Monthly Archives: April 2007

How high the moon?

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Ella Fitzgerald. She was a remarkable artist. I started listening to Ella thirty years ago in the moving Pablo recordings she made toward the end of her career with Joe Pass (when her voice was begining to fray) and then worked backwards over time. Every period of her long career is richly rewarding. She excelled in a wide variety of material and »

A Democrat is Moved to Action

Given the level of hysteria that is constantly being whipped up by the Party of Hate, we’ve worried for a while that someone is going to get hurt. Cases of voter intimidation and violence against Republican campaign headquarters were widely reported during the last election cycle. A Democratic poster whom we had to ban from the Power Line Forum recently went to the home of a Republican campus leader and »

Let his gramps into the Hall of Fame

So much of what we read in newspapers and magazines is written in predigested phrases that have been used so frequently that the act of reading them kills brain cells. The effect is deadening. By contrast, now comes Mark Gauvreau Judge to recall his grandfather in a sentence that has an awakening effect: “Let gramps into the Hall of Fame.” “Gramps” — that’d be the late Washington Senators ballplayer Joe »

Some Cover-Up!

The Democrats are at it again. Today Henry Waxman’s Government Reform and Oversight Committee held hearings into the military’s handling of the Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman news stories. The breathless headline that resulted was, Ranger alleges cover-up in Tillman case: An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star died by friendly fire said Tuesday he was told by a higher-up to conceal that information »

Time for a pinch hitter?

Newsbusters reports that 42 percent of the shareholders of the New York Times have refused to vote on the small numbers of directors who are subject to the shareholder voting process. Last year abstainers represented only 28 percent of the total. Morgan Stanley, which led the charge against the ruling Sulzberger family, declared the vote “a clear mandate for meaningful change.” The desire among shareholders for change is understandable. Shares »

Harry Reid Educates General Petraeus

Progress in Iraq? Impossible! How do we know? Because Harry Reid says so, in effect calling General Petraeus a liar: Reid has been an unexpected bonanza for the Republicans. To comment on this post, go here. »

A look back at Yeltsin

Real Clear Politics offers two pieces about the legacy of Boris Yeltsin who died earlier this week. The first, by Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post, views Yeltsin as “Russia’s agent of change” and argues, in effect, that Yeltsin was never as good or as bad as he seemed. The second piece, by David Satter of the Hoover Institution and Johns Hopkins, takes a less charitable view. He writes: In »

David Halberstam’s useful working premise

Scott has written two good posts about the late David Halberstam. Let me add that I enjoyed Halberstam’s books about sports, especially his under-appreciated NBA basketball book, The Breaks of the Game. His book about the 1950s also contained plenty of insights. I would have to re-read Halberstam’s breakthrough book, The Best and the Brightest, before offering an assessment. It’s been at least 30 years since I read that work. »

“Ham Is Not A Toy,” But It Could Be A Parody

In Lewiston, Maine, a middle school student ignited a firestorm by placing a bag that contained a “ham steak” near where some Muslims were sitting: Police are investigating as a possible hate crime an incident in which a ham steak was placed in a bag on a lunch table where a group of Somali students were sitting. Superintendent Leon Levesque said the incident is being treated seriously and police are »

Damnation road

Andrew Klavan is the successful mystery novelist whose work includes Shotgun Alley, True Crime, Don’t Say a Word and, most recently, Damnation Street. He’s also a conservative. Joel Schwartz pays tribute to Klavan in the recent Weekly Standard article “The Klavan file” (subscribers only). The new issue of City Journal concludes with Klavan’s “The big white lie.” Here is the opening paragraph: The thing I like best about being a »

David Halberstam at work

The incredibly accomplished journalist David Halberstam died yesteday at age 73. He covered the big stories of our time, including the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war. Our friends at Commentary have retrieved two of Halberstam’s Commentary articles from their archives: “The white citizens councils” (October 1956) and “Getting the story in Vietnam” (January 1965). »

In dreams

Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of Roy Orbison. “In Dreams” was the hit that brought Orbison back into currency when David Lynch used it in “Blue Velvet.” Dreams — dreams shattered, dreams haunted, dreams fulfilled — also provided the thematic material to which Orbison applied his operatic voice in the ballads and other songs that made him a star in the early 1960’s: “Only the Lonely,” “Running Scared,” »

My first ballgame

Near the end of Cy Young’s life, a rookie sportswriter (it is said) saw him in the press box and asked whether he had been a player. Young replied, “Son, I’ve won more games than you’ve seen.” Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the first baseball game I ever saw in person. My father took me to Griffith Stadium for my eighth birthday to see the Washington Senators host the »

Preemptive rhetoric, preemptive surrender

John wasn’t the only one to discuss Harry Reid’s declaration of defeat in Iraq on the AOL blog today. In this post, I argued that (1) losing Iraq means having our enemies accomplish their major objectives in that country, (2) so far our enemies haven’t achieved them, (3) the only way they likely will achieve them is if we withdraw, (4) therefore, only Democrats like Harry Reid can inflict defeat »

David Halberstam, RIP

The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Halberstam died today in an automobile accident in California at age 73. Halberstam’s gifts as a writer and reporter were recognized early, beginning with his editorship of the Harvard Crimson. As a young reporter Halberstam proceeded to cover the great stories of our time, from the civil rights movement in Nashville, where he worked for the Tennessean, to Vietnam, where he worked for the New »

The “Right” Kind of Veteran

MoveOn.org announced today that Oliver Stone will direct a television commercial opposing the Iraq war. The commercial will be broadcast nationwide, financed by the vast wealth of the far left. It will star a veteran who will be selected through a contest on the MoveOn web site. Stone explains the project: I decided to participate in this project because, as a veteran, I know that America needs to listen to »

Finally, a compelling reason why Gonzales should stay

The Senate Republicans have articulated the best reason I can think for why Alberto Gonzales should remain Attorney General. Until now, the best reason has been that there’s no evidence that he did anything wrong in connection with the removal of the eight U.S. attorneys or much wrong in connection with anything else. That’s not a bad justification, but it was undercut to some degree by the absence of any »