Monthly Archives: June 2007

The Ex-Girlfriend Test

When Republicans run for office, the press likes to track down their ex-girlfriends (and if possible, ex-wives) in hopes of digging up some dirt on them. This usually hasn’t seemed to work; Jane Wyman, for example, wouldn’t say a bad word about Ronald Reagan, and that George W. Bush’s only serious ex-girlfriend praised him to reporters. It’s no secret that I find the whole Fred Thompson boom rather annoying, but »

How conservative is Fred Thompson?

The Washington Times editorial board tries to answer this question quantitatively. Is main findings are: Thompson’s lifetime rating by the American Conservative Union (ACU) based on the votes he cast in Congress is 86.1. This suggests that he’s about as conservative as Bill Frist (87.8), slightly more conservative than John McCain (82.3), and less conservative than Sam Brownback (94.0), Duncan Hunter (92.0), and Tom Tancredo (97.8). On foreign policy issues, »

More on the CEA Report

I wrote here about a report by the Council of Economic Advisers titled “Immigration’s Economic Impact” which came out a few days ago. The study was widely reported as finding a substantial net positive impact from immigration, and thereby supporting the administration’s proposal for comprehensive immigration reform. I pointed out that the study made no effort to distinguish legal from illegal immigration, and conflated the economic impact of high-skilled immigrants, »

How not to reform health care

The battle over immigration reform legislation probably is only the first of a series of major congressional struggles over domestic issues. Within the next few years, it’s likely that Congress will take up legislation to overhaul our health care system. At the AOL blog, I offer ten reasons why the British/Canadian approach — a single-payer system — is not the way to go. »

Kyl Credits Talk Radio, Bloggers on Immigration

Jon Kyl is the lead negotiator on immigration for the Senate Republicans. (That’s a good thing, by the way.) Kyl says that he has heard the complaints of talk radio listeners and bloggers and is preparing proposed amendments to make the bill more palatable: Mr. Kyl’s comments yesterday underscore how important talk radio and bloggers have been in the debate »

An old debate revived (for some reason)

Jim Geraghty revives a disagreement we had last November regarding Trent Lott. In a crtique of a post I had written about several Republican selections for leadership positions, Geraghty argued that Tent Lott’s selection for Senate Minority Whip was a mistake because Lott’s infamous praise of Strom Thurmond’s racist 1948 candidacy would constantly be thrown back at him and the party. In response, I disagreed with that prediction (the one »

Kathy’s clowns, eight years later

I was out jogging down Fairview Avenue in Highland Park in St. Paul on a beautiful afternoon in June 1999 when I passed a cross street full of satellite broadcast trucks. I had no idea what they were doing there. When I got home, I found that one of the ladies living in our neigborhood was a former member of the Symbionese Liberation Army who was wanted for the attempted »

Saturday morning wake-up

Yesterday morning we posted the second part of William Katz’s recollections of working on the Tonight Show. One of the guests Mr. Katz recalled working with was the legendary drummer Buddy Rich. In the Tonight Show clip above, Buddy Rich battles Tonight Show band regular Ed Shaughnessy for the laurels. »

Movies and More

We spent most of the second hour of Saturday’s show talking with Stephen Hunter, Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for the Washington Post. If you want to know what movies to avoid this summer, and which ones to see–a smaller group, no doubt–check it out. Stephen was so entertaining that we held him over for three segments, leaving time at the end for our This Week in Gatekeeping award. You can »

McConnell considers his options

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’s unsure whether he’ll support the comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Yesterday, McConnell told AP he would not decide how to vote on the measure until a long series of amendments are disposed of next week. Earlier in the week, McConnell had not wanted to comment on the legislation when queried by reporters. But on Thursday, he was willing to air his reservatations, saying “I’m »

Reflections on an alleged end of an era

E.J. Dionne argues that the “center” in American politics is moving towards the left. I think he’s correct, though we may be one major terrorist attack and/or recession on a Democratic president’s watch away from having to revisit that view. But what I want to comment about is Dionne’s claim, uttered often now by others on the left as well, that we are witnessing a “discrediting of the conservative era.” »

“Surrender Or Die”

Michael Yon has posted his latest dispatch from the battle in Baqubah. So far, he thinks it is going well: I am with 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team. I »

“Tear Down Those Camps!”

Saul Singer, Editorial Page Editor of the Jerusalem Post, has an excellent column that takes off from a Power Line post, draws an analogy between the Berlin Wall and the Palestinian refugee camps, and concludes with advice for President Bush: June 12 was the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s “tear down this wall!” speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. On the popular blog Power Line, Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson »

Iran Closing in on Bomb?

Today’s Telegraph reports that Iran is moving dangerously close to acquiring nuclear weapons: Iran has moved significantly closer towards acquiring the ability to make a bomb as the regime claims to have stockpiled 100kg of enriched uranium. So far, this uranium has only been enriched to the level needed for generating electricity in civilian nuclear power stations. But if Iran chooses to enrich it to 84 per cent purity, it »

…fourth as unadulterated stupidity

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Tom Rose provides evidence that we may need to update Marx’s adage in light of current events. Rose argues that in attempting to save the PLO, the Bush administration is repeating history for the fourth time. The fourth time around, history repeats itself as sheer unadulterated stupidity: “A bad week for the good guys.” To comment on this post, go here. »

The incredible shrinking New York Times

At The American Thinker, Thomas Lifson makes the case that “the slow motion business collapse of the New York Times Company may be picking up its pace.” JOHN adds: Those of us who are connoisseurs of the NYT Corrections section gain insight, I think, into the paper’s declining fortunes. From this morning’s corrections: The Keeping Score column on Sunday, about new baseball research into hitting and fielding trends that can »

Learning from the Tonight Show, part 2

When I asked reader William Katz if he’d ever written about his work for employers including the New York Times and the Tonight Show, he responded that he hadn’t — but that he would. Now he writes with the second installment of his reflections on working for the Carson-era Tonight Show: Aside from Johnny Carson’s obvious talent, it was the strength of the guests that made The Tonight Show. The »