Monthly Archives: January 2010

The Yemen connection

The abbreviated interrogation of Christmas day bomber Umar Abdulmutallab brought to light his training by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Abdulmutallab’s interrogation should have continued until he gave up all useful information in his possession regarding the outfit and its plans. Unfortunately, however, the Obama administration saw fit to read him Miranda warnings, provide him a lawyer and let him exercise his putative right to remain silent. He is »

A good walk spoiled

A friend, and better man than I am, attended a noon rally here in Washington, DC that was intended to be a show of support for lefty health care reform. He filed this report on what appears to have been a rather pathetic event: Last night my office phone received a “robo” call placed on behalf of “Health Care for America Now!,” urging me to join an “emergency health care »

The plot thickens in Indiana, Part Two

Red State reports that Congressman Mike Pence will not run for the Senate this year. I had heard over the weekend that the Bayh camp believed Pence would probably not challenge their guy. It’s sensible for Pence not to, given his status in the House and the prospect of a Republican takeover of the body before too long. However, Bayh remains in trouble. He’s up in the latest Rasmussen poll »

A modified, limited course correction, Part Three

President Obama is expected to propose “a three-year freeze on federal funding that is not related to national security.” He will unveil this proposal tomorrow night in his State of the Union address. The “freeze” appears to be something of a phony. According to the Washington Post, it would not apply to “entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” “would not restrain funding for the $787 billion economic »

Graham Road memories

This morning, President Obama spoke to 6th grade students at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia. The story resonated with me because I did the same thing every week for five winters in the early 1980s, when I coached 11 and 12 year old boys in the Falls Church Rec league (five winning seasons includng one undefeated one). We held our practices at Graham Road, but usually played »

The plot thickens in Indiana

A new Rasmussen poll has Indiana’s Demoratic Senator Evan Bayh trailing Republican Congressman Mike Pence by a 47-44 margin. It’s far from clear, however, that Pence will run for the seat; indeed, I’ve been told that Bayh’s camp believes he won’t. Pence stands to be a huge player in the House if the Republicans gain control of that body, so a risky run at becoming a freshman Senator may not »

A “modified, limited” course correction, Part Two

Over the weekend, the White House reversed its position on the proposal of Senators Conrad and Gregg to create a bipartisan commission to examine taxes and spending. Initially, President Obama favored a watered-down commission with a higher proportion of Democrats and less authority than the one proposed by Conrad and Gregg. Now, however, he is on board with the Conrad-Gregg proposal. It’s not clear that, even with Obama’s support, Congress »

A mistake that can be rectified, part 5

Jennifer Rubin notes that those of us urging the Obama administration to rectify the treatment of Umar Abdulmutallab as a criminal vested with the constitutional rights of an American citizen are now in good company: Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins have written a letter today to Attorney General Eric Holder and counterterrorism adviser John Brennan urging them to designate Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, as an “unprivileged »

The difference is “me”

Rep. Marion Berry, an Arkansas Democrat, has decided not to seek re-election. Berry told ABC News that he fears a repeat of the 1994 midterm elections. According to Berry, the White House does not share this concern: “They just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up »

A “modified, limited” course correction

President Obama’s approach to Republicans has been straightforward — exclude them from the policy formulation process and then attack them as the party of “no” when they oppose the policies formulated without any Republican input. The strategy simultaneously marginalizes Republicans and presents the prospect of further marginalization if the policies they oppose prove to be popular in their own right or become associated in the public’s mind with administration successes. »

Should he stay or should he go

After Republicans triumphed in the 1994 congressional elections, Peter Jennings declared:: Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage [Jennings meant the rage of a two-year old]. The voters had a temper tantrum last week. This past week, things were somewhat different. The voters of Massachusetts calmly elected an attractive centrist candidate and the president of the United States had a temper tantrum. President Obama’s tantrum consisted mostly of telling »

A mistake that can be rectified, part 4

The Washington Post supported the Obama administration’s treatment of Christmas day bomber Umar Abdulmuttalab as a criminal rather than as an enemy combatant. In an editorial published yesterday, It has nevertheless retracted its support. The Post writes that it “originally supported the administration’s decision in the Abdulmutallab case, assuming that it had been made after due consideration. But the decision to try Mr. Abdulmutallab turns out to have resulted not »

Too bad to be true?

Scott has written about the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas-day bomber, was interrogated by the FBI instead of the “High Value Detainee Interrogation Group.” The creation of this Group — the HIG — was announced with some fanfare a year ago by President Obama who, having shut down the CIA’s terrorist interrogation program, hoped to the counter the impression that he wasn’t serious about protecting America. Dennis »

America Rising, Part II

Earlier this month, we posted this video, called America Rising. As I noted then, it doesn’t exactly represent our point of view, since we never fell for Obama’s “hope and change” shtick, but it’s powerful nonetheless: Since then, it has become a phenomenon–not so much on the web as via email. Email is the underside of the internet; it is amazing how widely some videos, cartoons, anecdotes, etc. are disseminated, »

Alive and Well

I hope some readers have noticed that I haven’t posted in over a week. I haven’t been run over by a bus or fallen off the edge of the earth; I’m trying a case, which is almost the same thing. I’ll be done in a week and will be able to catch up with the news. In the meantime, traffic has been great–maybe Scott and Paul will try to persuade »

Clearing my spindle

I’ve been saving a number of items to write about that I want to present for your information without further comment. In one way or another, they are interesting and informative. The people of Israel display adherence to the commandment to repair the world. Out of their own trials with terrorism they have become world leaders in rescue missions and emergency medicine. They rightly take pride in the IDF’s mission »

A mistake that can be rectified, part 3

The administration’s absurd mistake in treating Umar Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant can be rectified. In order to do it, the administration has to give up its “the dove that dare not speak its name” to national security issues. It can and must treat enemy combatants as such rather than as citizens entitled to the constitutional protections of Americans. The Obama administration’s policy is indefensible. But it has not been »