Monthly Archives: April 2004

Legacy of Vietnam

The left wing and beating heart of the Democratic Party cannot be entrusted in wartime with the national security of the United States. As Vin Weber observed in a speech to the Elephant Club in Minneapolis yesterday, it is preeminently the party whose consciousness was formed by opposition to the Vietnam War. It is the party of George McGovern and John Kerry. The post-presidential Jimmy Carter is its avatar. In »

And the winner is…

R. Emmett Tyrell hands out his Coogler award to the author of the worst book of the past year: “The Coogler.” I don’t want to spoil the suspense, but there is a local Twin Cities angle to this year’s award and Tyrell concludes: “[B]illed as a humorist, he is but a clown.” With the local angle, that description narrows the field to two. »

Rosett testifies

Reader Malcolm Smordin has forwarded us a link to a Word version of the testimony Claudia Rosett provided Wendesday on the oil-for-food program to the House Subcommittee investigating the scandal. »

Lowry v. Corn

I just arrived home from the debate held at St. Thomas College in St. Paul between National Review editor Rich Lowry and Nation magazine Washington editor David Corn on the 2004 election. I met many Power Line readers such as Professor Peter Vogt of Bethel College who stopped to provide encouragement for the site. Rich was absolutely brilliant in the debate, personally winning and utterly compelling. It was Rich’s idea »

Beckology

As promised, Professor Jon Lauck of Daschle v. Thune has much more on Sioux Falls Argus Leader editor Randell Beck: “The Argus Leader and the degradation of American democaracy.” UPDATE: Professor Lauck writes to advise that “it gets even more depressing — here’s more from the Argus Leader editor, who says that the Internet is the ‘down side of living in a free society’: “Beck: Newspaper a ‘private enterprise’; not »

Waiting for Rocket Man

Reader Richard Shuford has forwarded us the link to an item announcing the appearance of “a real Rocket Man”: “‘Rocketman’ takes wing.” The caption reads: “A handout photograph shows stuntman Eric Scott of the US hovering in the sky over London using a jetpack.” »

Tilting towards the Brits?

My wife called my attention to this piece in the Washington Times by Thomas Cheplick about alleged friction between the British and the Americans in Iraq (the folks at the French embassy where she works are on the look-out for stories like this). The friction, if it exists, seems to arise from philosophical differences about the best approach to carrying out an occupation. The British, with centuries of imperial experience, »

Voting the pocketbook

Donald Lambro of the Washington Times finds that “America’s long-brewing recovery finally seems to be boosting President Bush’s economic job approval numbers, and eroding Sen. John Kerry’s No. 1 domestic issue.” Lambro’s report provides both polling and economic data that support this claim. He concludes that “if next month’s Labor Department employment report is anything like March’s blowout jobs numbers, look for a 10-point lead in Mr. Bush’s election polls »

The future of multiculturalism

John Derbyshire doesn’t strike me as prone to undue optimism when it comes to the battles that make up the cultural war. Yet, in today’s National Review Online, he speculates that, within the next 25 years, the liberal elites will abandon multiculturalism and may well drop diversity as an ideal (25 years — isn’t that when Justice O’Connor said the Supreme Court should revisit the diversity rationale for preferential college »

Funny, we don’t look Yahooish

Sioux Falls Argus Leader editor Randell Beck is not pleased with our efforts to publicize the multiple roles his ace political reporter David Kranz has played in both reporting on and advising Democratic officeholders. Ryne McClaren reports on Beck’s on-air stream of consciousness bilge broadcast over South Dakota radio: “Beck flips.” We’re particularly proud of the recognition Beck accords us late in his rant: [T]here »

The gangs of Fallujah

Andrew Sullivan posts a letter from a military chaplain in Fallujah. The chaplain claims that there are more people in the northeast Minneapolis gangs than there are causing havoc in Fallujah. He adds that “countless Iraqis tell our psyopers they want to cooperate with us but are afraid the thugs will slit their throats or kill their kids. A bad gang can do that to a neighborhood and a town. »

Will the real John Kerry please stand up

The Washington Post’s editorial page remains, ironically, the newspaper’s bastion of editorial balance. Here, the Post’s editors accuse John Kerry of “troubling and mistaken” shifting of his position with respect to what our goals should be in Iraq. In December, shortly after the capture of Saddam Hussein, Kerry said (correctly in the Post’s view) that our goals should be “completing the tasks of security and democracy in the country — »

The third Gorelickian oration

In the third oration against Catiline Cicero declared victory. Referring to Rome as “this most fortunate and beautiful city,” he celebrated its escape “from fire and sword, and almost from the very jaws of fate, and preserved and restored to you.” In this third oration against Jamie Gorelick, the villain persists in her conspiracy with an audacity unknown to Catiline. This morning’s Washington Times reports the painful details in “Gorelick »

For what it’s worth

The Boston Globe takes a look at the newly released military records of John Kerry: “Navy records detail Kerry Vietnam duty.” The records released are entirely laudatory. The Globe, however, notes that they are incomplete: The campaign earlier this year showed the Globe a document verifying that Kerry was treated for a shrapnel wound that led to the first purple heart, but a campaign official was quoted by the Associated »

Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies…

…grow up to be lawyers. I’m deep into the second week of a relatively short jury trial, and should be done in another week or two. This is the worst kind of trial, really–short enough that it doesn’t take on the more leisurely pace of a long trial, but long enough to just about do you in. Kind of like sprinting a mile. I’m taking five minutes off for this »

Getting better all the time

The American Enterprise Institute has just published the 2004 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators by our friend Steve Hayward. The link provides the text in PDF format. Need we say it’s brilliant? And that it only sounds boring? This is the ninth edition of the AEI Index. For the first time, the Index contains a special section comparing U.S. environmental trends with trends in European Union nations — a feature »

Rich Lowry requests the pleasure of your company

National Review editor Rich Lowry requests your assistance in providing a friendly audience for his debate on the 2004 election with the Washington editor of Nation magazine (David Corn) on Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. in the beautiful O’Shaughnessy Auditorium at St. Thomas College in St. Paul. We’ll be there with bells on. UPDATE: Here’s the link to the St. Thomas announcement of the event and related information. »