Monthly Archives: October 2005

Iran Calls For Destruction of Israel; Palestinians Try to Oblige

You may have seen headlines about Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the President of Iran, calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. He also threatened any Muslim countries that established relations with Israel. And it’s worth pointing out that he explicitly linked his threats against Israel to attacks by the Palestinians: The president told an audience of students there was “no doubt the new wave [of attacks] in Palestine will soon »

Condoleezza eyes

I’ve written about the fabulous Jackie DeShannon here several times, most recently this past August in “What the world needs now.” It’s hard to pick a favorite from her extensive catalogue, but I think it’s fair to say that “Bette Davis Eyes” is not the best song she ever wrote. It may have been her biggest hit, however, when Kim Carnes put it over for her in 1981. In any »

Kudos to USA Today…

…for a forthright response to complaints about the photo of Condoleezza Rice that Scott noted earlier today. Michelle Malkin observes that the doctored photo has been removed from USA Today’s web site, and the editor has posted this explanation: Editor’s note: The photo of Condoleezza Rice that originally accompanied this story was altered in a manner that did not meet USA TODAY’s editorial standards. The photo has been replaced by »

Some explaining to do

Ed Whelan, a former Scalia law clerk and the head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argues that Harriet Miers should withdraw. Until now, Ed has been giving the White House “the benefit of the doubt” on this nomination. However, a 1993 speech by Miers, reported on in today’s Washington Post, moved Ed into the “withdraw” column. I’d be happy to see Miers withdraw. However, the speech is 12 »

Nobody does it better

Christopher Hitchens on George Galloway’s very bad week: For George Galloway. . .the war would seem to be over. The evidence presented suggests that he lied in court when he sued the Daily Telegraph in London over similar allegations (and collected money for that, too). It suggests that he lied to the Senate under oath. And it suggests that he made a deceptive statement in the register of interests held »

The redesigned eyes

Michelle Malkin calls the retouching USA Today performed on the photo of Secretary Rice testifying last week “Demonizing Condi.” It could also be “Condi: Omen III.” »

Meet Lt. Col. Steve Boylan

Michelle Malkin’s column today turns the spotlight on Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the military’s Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad. Lt. Col. Boylan has a few words for the press on the subject of the media celebration of the military death toll of 2,000 Americans in Iraq. Michelle writes: U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the force’s combined press center, is pushing back against the inevitable »

The redesigned eye

Anne Bayefsky’s Eye on the UN has undergone a redesign. To its new look the Eye has added a new feature, weekly email updates (to sign up click on the link at the lower right hand corner of the home page). The site has all the latest UN (Hairiri) and UN-related (Galloway) reports as well as articles and features. For a glimpse into the UN’s heart of darkness, take a »

Meanwhile, in the Real World…

Tomorrow may bring indictments of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby on charges that can charitably be described as trivial. Tonight, one of our readers urged us to link to President Bush’s great speech to the Joint Armed Forces Officers’ Wives’ group rather than being distracted by the minutiae of the day. Good suggestion. President Bush gave another magnificent speech; here are a few highlights: Some have argued that extremism has »

Here’s a News Flash

Ron Fournier of the Associated Press doesn’t like Dick Cheney. That’s pretty much the content of Fournier’s latest hit piece. And Fournier is, perhaps because of his animus toward the Vice-President, no stickler for accuracy. He writes: The latest disclosure also raises fresh questions about the vice president’s credibility, long-ago frayed by inaccurate or questionable statements on Iraq. Really? It would be interesting to see how many such inaccurate statements »

The lame assessing the “blind”

Eugene Robinson, an embarrassment even by the standards of the Washington Post’s op-ed page, has looked into the soul of Condoleezza Rice and concluded that, as an African-American, she just won’t do. Robinson traveled to Rice’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama with the Secretary to determine how she, as an African-American, could “work so loyally for George W. Bush” (perhaps Rice could have maintained her racial authenticity in Robinson’s eyes by »

News management

Gilead Ini of CAMERA directs our attention to its story about AFP’s doctoring of news about a proposed U.S.-Syria deal. On a related note, Rick Moran looks at some intriguing evidence: “UN buries a Palestinian connection to the Hairiri assassination.” »

Pennies from Saddam

George Gooding of Seixon writes: I have summarized the “smoking gun” against George Galloway, which might be helpful to those readers who don’t really have a clue what all this is about: “Every penny in, every penny out.” Among the conclusions derived from the report is that at least $270,000 made from oil commissions were donated to Galloway’s Mariam Appeal, and to his wife. Galloway could also face conspiracy and »

An unreliable source

This afternoon the Standard posted a new column by Stephen Hayes on the credibility of Joseph Wilson: “The Incredibles.” Steve’s column was provoked by today’s Washington Post story by Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus: “Husband is conspicuous in leak case.” »

Hanging tough

Stan Brown at Two Minute Offense doesn’t see President Bush withdrawing the Miers nomination. I agree to this extent — things would have to get much uglier than they are now before Bush would be likely to consider bailing on Miers. If Miers decided that she genuinely wanted out, that would be different. Stan also speculates that pulling the plug on Miers would not be politically advantageous to the president. »

At long last, an interesting Maryland Senate race

Michael Steele, the Republican Lt. Gov. of Maryland, has announced that he will run for the Senate. Steele is the first African-American ever elected to statewide office in my home state. I worked at the same law firm as Michael more than 15 years ago. What an impressive guy! I was still a registered Democrat then, but on the few occasions we talked politics, Michael seemed to think I had »

Under Construction

Some of you have noticed that since yesterday, the Power Line News site has been intermittently unavailable, or loading incompletely. This is due, I think, to behind-the-scenes work that is being done on the site. We are in the process of adding a news video capability, which should be a fun enhancement. The site will feature videos relating to sports and entertainment as well as news, and we’ll be adding »