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Monthly Archives: July 2008
A foreshadowing?
Noah Pollak has written a devastating critique of Bush administration foreign policy in its waning days. Pollak begins with John Bolton’s assessment: “Nothing can erase the ineffable sadness of an American presidency, like this one, in total intellectual collapse.” Then, after a survey of administration policy with respect to North Korea, Lebanon, and Israel, Pollak offers his own summation: The State Department has been allowed to slip completely off its »
Heavy mush
The day after Barack Obama said that the troop surge in Iraq has worked but that he was right to oppose it because “we had to change the political debate,” Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post proclaims that Obama has, by virtue of his trip to the Middle East, demonstrated his “gravitas.” Obama did so, according to Cillizza, at a press conference in Jordan, which Cillizza chooses to designate “perhaps »
Tear down this technicality!
The Politico reports the Obama campaign’s background briefing regarding Obama’s coming speech this Thursday in Berlin: At a morning background briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the characterization of Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United States. “It is not going to be a political »
What Obama Learned From General Petraeus
Nothing, apparently. Here is more from ABC News’ interview with Obama yesterday. Terry Moran asks Obama about his “open disagreement” with the generals in Iraq about a timetable for withdrawal. In response, Obama tap-dances furiously: Given that Obama renounces any “rigid” adherence to a timetable, even though such “rigidity” was the key to his clinching the Democratic nomination, it’s hard to say what his current position is. The only thing »
Who is Leo Thorsness and why is he supporting John McCain?
When the McCain campaign invited me to meet with Leo Thorsness yesterday, I vaguely recalled him as a Vietnam veteran who had narrowly lost a 1974 Senate race to George McGovern in the toxic afermath of Watergate. That recollection proved accurate, but his record contains a few other items of interest. He is a native Minnesotan, having been born into a farm family near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and graduated from »
He’d Rather Lose A War Than An Election
Tonight Barack Obama told ABC News that, knowing what we know now–that the surge in Iraq has been a success, that it has drastically reduced violence and given Iraq a shot at a bright future–he would still oppose it: This was, I think, a moment of candor. To explain his seemingly-shocking response, Obama immediately referred to political considerations. Opposing the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq, even if that opposition turned »
Feeling protective
Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the West Bank town of Ramallah tomorrow. According to Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily, members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah’s military wing, will participate in protecting Obama during the visit, having been enlisted by the PA for that purpose. Klein points out that the “Brigades” is listed as a terror organization by the U.S. State Department. It took credit, along with the Islamic »
The Obamacon non-concept
The other day, I mentioned the “Obamacons,” both of them — Jeffrey Hart and Doug Kmiec. Today, I fear we must slash the membership roll. Reader Kent Dahlberg works in Hanover, New Hampshire where Professor Hart used to teach. He reports that during the New Hampshire primary, the one-time conservative icon supported John Edwards. I suppose that makes Hart an Edwards-con, assuming such a status is possible. But Dahlberg also »
Only in Minnesota
When, at my invitation, John and Scott assessed the Norm Coleman-Al Franken Senate race earlier this month, both seemed reasonably convinced that Coleman would prevail, and that sounded right to me. Now, CQ Politics has moved this race from “no clear favorite” to “leans Republican. It does so based on the fact that four of the last five polls show Coleman ahead of Franken – three of them by more »
Is this trial really necessary?
The trial of Osama bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, was set to begin today before a five-member military tribunal. At one level, this a victory for the government. Hamdan’s lawyers were trying to have the trial postponed so they could challenge the trial procedure. However, Judge Robertson, the liberal federal district court judge who heard argument on this issue, rejected Hamdan’s contention. He ruled that Hamdan’s “claims of »
War and Peace and the Democrats
The Examiner newspaper has launched a Sunday edition which features an expanded commentary section. My friend Mark Tapscott has asked me to write a column for that section. I’ll be rotating with three other commentators — Byron York, Michelle Bernard, and Sally Pipes, if I understand correctly. My first column — “War and Peace and the Democrats” — appeared yesterday It’s my attempt to connect Barack Obama’s shiftiness on the »
Advantage, Obama
Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki and Barack Obama share at least one thing in common – both have trouble settling on a position regarding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Obama’s inconsistency is well-documented, and so too, in recent days, is Maliki’s. His latest position, following a meeting with Obama, is that “We are hoping that in 2010 combat troops will withdraw from Iraq.” This, of course, is not Obama’s »
Busted!
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Americans have noticed that our media are trying to drag Barack Obama across the finish line in November. Rasmussen documents the trend: The idea that reporters are trying to help Obama win in November has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, taken just before the new controversy involving the Times erupted [Ed.: The Times’ »
The Futility of Hope…
…as an energy policy: the McCain campaign came out with this terrific ad today, blasting Obama for his adamant opposition to developing our domestic petroleum resources: The ad is running on broadcast TV in eleven swing states and on cable nationwide. They can’t run it often enough, as far as I’m concerned. To comment on this post, go here. »
Not Quite Good Enough for the New York Times
Last week the New York Times ran an op-ed by Barack Obama titled My Plan for Iraq. John McCain submitted an op-ed to the Times, responding to Obama, but the Drudge Report says the Times refused to print it: An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES — less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the »
Mark Falcoff: CBS serenades Chavez
Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute and the author, most recently, of Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy. He writes: I don’t normally watch CBS’s Sunday evening 60 Minutes show, but I happened to be at some friends’ house for a barbeque tonight and they had the TV on, so I managed to see part of the program. The segment I caught had to »
America: Who really pays the taxes? (revised edition)
Earlier this month Stephen Moore previewed the most recent (2006) IRS data on who really pays income taxes in a Wall Street Journal column that I wrote about here. John Hinderaker and I first wrote about the subject in “George Bush’s tax return” for National Review in 1994. Today the Journal returns with an editorial providing the updated data illustrated in the box above. To comment on this post go »
