Monthly Archives: June 2005

A Tough Day in Afghanistan

We haven’t said anything about the downed helicopter in Afghanistan, I suppose because we didn’t have anything useful to say. Froggy Ruminations has commentary from a SEAL veteran who knows what he’s talking about. The incident is a reminder that fighting continues in Afghanistan. Our enemies aren’t going to change their minds and take up peaceful pursuits. The only solution is to kill them, and that’s what we’re doing, day »

Administration Reacts to Allegations About Ahmadinejad

Scott wrote this morning about claims that Iran’s incoming president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was one of the terrorists who took Americans hostage at the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. The administration has now taken note of those allegations and is investigating. President Bush expressed concern about Ahmadinejad’s apparent history as a hostage-taker. It is not so interesting to me, or especially surprising, that Ahmadinejad may have played a role in »

Hands across the water

New Republic editor Martin Peretz looks at Anglican disinvestment in Israel: “Bad English” (registration required). And Melanie Phillips looks at the Democratic disinvestment in the war: “The big lie.” »

September 11 and Iraq: Short Memories

The mainstream media continue their faux outrage over the link that President Bush drew between September 11 and the Iraq war in his speech Tuesday night; here is one of countless examples. This is, frankly, mystifying; as one of our readers pointed out yesterday, the connection between the Iraq war and September 11 was made explicit in the text of the Congressional resolution that authorized military action in Iraq. Here »

Democrats’ Popularity Sliding

We’ve often asked whether the Democrats are paying a political price for their obstructionism, or for the outrageous and hateful face they so often present to the voters. This poll, which we missed when it was reported on yesterday, suggests that it may be starting to happen: A poll on the political mood in the United States conducted by the Democratic Party has alarmed the party at its own loss »

Meet the new boss

It was of course the humiliation of the United States in the Iranian hostage crisis that provided the backdrop for the dissolution of the presidency of Jimmy Carter and the rise of Ronald Reagan. The mad mullahs of Tehran have just stuck another finger in the eye of the civilized world in general and the United States in particular: “Iran leader linked to embassy crisis.” What now? »

Prelude to greatness

As I noted yesterday, every three months I announce that the Claremont Review of Books is my favorite magazine — every three months because the magazine is a quarterly. CRB is the flagship publication of the Claremont Institute, the organization whose mission it is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. The magazine is also popular in the White House; »

Thomas Sowell turns 75

Hoover Institution fellow Thomas Sowell is a remarkable man who has produced a distinguished body of work over a long career. I tumbled to Sowell through a hilariously derisive book review he had written for Commentary in 1975 on one of John Kenneth Galbraith’s books. Since then I have discovered that many friends and acquaintances have found Sowell’s books and columns to be a source of inspiration. His achievements should »

Summer blockbusters

Creative juices are flowing somewhat more freely in the blogosphere than in Hollywood. Evidence of inspiration can be found at the New Partisan in Ed Driscoll’s essay positing that the last film of Orson Welles — he of “The War of the Worlds” radio broadcast — foreshadowed the rise of Michael Moore, Al Sharpton, Ward Churchill, and other media-fueled charlatans: “M for fake: Welles, Moore and other tricksters.” On a »

Democrats Found Guilty

Democratic Party officials in East St. Louis, Illinois have been convicted of massive voter fraud in last November’s election. The local jury convicted them of, among other things, paying people to vote Democratic. This is, really, only the tip of the iceberg; still to come is an attempted murder trial arising out of the effort by a Democratic Party official to murder a witness who threatened to blow the whistle »

That was then

Mark Levin at NRO’s Corner points to the following language, contained in an October 2002 Senate resolution authorizing the president to go to war, for which Senators Reid, Clinton, Schumer, Dodd, Kerry, Edwards, and Biden all voted: “Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in »

Pomp and circumstance

Peggy Noonan has an excellent piece in today’s WSJ about the immodesty of some many of our present public officials. Barack (“Honest Abe”) Obama is exhibit A, but Noonan also points to Bill Frist, the Senate’s gang of 14, the Clintons, and Justices Ginsburg and Stevens. She could easily have added Al (he invented the internet) Gore and John ( “I don’t fall down”) Kerry. Has any party ever nominated »

Army Recruitment Up

After several months of shortfalls, General Richard Myers said today at a “town hall meeting” at the Pentagon that the Army has exceeded its recruitment goals for June. Every time there is a month in which recruitment quotas are not met, crazed leftists send us emails with links to news stories and shriek “SEE!! SEE!!!” See what, I’ve always wondered; in any event, that’s one batch of emails we won’t »

Take back the memorial

In her brilliant June 7 Wall Street Journal column, Debra Burlingame played the role of Paul Revere in alerting us to “The Great Ground Zero Heist.” The heist to which she referred was that of the International Freedom Center planned for Ground Zero; she is is a member of the board of directors of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III, pilot »

Al Qaeda Leader Apprehended

Haider Ajina has translated an article from today’s Iraqi newspaper Shabab Al Iraq: The Iraqi government announced today that its security forces arrested (last Saturday) a high-ranking Alaqida leader during a raid & search operation in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The announcement confirmed the name of the high-ranking Alqaida official. His name is Sami Amer Hamid Mahmud AKA Abu Uqail. According to the announcement Abu Uqail was (before his arrest) »

Pessimism Is Not A Policy…

…and defeatism is not a strategy. That is my short answer to the Democrats’ carping about President Bush’s speech last night. Most absurd, in my view, are the howls of outrage protesting Bush’s explanation that the war in Iraq is an important part of the war on terror that began on September 11. The Associated Press reports: “Bush Criticized for Linking 9/11 and Iraq”: Democrats in particular criticized Bush for »

Mark Steyn unplugged

Right Wing News has just posted Mark Steyn Interview #2. The whole thing is good, but given how highly we think of Mark Steyn, I have to say I particularly relished this part toward the end: John Hawkins: So what blogs are you reading regularly these days? Mark Steyn: I read a wide range. They come and go, but I »