Monthly Archives: September 2008

Obama’s dream Supreme Court Justice?

Over at Bench Memos, our friend Ed Whelan has started a series in which he considers some of the individuals who have been mentioned as prospective nominees to the Surpeme Court, should Barack Obama be elected. Ed begins with Harold Koh, dean of Yale law school. Koh is a self-described “judicial transnationalist.” Here is how Koh explains this philosophy: [The transnationalist] tends to follow an approach suggested by Justice Blackmun »

How Did He Do?

Well, I think. I don’t know how many open-minded people watched President Bush tonight, but most of those who did must have thought he made good sense. When the current crisis hit, my instinct was to support the bailout deal, out of necessity. Over the past few days, though, there has been little sign of the threatened credit freeze-up, and I’ve wondered whether the taxpayers are being stampeded into a »

Mahmoud’s Man

Hamas once endorsed Barack Obama in this year’s race, but withdrew their endorsement when Obama disappointed them. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, has no such reservations. Barack Obama is his man, as the Boston Globe reports: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad weighed in on the US presidential election today, noting that only one of the candidates supports restoring diplomatic contact with Iran. In response to a question from an American student about whether »

What the President Will Say Tonight

Scott Ott seems to have gotten his hands on an advance copy of President Bush’s speech. It’s powerful stuff; here are some excerpts: To sustain this shining city on a hill, we need to rescue the ignorant, irresponsible folks — from Wall Street to Capitol Hill to Main Street — who got us to where we are today. We must guarantee that no American suffers the soft bigotry of being »

Ancient History, Apparently

2003, that is, when the New York Times ran this article on proposed reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac: The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and »

Palin Paying Off

Now that the dust has settled following the close-to-unprecedented wave of abuse that the Democrats unleashed against Sarah Palin, how is John McCain’s selection standing up? Very well, it seems. Today’s Rasmussen Reports has the latest data: While 54% regard Palin favorably, 36% say their view is Very Favorable. But 42% see the Republican vice presidential candidate unfavorably, including 31% who rate their opinion of her as Very Unfavorable. [Joe] »

McCain “suspends” his campaign

John McCain has announced that he will suspend his campaign and return to Washington, D.C. to try to promote a legislative answer to the financial crisis. He has called on Barack Obama to do the same, and is also asking that Friday’s debate be postponed. I don’t know whether McCain’s input will make a difference in terms of passing legislation. I’m not even certain that I’d want it to. As »

Is the shape of the race “altered”

An ABC News/Washington Post poll has Barack Obama leading John McCain by a a 52-43 margin. Noting that this is Obama’s “first clear lead” during the campaign, the Post declares that the “shape of the race” is “altered.” But the Post may be overstating things. First, the tracking polls don’t show a substantial alteration. Rasmussen’s has Obama up by 2 points; Gallup’s has him up by 3. This is familiar »

In McClellan’s footsteps?

My friend Mac Owens is a former Marine infantry platoon leader in Vietnam and current professor at the Naval War College, where he is writing a history of American civil-military relations. He addresses Bob Woodward’s new book on the Bush administration in “Our generals almost cost us Iraq” in today’s Wall Street Journal. Mac concludes: Although the conventional narrative about the Iraq war is wrong, its persistence has contributed to »

McCain Goes Nuclear on the Times

We noted here that the McCain campaign called out the New York Times in a press conference, denying the Times’ legitimacy as a news organization and calling it what it is: a partisan arm of the Obama campaign. Today, McCain’s team amplified on that theme on its web site, in response to today’s attack on McCain by the Times. Strong words, truly spoken: Today the New York Times launched its »

The Man Who Never Was

In his column “The Man Who Never Was,” Tony Blankley captures the media’s collaboration with Barack Obama: [W]orse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting are the shocking gaps in Obama’s life that are not reported at all. The major media simply have not reported on Obama’s two years at New York’s Columbia University, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill »

America the Beautiful

Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of Ray Charles. It is exceedingly difficult to pay Charles the kind of tribute he deserves. As a relatively young man, he virtually invented soul music — the secularized gospel music that exploded into the mainstream of American popular music within a decade of Charles’s initial efforts. When Atlantic got around to issuing a three-disc boxed set of Charles’s 1950’s rhythm and blues »

What happens now, Part Two

As I continue to sort my way through the debate over financial bailout legislation, I am assisted by two papers from the Heritage Foundation. The first, by David John, argues in favor of (1) strict oversight over all the new RTC’s activities, (2) allowing the new RTC to exercise rights over purchased securities, as opposed to being a passive holder of them, (3) allowing it to hold the assets without »

How We Got Into This Mess

This report reprises in video form the account we posted here: Via Hot Air. To comment on this post, go here. »

The Anti-Ahmadinejad Rally, One Day Later

In the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick assesses the damage done by the Democrats’ refusal to allow Governor Sarah Palin to participate in what would have been a bipartisan condemnation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs’ regime in Iran. It’s a pretty long essay and should be read in its entirety; here are a few excerpts: American Jews have good reason to be ashamed and angry today. As Iran moves into »

Dems Throw In the Towel on Offshore Drilling

The Democrats apparently are abandoning their effort to renew the Congressional ban on drilling for oil on the outer continental shelf. Is that good news? It’s a stunning reversal from what was being reported just a day or two ago, and it can’t be bad. But whether expiration of the ban will lead to more energy development any time soon remains to be seen. Maybe they’re counting on their friends »

The latest from Virginia and Pennsylvania

If recent polls are to be believed, John McCain is struggling in Virginia. A Washington Post/ABC News poll has Obama leading 49-46. Survey USA has it 51-46 Obama. On the other hand, Rasmussen has McCain up 50-48. All three polls cover essentially the same period. I can’t speak for the Commonwealth as a whole, but in the Northern Virginia market McCain is taking a pounding from effective Obama attack ads. »