) John Kerry in various settings and trying to make sense of them. It’s tough work, and few of us have a high enough pain threshold to do it with the kind of meticulous attention to detail that Hugh brings to it. In his Standard Online column »

Moderation in the pursuit of immoderation is no virtue

Harold Meyerson again proves that he is the cleverer of the Washington Post’s two liberal spinmeisters in this piece about John Kerry’s Vietnam problem. Yesterday, Meyerson’s partner in spin, E.J. Dionne, claimed that Kerry was being attacked for arguing that the war in Vietnam was a mistake. I addressed that claim here, pointing out that Kerry is actually being attacked for claiming that the war in Vietnam was a sustained »

Good bad news?

Polipundit looks at the bright side of Arlen Specter’s narrow victory over Pat Toomey in yesterday’s Repubican Senate primary in Pennsylvania: “This is a good result. It allows the GOP to put forward a 4-term incumbent as its candidate in November. And ‘moderate’ Republican senators have just had a loud warning shot fired across their bow. The next time they’re voting on a bill, they should remember not just the »

The clash of civilized titans

In yesterday’s link to Daniel Pipes’ piece on Iraq, I referred to Samuel Huntington’s forthcoming book, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. Trunk then pointed me to this review of Huntington’s book by James Ceaser, another one of our favorite political scientists, for the Weekly Standard. Trunk called Ceaser’s review “an incredibly sophisticated critique,” and he was not exaggerating. To characterize the review as creating a “clash” »

The Bush half

The Jerusalem Post has a Mark Steyn column with insight on the American political landscape and much else: “America’s primary objective.” Steyn writes: Another six weeks of Dick Clarke’s book tour, of snotty network reporters condescending to the president at his press conference, of showboating hacks badgering Condi Rice at Congressional hearings, of Bob Woodward and his unreadable book filling up slabs of CNN’s primetime every night with irrelevant arcana »

Liar, Liar

Our radio hero Hugh Hewitt is on a roll in his weekly WorldNetDaily column today: “The Torricelli Option.” In search of a movie analogy to describe John Kerry’s campaign over the past week, Hugh warms to the task: Jim Carrey in the bathroom scene from “Liar, Liar” when he tries to injure himself. That’s John Kerry over the past six weeks, throwing himself against walls in front of the national »

It’s hard to forgive, absent an apology

E.J. Dionne is mortified that the political advantage John Kerry should have by virtue of his heroism in Vietnam is being negated, and worse, due to Kerry’s actions after he returned from the war. Dionne takes out his frustration on Republican Congressmen who, in a “shameful display. . .declared that what mattered was not Kerry’s service but that he decided afterward that the Vietnam War was a terrible mistake for »

What price freedom?

FrontPage Magazine carries an important piece by Daniel Pipes about what our purposes should be in Iraq. Pipes draws on a forthcoming book by Samuel Huntington, called Who Are We: The Challenges to America’s National Identity. In this book, Huntington describes the three broad visions available to America in its dealings with the world. They are the cosmopolitan, the imperial, and the nationalist. In the cosmopolitan vision, the world reshapes »

Ceasefire equals quagmire

Ever since the run-up to the war in Iraq, we have heard the word “quagmire” thrown about loosely. Those who use the term never seem to provide a test for determining whether a quagmire exists but, for my money, a good test is whether “ceasefires” are occurring. Now that they are in Iraq, it may be time to officially acknowledge that we are in a quagmire. Alternatively, it may simply »

Saddam’s WMD

Kenneth Timmerman is a reporter for whom we have a lot of respect. If he says Saddam’s WMDs have been found, attention should probably be paid: “Saddam’s WMD have been found.” Timmerman adds this provocative sidebar: “Iraqi weapons in Syria.” (Courtesy of readers Jonathan Sabin and Peyton Randolph.) »

Why she had to march

When the ineffable Rep. Maxine Waters gave her stemwinder at the abortion rights march on the Mall in Washington this past Sunday, she explained why she had to join the march: “I have to march because my mother could not have an abortion.” Her explanation seeks to bring both supporters and opponents of abortion rights under the big tent of a point on which we can all agree. (Courtesy of »

Israel: Iraq had chemical weapons

Laurie Mylroie has circulated the following April 26 AP story by Laurie Copans via her Iraq Newsletter. I can’t find the story online, but here is the text of the story in its entirety: Iraq had chemical weapons and the means to deliver them ahead of last year’s US-led invasion, Israel’s military chief claimed in an interview published today. Iraq may have transferred the weapons to Syria or buried them »

Get me rewrite! Part deux

Yesterday we posted two screenshots of John Kerry’s DBunker showing significant editing of the DBunker post on Kerry »

Kranzgate lives!

Over at South Dakota Politics Jason Van Beek reveals that he has discovered two more memos by Sioux Falls Argus Leader reporter David Kranz in the archives of Democratic former Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota: “Bombshell: Two more Kranz memos unearthed.” »

Tillman’s generation

Robert Alt has a moving tribute to Pat Tillman and those men serving with him, such as our man in Afghanistan, the Army Reserve Major from Minneapolis whose reports we have posted here on occasion over the past several months: »

More on the foiled attack in Jordan

On April 17 we noted the foiling of the planned al Qaeda attack in Jordan that was to have used chemical weapons deriving from Syria and perhaps Iraq. Today Drudge links to this additional report: “Qaeda-linked chemical attack in Jordan could have killed 80,000: officials.” »