Monthly Archives: March 2008

March 24, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Does Everyone Hate President Bush?

Some certainly do. And one could easily get the impression that the Bush-haters have become a majority. To be sure, President Bush’s approval ratings continue to languish in the 30s. But Presidential approval ratings are a very blunt instrument, and these data from the Tarrance Group suggest that the full story is more balanced. Most striking to me is that 56% of respondents approve of the President personally. This seems »
March 23, 2008 — John Hinderaker

If It’s Intentional, Is It Malpractice?

Patterico does an excellent job of deconstructing a front-page Los Angeles Times hit piece on John McCain. The Times article includes this howler: But McCain openly disputed Bush administration claims that Hussein appeared linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. »
March 23, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Cue Cumber

In his speech at the Islamic Center of Washington this past June, President Bush announced that he would be appointing an emissary to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. We lamented President Bush’s announcement at the time in “A symbolic visit to a Wahhabi outpost, part 2.” Our appointed emissary to the OIC turns out to be one Sada Cumber, whom Stephen Schwartz introduced in a Weekly Standard column earlier »
March 23, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Sorry, I thought he meant it

In one of the most vacuous statements I’ve ever read, Douglas Kmiec has endorsed Barack Obama for president. Kmiec is a Republican who served in the Justice Department under President Reagan and the first President Bush. Until recently, Kmiec was co-chair of the Romney for President Advisory Committee on the Constitution and the Courts. In that capacity, he wrote a piece on Power Line explaining why he supported Romney. Kmiec »
March 23, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

The 100 years non-war

Yesterday, I examined one of Barack Obama’s two main attacks (so far) on John McCain — the Arizona Senator’s concession that he lacks particular expertise on economic issues. The problem for Obama is that he has no legitimate claim to possessing more economic expertise than McCain. Obama’s other talking point is that McCain has said the U.S. should remain in Iraq for 100 years if necessary. Obama knowingly misconstrues this »
March 23, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

The Wright curriculum in San Diego

In this interview, a student at the University of California at San Diego tells my former law school classmate Edgar Anderson about a freshman course called Dimensions of Culture. Not only is it a required course at UCSD, but it consumes 16 units of the freshman year (roughly 40 percent depending on the student’s course load). The course is divided into three segments: Diversity, Justice, and Imagination. As to the »
March 23, 2008 — Scott Johnson

An unprincipled peace process

Numerous broken commitments underlie the Bush administration’s current efforts to create the framework for the establishment of a Palestinian state. I alluded to several of them in “When words lose their meaning” and have reiterated the point in numerous posts here. Now Rick Richman retraces the steps of the Bush administration leading to the silent abandonment of its own first principles. The left and its allies in the mainstream media »
March 23, 2008 — Scott Johnson

The BBC regrets

The Jerusalem Post reports that the BBC has apologized for significant errors in two recent stories on Israel, one involving a fabrication that the BBC has now “clarified.” The BBC has yet to “clarify” how the fabrication came to be broadcast. There is nevertheless a pattern to the BBC errors that suggests an answer. These BBC errors add to a larger pattern I tried to draw some time back in »
March 23, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Happy Easter

…to our Christian readers. We’re not used to having to worry about being snowbound on Easter. It is early this year; for a long time I wondered why Easter jumps around on the calendar, until finally I looked it up. Easter is the first sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. The reason it’s so early this year is that the vernal equinox was on March 20, »
March 23, 2008 — Scott Johnson

The Clintonite style: A footnote

Yesterday I noted that Bill Clinton was back in the news as a result of comments he had made in a speech to a veterans’ group in Charlotte, North Carolina: “I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is »
March 22, 2008 — John Hinderaker

You’re Free To Go–No, Wait!

This story is almost enough to give you warm feelings about bureaucratic incompetence: Kathleen Soliah (aka Sara Jane Olson) is being returned to prison in California. Soliah was paroled on Monday and re-arrested Friday night at Los Angeles International Airport, apparently as she was about to return to Minnesota. The explanation is almost beyond belief: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said that officials miscalculated Olson’s sentence »
March 22, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

A modest proposal

The other day, an astute observer of the political scene — my older daughter — told me it might be a good idea for John McCain to select his running mate before too long. This would enable him to further unify Republicans and to leverage his advantage as his party’s nominee by presenting himself as a full-blown presidential candidate, in contrast to his bickering Democratic rivals. Now an even more »
March 22, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Mr. Nice Guy

Yesterday, Barack Obama’s campaign team conducted a teleconference call with reporters which they began by going hard after Hillary Clinton, accusing her of being dishonest. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, led off: [Y]ou know, the truth is that Senator Clinton has not been fully vetted, in our view, by the press on a very important issue, which is that she is not seen as trustworthy by the American people. She »
March 22, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Casting the First Stone

The situation with the “not particularly controversial” Jeremiah Wright is not playing out as Barack Obama had envisioned. Michael Ramirez comments; click to enlarge: »
March 22, 2008 — Scott Johnson

The Clintonite style in American politics

The influential progressive historian Richard Hofstadter described American politics as often an arena for angry minds. He coined the term the paranoid style to capture the strain of politics to which such anger gave rise. Hofstadter notably tagged liberal bogeyman Joe McCarthy as an exponent of the paranoid style. It would take an oberver with an intellect comparable to Hofstadter’s to capture the Clintonite style. Today Bill Clinton is back »
March 21, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Now you tell us

I’ve been listening to Barack Obama’s apologists gush about how wonderful his Philadelphia speech was, and how important it is to have a serious discussion of race in America of the kind Obama now has initiated. Obama himself made the latter claim. So my question is: if this discussion is so important, why did Obama commence it only after he had been exposed as the patron of an anti-American racist? »
March 21, 2008 — John Hinderaker

The Passport Flap

Liberals were momentarily excited when it was reported that contract employees processing passport applications for the State Department had accessed Barack Obama’s file. E.J. Dionne wrote: This is a weird and troubling story: Glenn Kessler reports that the State Department announced Thursday night “that it had fired two contract employees and disciplined a third for accessing Sen. Barack Obama’s passport file.” *** Yes, indeed, this deserves investigating. What do you »