Monthly Archives: September 2007

It usually begins with Mark Twain

The actor Hal Holbrook originally became famous impersonating Mark Twain in “Mark Twain Tonight.” Meeting up with Andrew Ferguson in Minneapolis this summer to attend his reading from Land of Lincoln, I thought that Ferguson easily could make a living as a successor to Hal Holbrook. Although he has not chosen to do so, he is following in Twain’s footsteps making a living as a journalist and humorist. Both the »

Hollywood: A Bronx cheer for, round 4

In round 4 of the verbal fight between Andrew Breitbart and David Ehrenstein over Hollywood politics, Andrew makes the conservative case against the suffocating effects of the party line enforced within the business. Andrew invokes the judgment of Orson Bean: My father-in-law, Orson Bean, an author, comedian and actor, was once blacklisted as a Communist back in the ’50s. Ed Sullivan called him to say he could no longer book »

How Liberals Lie; One Example

There is an incredibly lame left-wing site called “Media Matters,” which is funded, I believe, by George Soros. It serves a far-left agenda, and most recently has launched an attack on Rush Limbaugh for ostensibly describing all soldiers who don’t agree with our Iraq policy as “phony soldiers.” This “Media Matters” chestnut has been cited by Democrats in the House and Senate and was swallowed whole by in-the-tank-for-the-left MSNBC, but, »

Second Hour

In the second hour of last Saturday’s show, we interviewed Lt. Col. John Nagl, one of the Army’s top experts on counterinsurgency. He is the author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam and, with General David Petraeus, The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Col. Nagl is a great American and a terrific interview. Among other things, it was a candid assessment »

More good news from Iraq

Things are going from bad to worse for al Qaeda in Iraq. The Jerusalem Post reports that coalition forces have killed another top al Qaeda leader — Abu Usama al-Tunisi, the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle. According to Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, recent coalition operations have helped cut in half the previous flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, which had been at »

Podcasting Resumes

Things have been very busy lately, and I’ve had to forgo some activities (e.g., podcasting) in favor of others that confer more tangible rewards (i.e., pay the mortgage). Besides, if I don’t get around to podcasting a show, you can always get them at Townhall. But the radio show has been humming along, and I want to get back in the podcasting habit. So let’s start with last Saturday’s show, »

The Second Coming of George McGovern

George McGovern, who was crushed by Richard Nixon in a landslide in 1972, has gone down in history as one of our most feckless Presidential candidates. McGovern ran on a far-left platform that included a proposal that at the time was deemed risible–the “demogrant.” The demogrant program was simple: the federal government would write a check for $1,000 to every American. In 1972, that idea was so widely ridiculed as »

“Regrets” that should not be regretted

I’d like to commend the leading Republican presidential candidates for sending their “regrets” to the organizers of last night’s debate at Morgan State University, which focused on African-American voters and their concerns. Not that any of the candidates want credit for skipping the event. Indeed, I believe they all deny that they skipped it, claiming prior commitments and scheduling conflicts. I have no reason to doubt the good faith of »

What’s Your Hurry?

The unworkability of FISA in its present form was dramatically highlighted in Congressional testimony yesterday: U.S. authorities racing to find three kidnapped American soldiers in Iraq last May labored for nearly 10 hours to get legal authority for wiretaps to help in the hunt, an intelligence official told Congress on Thursday. The top U.S. spy agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, sent Congress a timeline detailing the »

A perfect storm of disgrace

Yesterday, Stuart Taylor spoke to the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Federalist Society about the Duke lacrosse “rape” case. In my view, Taylor is probably the pre-eminent reporter of legal/political matters, an enterprise to which he brings to bear great intelligence, strong knowledge of the law, and stubborn fair-mindedness. Along with K.C. Johnson, he has written Until Proven Innocent, Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape »

A comment from Israel

Reader Stoo forwards this comment on President Ahmadinejad’s appearance at Columbia this week. Michelle Malkin has much more here. »

A look back at the Democrats’ Dartmouth talkathon

The New York Times has posted a transcript of the Democrats’ Dartmouth talkathon earlier this week. The sheer frivolousness of both the media participants and the Democratic candidates about the Islamofascist war against the United States continues to be a striking element of these forums. Sleepers, awake! I want to note a few stray quotes which I found to be of interest one way or another. In the discussion of »

A Blumen idiot

Charles Johnson quotes Clinton apparatchik Sidney Blumenthal on the deep truth of the 60 Minutes II story: Within minutes of the conclusion of the broadcast, conservative bloggers launched a counterattack. The chief of these critics was a Republican Party activist in Georgia. Almost certainly, these bloggers, who had been part of meetings or conference calls organized by Karl Rove »

Mahmoud’s Legacy

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has left the United States for South America, where he is cavorting with Latin American dictators. But Columbia’s “distinguished lecturer” left behind a legacy in New York: Vandals spray-painted at least 19 swastikas and left anti-Semitic flyers all over Brooklyn Heights in a blitz on Monday night a few hours after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spewed anti-Semitic rhetoric in a speech at Columbia University »

The shortest answer Joe Biden has ever given

From last night’s debate: Q. Do you think Moveon.org has changed politics for the better? JB I don’t think Moveon.org has changed politics. UPDATE: Well, second shortest Biden answer anway. During the first Democratic debate, Brian Williams asked Biden if the American people could trust him not to be verbose. He responded, »

Fred Thompson and the evangelicals

The title of this report by Jonathan Martin of the Politico is “Evangelicals Turn on Thompson.” By this he means not that evagelicals or their leaders oppose Thompson but that Thompson “almost certainly will not receive a joint endorsement from the loose coalition of ‘pro-family’ organizations.” This report reminded me of a very socially conservative acquaintance who, opposed to Giuliani and McCain and unimpressed by Romney, asked me for months »

Thank You For Smoking

Mark Steyn notes an appalling development in politically-correct Vancouver: Okay, Muslim foot-baths in Kansas City airport, gender-segregated swimming sessions at French municipal pools, banning pork from Aussie hospital menus, no eating donuts for Belgian cops during Ramadan, no seeing-eye dogs or alcohol in Minneapolis taxi cabs, fine, fine, fine. Must be sensitive and all that. But this is an amazing victory. In Vancouver, infidels can’t smoke but Muslims can. It’s »