Monthly Archives: November 2006

George Aiken without the intellectual flair

Senator George Aiken once said we should leave Vietnam and declare victory. Lacking Aiken’s audacity, Senator Chuck Hagel urges that we leave Iraq and declare a draw. Hagel may not be the biggest fool in the Senate, but after reading his piece in today’s Washington Post I’m at a loss to identify a bigger one. Hagel insists that “there will be no victory or defeat for the United States in »

A Post Mortem From One Who Was in the Trenches

We’ve spent some time trying to analyze what happened on November 7, around the country and here in Minnesota. Yesterday I got an email from Mark Kennedy’s campaign manager, Pat Shortridge. Pat has graciously allowed us to share it with our readers: As you might imagine, we’ve spent a bit of time analyzing the data ourselves. The key empirical data point so far is in the overall turnout. This chart »

Remembering Israel’s story

I’ve been thinking about Ariel Sharon’s decision at age 78 to leave the political party he founded and run against it in the forthcoming Israeli election. I’ve wondered whether some Shakespearian figure might illuminate Sharon’s course — is he perhaps a foolish King Lear, a conquering Caesar, an imperious Coriolanus, a chastened Prospero? Or is he some visionary statesman the likes of which I don’t recall ever reading about in »

They Report, You Decide (with update from Mark Steyn)

Most of our readers are aware of Mark Steyn’s “Demography is Destiny” theme, which he has elaborated in much of his recent writing. Steyn thinks that low birth rates among Europeans, in particular, will inevitably lead to their replacement on the European continent by Muslims who are reproducing at a far faster rate. Steyn pursues the theme in today’s article in the Chicago Sun-Times, Quartet of Ladies Shows Where We’re »

Great Cease Fire!

We reported yesterday on the cease fire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, under which Israel will stop its operations in Gaza in return for the Palestinians’ promise to stop rocket attacks, suicide bombings and other forms of violence emanating from Gaza. The agreement didn’t last long: Militants fired at least five rockets into southern Israel from Gaza Sunday on the first day of a cease-fire agreement. No one »

It’s the bunk!

Friday’s Wall Street Journal reported that the films of “capitalist comic” Preston Sturges have just been released in a seven-disc boxed set, including four Sturges films on DVD for the first time. One of the newly released films is “Christmas in July,” a movie having nothing to do with Christmas. The film was both written and directed by Sturges, a director known for the subgenre of “screwball” comedies that he »

More Politics, All the Time

We drove to the Mall of America a little before lunch time today, and I turned on the radio, as I often do, to the Patriot. The program came on and my ten-year-old daughter, startled, said: “Dad, that sounds like you!” It was me, of course; we took the Thanksgiving weekend off, and the station replayed last week’s show. Not a bad idea, as it was a good one; and »

Spelling Optional

“Anti-war” activist Cindy Sheehan has been in South Korea, campaigning against a relocation of American bases there which, if I’m not mistaken, was requested by the South Korean government. So, help me with this one, Maureen: does Ms. Sheehan have “absolute moral authority” to pontificate about South Korean bases? Or is she just another ignorant left-wing publicity hound? You can’t really have it both ways, can you? Then there’s this: »

Cease Fire In Gaza

Israel and the Palestinian Authority have agreed to a cease fire in Gaza. Israel has agreed to stop its military operations in Gaza and withdraw; in return, Palestinian terrorist groups, through PA chairman Abbas, have agreed to “end … all Palestinian violence, including rocket fire, tunneling, and suicide bombers.” I believe that the Palestinians had previously offered to stop firing rockets, but prior cease fire offers had not included suicide »

Forum Registration Update

Check out my post earlier today on our News and Forum sites’ move to a new server. The move will speed up all of our sites and should give us plenty of capacity as traffic continues to grow. However, the move last night did create a few glitches. One is that some people who previously had registered to post on the Power Line Forum aren’t seeing their registrations show up »

Rumor has it

that the Washington Post will name Susan Glasser, currently the head of the paper’s Outlook section, to be in charge of all news sections at the Post. I hope the rumor is not true. As noted here, under Glasser the Outlook section seemed to adopt “a feminist agenda with a lot of navel gazing,” becoming something of a ‘Joy Luck Club’ for liberals finding life difficult. One Power Line reader »

Important News and Forum Update

Just before the election, we unveiled a brand-new, revamped Power Line News site and an accompanying Power Line Forum, where readers can comment on the issues of the day. Both have proved extremely popular. In fact, the Forum itself, because of its interactive nature, put such a heavy burden on the server where all three sites were housed that at times over the last two weeks, getting through to this »

Giving and taking offense

In “Mood Indian” I noted the most recent developments in Dartmouth’s Indian wars. One such development was President Wright’s message to all Dartmouth students including this passage: There will always be individuals – including some who are members of this community – who empower themselves by disrespecting others. They are few in number but this is not about numbers. Some who have engaged in the incidents of the last few »

The Gemayel warning and the regional war

Caroline Glick’s excellent Jerusalem Post column elaborates the theme of the regional war in the context of the assassination of Pierre Gemayel. Lebanon represents one front of the regional war and Israel another. Iraq is yet a third front of the war. Iran is key to each of these fronts. Iran is at war with us and unfortunately must be dealt with. For another graphic illustration of the regional nature »

The Ellison connection to the flying imams

Yesterday I asked (on the basis of this Investors Business Daily editorial) whether there was an Ellison connection to the controversy that seems to have been created by the flying imams. We didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Rochelle Olson reports in today’s Star Tribune: Congressman-elect Keith Ellison wants to meet with executives of US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission to discuss the removal of six Muslim »

Mood Indian — a different perspective

In this post, Scott (with an assist from Joe Malchow) reviewed the latest installment in Dartmouth’s Indian wars. One highlight was the apology by athletic director Josie Harper for the inclusion of the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux in the upcoming hockey tournament at Dartmouth. I agree with Scott that her apology represents politically correct sensitivity run amuck. However, I have a somewhat different perspective when it comes to »

Assassination

That’s the subject of Jim Geraghty’s post on the recent spate of sudden deaths that are convenient to the world’s tyrants. Jim contrasts the single-minded determination of the bad people who are trying to kill or otherwise defeat us with the less than single-minded determination of the not-bad, I guess, people who can’t seem to figure out who our enemies are. What really makes the post worthwhile, though, is the »