Monthly Archives: January 2007

January 23, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Karl Rove Always Comes In Handy As A Scapegoat

The lawyers delivered opening statements in Scooter Libby’s perjury trial today. The news accounts are lurid, but puzzling. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s narrative followed the anticipated script. The administration wanted to discredit Joseph Wilson, who was attacking President Bush’s Iraq policy, and telling reporters that Wilson’s wife was a CIA employee related to that effort: During his hour-long opening statement in the morning, Fitzgerald said that Libby had lied to conceal »
January 23, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

A State of the Union preview

Tony Snow held a blogger conference to provide a preview of tonight’s State of the Union address. As usual, there will be a domestic half and a foreign policy half. The president will lead off, following a special acknowledgement of Nancy Pelosi, with the domestic side. His main topics will be (1) getting a handle on spending in order to balance the budget in five years, (2) entitlement reform, (3) »
January 23, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Iran Turns Up the Heat

Our friends at MEMRI have pulled together a series of news stories from the Middle East that, collectively, paint a grim picture. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has declared a general strike with the objective of bringing down the government. Hezbollah supporters have blocked streets and highways with burning tires, as in the photo below: MEMRI reports: On January 22, 2007, the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, which is close to Hizbullah, came out »
January 23, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Ali wrap-up

My critical post on Muhammad Ali drew a fair amount of commentary over at the Forum. Most visitors agreed with my take on the former champ. Miss Kitty summed up a good portion of visitor sentiment with this: Ali was what our culture made of Cassius Clay. He was the beginning of the end of sportsmanship and the birth of cocky showmanship and hype.. A direct line can be drawn »
January 23, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Hastert to endorse Romney

Mitt Romney is poised to pick-up the endorsement of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, according to the Politico blog. Hastert may be more of a barometer than a trend-setter. They don’t come much more mainstream, middle-American conservative than Denny Hastert. But the Politico also argues that Hastert commands considerable good-will within the House GOP Conference, and thus should help Romney’s outreach to Republican House members. To comment on this post, »
January 23, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Carter comes to Brandeis

In “Publicity stunt” Seth Gitell comments on Brandeis University providing a venue for Jimmy Carter and his campaign of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish defamation. If Carter fields any questions after his speech tonight, CAMERA’s just-released comprehensive compendium of Carter’s errors will come in handy. In a message sending us the link, CAMERA senior research analyst Gilead Ini writes: I thought you might be interested in this itemized list we put together of »
January 23, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Commentary’s contentions

Commentary magazine has rolled out its new blog Contentions. It’s not fair that Contentions gets to draw on Commentary’s outstanding contributors such as David Gelernter, Joshua Muravchik, Terry Teachout, Hillel Halkin, and Michael Lewis. But it does mean that you’ll want to make it a regular stop on your Internet itinerary. Sam Munson is Commentary’s online editor. Sam explains what Commentary is up to with Contentions: Contentions serves as our »
January 23, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Hacks Americana

Our friends at the Claremont Institute and the Claremont Review of Books have once again afforded us the privilege of rolling out a few pieces from the new (Winter) issue, which has just been mailed out to subscribers. Everything I think I know about American politics I’ve learned from the folks affiliated with the Institute and the CRB. The magazine also has friends in high places; copies of each new »
January 23, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Cross the border, close the gap

John Hinderaker is past chairman of the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis and I’m a current member of its board. Mitch Pearlstein is the founder and president of the Center. Mitch took his doctorate in education; he is an impassioned, long time advocate of school choice, especially for the students who need it most. The Center has just published Mitch’s most recent paper on the subject: “Achievement gaps »
January 22, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

A presence and then some

Just yesterday, in questioning whether Rudy Giuliani is serious about running for president, I noted that we at Power Line have seen no evidence of a Giuliani internet presence. Today, however, the Washington Post reports that Patrick Ruffini has signed on with Giuliani’s presidential campaign as an e-campaign adviser. Ruffini did a great job in the same role for the Bush campaign in 2004. He went on to perform similar »
January 22, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

The minimum wage increase — low-hanging but bitter fruit

Donald Lambro in the Washington Times explains why raising the minimum wage, while good politics, is a bad idea. His reasoning is straightforward — employers will react to the increase in labor costs by cutting jobs. One study finds that for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage unemployment among minorities rises 3.9 percent and the teenage minority unemployment rate increases by more than 6 percent. The Democrats intend »
January 22, 2007 — Scott Johnson

How far am I from Canaan?

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Sam Cooke. Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi on January 22, 1931, grew up a son of the church in Chicago, and died a violent death under tawdry circumstances in Los Angeles on December 11, 1964. In the beginning, writes Cooke biographer Joe McEwen, Cooke was black America’s favorite gospel singer. At age 19 Cooke replaced the lead singer — his idol »
January 22, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Plot to Attack U.S. Revealed

ABC reports that documents captured in Iraq six months ago reveal that al Qaeda in Iraq was plotting an attack inside the U.S. Despite the hype surrounding this report, however, details are sketchy. It looks as though this was part of the fallout from the killing of Zarqawi. It was reported at the time that valuable documents were recovered, mostly on a flash drive that, as I recall, Zarqawi kept »
January 22, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Duke’s meta-narrative

Charlotte Allen in the Weekly Standard explains how the “tenured vigilantes” of Duke’s notoriously “postmodern” liberal arts faculty helped enable Mike Nifong’s scandalous prosecution of three Duke lacrosse players. Duke’s meta-narrators aren’t the only ones who embarrassed themselves through their commentary about the case. Allen points to Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, Washington Post light-weight columnist Eugene Robinson, and (no surprise here) Susan Estrich, among others. But it was the gibberish-spouting Duke »
January 22, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

A conservative summit

National Review is holding a Conservative Summit in Washington, D.C. this coming weekend. It will feature a terrific line-up including Jeb Bush, Tony Snow, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, John Bolton, James Woolsey, Ward Connerly, the NRO folks, and many others. I’ll be catching as much of the Summit as work and family commitments will allow, and will probably file a few reports. I’m also hoping to meet some »
January 22, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Blog of the Week: Jules Crittenden

This week’s Blog of the Week or So is Jules Crittenden’s Forward Movement. Jules, who is a columnist for the Boston Herald, described himself for us not long ago: The family’s Australian and my brothers and I were raised in Sumatra, Australia, the U.S., East Pakistan and Thailand, while the old man was building power plants. I’ve spent most of my career as a newspaperman in New England, but have »
January 22, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Star Tribune credibility at risk

Star Tribune “reader’s representative” Kate Parry discharges her responsibilities in a peculiar manner. As a general matter, she vociferously defends the paper from attacks on its state news coverage, the part of her job that is within the heart of her jurisdiction. She found the paper’s coverage of then Fifth District (Minneapolis and suburbs) congressional candidate Keith Ellison just fine, for example, even though the Star Tribune never got around »