Monthly Archives: May 2008

May 22, 2008 — Scott Johnson

At the airport

In Paul Simon’s song, “It’s all happening at the zoo.” In Minneapolis and St. Paul, it’s all happening at the airport. The minor league St. Paul Saints baseball team has turned one of the happenings at the airport into a “bobblefoot” promotional item for the game this coming Sunday. The Star Tribune picks up on the story in “Not quite a bobblehead.” I couldn’t quite figure out what to make »
May 22, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Fortunately, No One Will Watch It

The Cannes Film Festival is a pretty reliable source of outrage. One of the entrants this year is Steven Soderbergh’s Che, an epic, four and a half hour biography of the Argentine sociopath. Soderbergh is taking a break from his “Ocean’s Eleven” series, and, as always with Hollywood types, “serious” means “left.” The film, as described on the festival’s web site, comes in two parts and explains why “Che remains »
May 22, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Victimized? Yes, Actually

Haaretz reports that the Urban Outfitters clothing chain has pulled this apparently pro-violence tee-shirt from their shelves: Above the word “Victimized,” it depicts several Palestinian boys, armed with AK-47s. It also features the Palestinian flag, a map of Gaza and the West Bank, and, somewhat incongruously, a dove. The shirt is produced by a company called Fresh Jive. The company’s owner responds, charmingly, to the controversy over the shirt here. »
May 22, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

“If we don’t elect them, your vote will never matter again”

Voting continues in the election for leadership positions in Dartmouth’s Association of Alumni. The election presents a choice between two slates. One (the parity slate which I’m on) favors maintaining Dartmouth’s longstanding practice of having alumni elect half of the college’s trustees. The other slate favors capitulating to Dartmouth’s decision to terminate this practice. This message sent to members of the Class of 1985 by Mark Byrne ‘85 T’86 and »
May 22, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Revisionist history and an attack on McCain — a Wasington Post daily double

The Washington Post continues to carry water for the Democratic party in this front page attack on Charles Black, a retired lobbyist who is advising the McCain campaign. Post-men Michael Shear and Jeffrey Birnbaum begin by calling Black “McCain’s man in Washington.” In the next paragraph they write that “for half a decade in the 1980s, Black was also Jonas Savimbi’s man in the capital” as a lobbyist for “the »
May 22, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Obama then and now

As one listens to Barack Obama attempt to explain himself on foreign policy, one begins to wonder whether the man is not something of an overaged collegiate slinger. At NRO’s Corner Andrew McCarthy looks at Obama then and now on Iran. Here is Obama last week: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela—these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union »
May 22, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Wherever green is worn

Joe Malchow reports that in an email sent Wednesday afternoon to members of the Dartmouth class of 1985, Mark Byrne (‘85 and Tuck ’86) and Patrick Byrne (‘85) of the billionaire Byrne family tell classmates that they have decided that the Board-packing plan proposed last September by Chairman Ed Haldeman and his five-person Governance Committee is “radical,” “heavy-handed,” and “undemocratic.” The Byrnes urge election of the pro-parity slate of candidates »
May 22, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Hezbollah secures its Lebanese base

Yesterday the government of Lebanon surrendered to Hezbollah, agreeing to all of Hezbollah’s key demands. A good Wall Street Journal story provides some background. At the Couterterrorism Blog Andrew Cochran speculates on the meaning of the agreement. In a statement, Secretary Rice called the agreement “a positive step toward resolving the current crisis.” Her assessment reflects poorly on her candor and aggravates the failure of American policy. To comment on »
May 22, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Pallywood on parade

Richard Landes has produced a 14-minute video accompanying his column on the French court of appeals judgment reversing the defamtion verdict against Phillipe Karsenty in connection with his criticism of the infamous France 2 television report on the death of Muhammad al-Dura: In the asymmetrical warfare of global Jihad against the West, the “weak” side treats the media of the “strong” side as a theater of war, and no single »
May 21, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Oil Executives Try to Educate Senate Democrats, But Democrats Appear Hopeless

Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee summoned top executives from the petroleum industry for what Chairman Pat Leahy thought would be a politically profitable inquisition. Leahy and his comrades showed up ready to blame American oil companies for the high price of gasoline, but the event wasn’t as satisfactory as the Democrats had hoped. The industry lineup was formidable: Robert Malone, Chairman and President of BP America, Inc.; John Hofmeister, »
May 21, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Separated by a hair, twice

It took all 38 matches of the English Premier League, minus about ten minutes, to determine that Manchester United, not Chelsea, is the best soccer team in England. Today, it took 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes of overtime, plus 14 penalty kicks to determine that Man U, not Chelsea, is the champion of Europe. Penalty kicks are a cruel way to determine a champion and the cruelty seems magnified when, »
May 21, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Edward Kennedy’s America

The announcement that Senator Kennedy is suffering from a malignant brain tumor superimposes somber intimations of mortality onto a frequently frivolous political scene. It puts us in mind us of what Wordsworth called the “fallings from us, vanishings” that ultimately reconcile us to our own mortality. As a young man Senator Kennedy became, as he is today, the pillar of a large extended family. Our heart goes out to him »
May 21, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Hurray for (being able to call it) Pallywood

The Jerusalem Post reports that the French Court of Appeals has found in favor of Philippe Karsenty, overturning a lower court decision that Karsenty had libeled France 2 and its Jerusalem correspondent Charles Enderlin when he accused them of knowingly broadcasting a false report on the death of Muhammad al-Dura in the Gaza Strip in 2000. Professor Richard Landes has relentlessly sought to expose the al-Dura affair as a hoax. »
May 21, 2008 — John Hinderaker

The Salvos Continue

The Obama campaign has been in disarray over the candidate’s confusion on Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah and Hamas. Not to mention the number of states in the union. Michelle Malkin provides a useful summary of Obama’s recent blunders. Today, John McCain responded to Obama’s insults in a more serious way, releasing a statement that included the following paragraphs: After Senator Obama’s own advisors and supporters backtracked from his stated desire to »
May 21, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Iraqi troops take charge of Sadr City

Iraqi troops pushed deep into Sadr City yesterday, the New York Times reports. They did so, moreover, without the support of U.S. troops. In fact, the Iraqi forces were not even accompanied by American advisers, though American helicopters provided reconnaissance during the operation. This Iraqi success follows the government’s successful offensive in Basra. According to the Times, that operation “seems to have pacified that city and restored government control,” at »
May 20, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Don’t Take Our Word For It

Al Qaeda’s most fervent supporters acknowledge that Iraq has turned into a disaster for them. Nibras Kazimi, a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute, reports on a posting at one of al Qaeda’s web sites: A prolific jihadist sympathizer has posted an ‘explosive’ study on one of the main jihadist websites in which he laments the dire situation that the mujaheddin find themselves in Iraq by citing the steep drop »
May 20, 2008 — John Hinderaker

The Real Bush Record

The Democrats were never able to beat George Bush when he was on the ballot, but they seem to think that the third time’s a charm. To hear Barack Obama talk, you might think he is running against Bush. And the conventional wisdom is that Republican candidates will be well-served to stay as far away from the President as possible. Perhaps so; at this point, hardly anyone has any interest »