Monthly Archives: July 2007

A fair and politic assessment

As liberal analysts like Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack and MSM reporters like John Burns describe the major progress we’re making in Iraq, what does General Petraeus have to say? Here’s what he told Michael Yon (via an NRO symposiuim): Our assessment at this point is that we have begun to achieve a degree of momentum on the ground in going after AQI sanctuaries and in disrupting the activities of »

U.S. Deaths in Iraq Down in July

The number of U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq in July was 74, the lowest total in eight months. That’s good news, obviously, but it’s hard to know what to make of it. The “surge” was expected to increase, not decrease, American deaths, as the strategy was to engage more closely with the enemy. It is hard to believe that after only a couple of months, enough progress has been made »

The latest power play at Dartmouth

Joe Malchow reports on the latest power play at Dartmouth. As we have noted, the powers-that-be are considering plans to strip alumni of their longstanding right to elect half of Dartmouth’s trustees. The decision follows (a) an unbroken string of victories in trustee elections by independent candidates critical of the status quo at Dartmouth and (b) the defeat of a constitutional amendment designed to make such victories more difficult to »

Still young, and oh so accomplished

Bill Bennett turns 64 today. Hearing this news put me in mind of an old story. A father tells his lazy son, “What’s the matter with you; when George Washington was your age he had already thrown a silver dollar across the Potomac and was making his mark as a surveyor.” The son replies, “Yeah, and at your age he had already defeated the British.” It’s amazing to realize how »

Judge Southwick as “super-precedent”

I’ve written here and here about the smear tactics being employed by Senate Democrats as they continue to block Judge Leslie Southwick, President Bush’s nominee for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Centrist legal analyst Stuart Taylor has noticed too. As Taylor explains, Southwick has a distinguished record and “wins high praise from Democrats, African-Americans, and others who know him.” In addition, Southwick “wears a distinctive badge of courageous service »

A liberal’s futile advice to Senate Democrats

Ruth Marcus, one of the fair-minded liberals at the Washington Post, defends Alberto Gonzales from the bogus perjury accusations lodged by Senate Democrats regarding his testimony from last week. Marcus also finds that these allegations are without merit, and that “the calls by some Democrats for a special prosecutor to consider whether Gonzales committed perjury have more than a hint of maneuvering for political advantage.” She invites Congress to focus »

An Ideology of Hate

Chief Justice John Roberts, in my view the most extravagantly qualified Supreme Court nominee in my lifetime, had a “benign idiopathic seizure” today. He’s fine, but might be placed on anti-seizure medication since he also had one in 1993. This is how the prominent liberal web site Wonkette covered the news: Chief Justice John Roberts has died in his summer home in Maine. No, not really, but we know you »

Defending Alberto Gonzales — why we bother

None of us at Power Line is a fan of Alberto Gonzales. Not that long ago, we dreaded the prospect that he would be nominated for the Supreme Court, and I don’t recall any of us being enthusiastic when President Bush named him Attonrey General. Nor do I believe he has distinguished himself in that job. Why then do we bother to defend him when we believe he’s being unfairly »

Is the tide turning in Washington?

I’m not yet persuaded that it is, but this piece by Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post provides some grounds for optimism. They report that House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) says a strongly positive statement progress in Iraq by General Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party’s efforts to press for a timetable to end the war. According to Clyburn, Petraeus »

Reporting live from Jerusalem

I’m on a whirliwind four-day, three-city tour of Israel as a guest of America’s Voices in Israel. It’s the first-ever bloggers tour sponsored by America’s Voices. My traveling companions include Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit, Jeff Emanuel of Redstate and Jeff Emanuel, Andrew Breitbart of The Drudge Report, Breitbart and Breitbart TV, and Andrew’s attorney Larry Solov. Our host from America’s Voices is the lovely Fern Oppenheim. The friendship between »

What did Sen. Feingold know and when did he know it?

Washington Post reporters Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein continue their effort to assist congressional Democrats in smearing Attorney General Gonzales by questioning his truthfulness in another front-page story. The only news on this front from the past few days is the confirmation that Gonzales testified truthfully about which surveillance was the subject to his visit to John Ashcroft at the hospital. As John has noted, even the New York Times »

Global Optimism, American Pessimism

At Real Clear Politics, Michael Barone dissects the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey. There is some specific good news about attitudes in Muslim countries: [T]he Pew Global survey showed sharply reduced numbers of Muslims saying that suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified as compared with 2002. That’s still the view of 70 percent in the Palestinian territories. But that percentage has declined from 74 percent to 34 percent in »

“A War We Just Might Win”

That’s the title of an opinion piece by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution in today’s New York Times. They have returned from a visit to Iraq, and report that conditions there are much improved: Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.*** After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when »

The Times Ponders the Calendar

Today’s New York Times Corrections section discourses on an obscure bit of newspaper history. It fails to address, though, a more fundamental question: don’t its editors know how many days there are in February? An article on Thursday about the arraignment of three men in the shooting of two New York police officers, one of whom died, misstated the schedule set by a judge for a trial in the case. »

Iraq — soccer champions of Asia

Yesterday, I noted that the Iraqi national soccer team — which includes Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds — had advanced to the finals of the Asian Cup competition. Today the Iraqi team added to that already remarkable accomplishment by defeating heavily favored Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the final. Sometimes a 1-0 victory can be a fluke. However, the report of this match suggests that Iraq clearly deserved its victory and would »

“Same Old Question, Different Answer”

That’s the title of this report in the New York Times. The Times did some polling on Hillary Clinton, in the course of which they asked the same question about Iraq that they’ve asked many times before: “Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the United States have stayed out?” A funny thing happened; the numbers seemed »

Media Alert

Paul and I will be on Bill Bennett’s radio show tomorrow morning, starting at 7:30 Eastern, 6:30 Central. No doubt Bill’s first question will be, “What happened to your site yesterday?” From there we’ll go on to the news of the day. Scott, by the way, is in Israel. He arrived this morning (U.S. time), and will be meeting with a number of media and political figures. We’re counting on »