Monthly Archives: September 2009

An instructive contrast

“Watching the UN watch Ahmadinejad,” writes Victor Davis Hanson, “I was reminded of Europe circa July 1941.” So was I, especially in the context of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Churchillian speech yesterday. Upon the death of Churchill in January 1965, the political philosopher Leo Strauss reflected in class on Churchill’s ascension to the office of Prime Minister in May 1940: The tyrant stood at the pinnacle of his power. The contrast between »

Barack Obama — too foolish even for the Washington Post

There’s little the Washington Post news staff won’t do to shill for President Obama, but his speech yesterday to the U.N. proved that even the Post has its limits. Reporters Dan Balz and Michael Shear leave it late, until most readers have no doubt stopped reading, before offering this gem of an understatement about the prospects for the rest of the world heeding Obama’s abject appeal for “global cooperation”: Part »

How Coarse Can You Get?

Walter Mondale laments the “coarse” tone of contemporary political discourse. He would have a point if he was talking about this. But that, of course, was not the sort of “coarseness” he had in mind. He meant disagreement with President Obama on health care, which, like his old boss Jimmy Carter, he considers “racist.” There are men in American politics more contemptible than Walter Mondale–Carter, for one–but the list has »

Netanuyahu to UN: “Have you no shame?”

The Wall Street Journal report on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly today caught my attention: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a blistering attack on the floor of the United Nations Thursday on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying the hearing granted the Iranian president the night before amounted to a “disgrace of the U.N. charter.” Mr. Netanyahu dramatically held up copies of minutes of the meeting of »

A blow to the special relationship

We have noted Obama’s gestures intended to insult Great Britain and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on several occasions. Now Telegraph leader writer David Hughes plaintively notes: The juxtaposition on our front page this morning is striking. We carry a photograph of Acting Sgt Michael Lockett – who was killed in Helmand on Monday – receiving the Military Cross from the Queen in June, 2008. He was the 217th British »

A blow to Mr. Deeds

Politico reports that former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder, the state’s first and only black governor, has declined to endorse Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds. Wilder withheld his endorsement even after President Obama intervened on Deeds’ behalf through a telephone call. I don’t know just how important Wilder’s endorsement is these days, but it must be consequential; otherwise Obama would not have become involved. For its part, Politico describes Wilder’s decision as »

All he is saying

There is much that is objectionable, offensive and off-base in President Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday. The United States was a pretty sorry place before he became president eight months ago, but he is delivering a remarkable messianic redemption. He is redeeming the United States and he has come to redeem the world. Like Jesus, he is conscious of his divinity and aware of his mission. »

Obama takes the supplication of America to a disgusting new level

Conservative commentary on President Obama’s U.N. speech has correctly taken note of the extent to which Obama once again has apologized for America. What struck me as new, though, was extent to which he begged his audience to award the U.S. brownie points for his good acts. The one form of supplication follows from the other. Obama isn’t just saying that the U.S. has been a bad boy in the »

Obama’s sophomorically utopian oration

Earlier today, I was mildly critical of the suggestion that President Obama is our worst president ever when it comes to foreign policy. I noted, however, that Obama certainly has the potential to earn that distinction. Today, that potential was fully on display before the assembled thugs and hypocrites that make up the U.N. General Assembly. At the risk of offending my own prejudice against categorical assertions of “worst president” »

Castro to Obama, right on

President Obama has received high marks from Fidel Castro for his U.N. speech. Castro was impressed by Obama’s admission of past errors by the U.S. with respect to climate change issues. “It would only be fair to recognize that no other United States president would have had the courage to say what he said,” Castro gushed. Castro is wrong. Modern Democratic presidents are quite prone to admit errors, real and »

Worst foreign policy ever?

A Washington Times editorial makes the case that Obama administration foreign policy is the worst foreign policy ever. It’s an impressive indictment, and I happen to agree with it. Making the necessary changes, American foreign policy in the Age of Obama is what it would be if Alger Hiss or Advise and Consent‘s Robert Leffingwell were president. Michael Barone appropriately finds Obama caught in a time warp. Stephen Hayes recites »

Barack Yasser Obama?

Yasser Arafat was known for giving very different speeches, depending on his audience. In English, he was able to fool enough people to win (disgracefully) a Nobel Peace Prize. In Arabic, he said what he really thought, and not much of it ever got translated. I wouldn’t put President Obama in the same category as a two-faced politician, but this is a striking example of the same phenomenon: It was »

Quittin’ time

My only regret about not being a “joiner” is that I don’t have many opportunities to quit organizations. I am a member of AARP, though, and this is looking like the perfect time to quit. House Republicans have issued a report providing evidence that AARP is in a position to receive tens of millions of dollars in “kickbacks” if Democratic health care legislation becomes law. Phillip Klein explains: President Obama »

Putting the secretary back into the secretary of state

Hillary Clinton may not be much of a Secretary of State, but she’s an aggressive, if not always astute, self-publicist. For example, the more obscure her assignments become, the more puff pieces seem to appear lauding her for transforming the Secretary of State position. Then there’s this piece by Laura Rozen in Politico that called “Clinton ready to be deployed to Middle East if needed.” I’m sure she is. But »

The Road of Appeasement

This television commercial began to run today, although perhaps in edited form. It puts America’s current foreign policy into the historical context of appeasement, in a simple and effective way: »

Joel Mowbray: The sum of all Fears

Our old friend Joel Mowbray ([email protected]) has been doing his own legwork on the story of the drive-by mugging of James O’Keefe by the Washington Post’s Darryl Fears. Joel writes: As Scott Johnson has already noted here and here, the Washington Post attributed a doozy of a statement to ACORN arch-nemesis James O’Keefe, claiming that “he said he targeted ACORN for the same reasons that the political right does: its »

A fool’s errand foolishly run

Eli Lake reports in the Washington Times that Israel has secretly agreed to a partial freeze of settlement construction for six to nine months. The freeze is only partial because Israel would build more than 2,500 new housing units that have already been approved and because East Jerusalem would be exempt. Building 2,500 plus new housing units is not a bad six to nine months work. Clearly, then, President Obama’s »