Monthly Archives: September 2010

An appeal to Yale alumni

A group of Yale alumni has put together an insurgent campaign on behalf of Michael Horowitz (’64L) for the next election of an Alumni Fellow to the Yale Corporation. The Yale alumni group has come together on the shared conviction that Horowitz’s election and service will enhance Yale’s financial viability and intellectual and political diversity. The campaign appears to have much in common with the campaigns that elected T.J. Rodgers, »

The Rat Pack of Evil Roasts Barack Obama

It’s hard to say which is more surreal: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s real-life appearance at the United Nations, or the genius of Iowahawk’s imagined Rat Pack of Evil All-Star International Celebrity Roast of President Barack Obama!. First, the reality: Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provoked yet another controversy Thursday saying a majority of people in the United States and around the world believe the American government staged the Sept. 11 terror attacks »

Preaching to the Choir

To us, the words “special relationship” generally refer to that between the U.S and Great Britain. But there is also a special relationship between the world’s Islamic countries and the United Nations. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is the most influential group within that body. There are any number of serious human rights issues in the world today, some of them involving mass murder on an industrial scale, »

Chris Christie in Tinseltown

Managing producer Gail Lubin of NJ.com writes to draw our attention to the appearance of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in Hollywood yesterday with Meg Whitman. In Hollywood Governor Christie had the opportunity to do his real-life action hero thing on behalf of Whitman as he hopped off the stage to confront heckler Ed Buck. Josh Margolin reports: True to his tough-guy persona, Gov. Chris Christie mixed it up today »

Mourning In America

This ad, produced by Citizens for the Republic, packs a punch. It recalls Ronald Reagan’s famous “Morning In America” ad, but in a minor key: Note to readers: We’re displaying this video in our Power Line video player, as a test; if it isn’t working for you, send us an email and let us know. »

Checkers

Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech took place 58 years ago today. Garry Wills devotes an outstanding chapter to the speech in Nixon Agonistes. Wills reminds us that just before Nixon was to deliver the speech live on television before a huge national audience, Tom Dewey had telephoned Nixon on behalf of Eisenhower and essentially ordered him to resign as the vice presidential candidate at the conclusion. Dewey: “Can I say you »

Thunder Road

Today Bruce Springsteen turns 61. He is an excellent songwriter and incredible live performer. For a long time now he has been tapping into his own vein of the Cosmic American Music. When I saw Springsteen in concert last year in St. Paul, I went with a bad attitude, wanting to dislike the show, but found it highly enjoyable most of the time and irresistible in several spots. He left »

Who’s hot?

According to a SurveyUSA poll of 572 likely voters in New York statewide races, Joe Dioguardi is essentially tied with Kirstin Gillibrand in the race to fill Hillary Clinton’s old seat for the final two years that remain in its term. The SurveyUSA poll results show Gillibrand with a one-point lead, 45-44 percent. Other poll results, such as those in the Cuomo-Paladino race for governor (49 to 40 percent) and »

Another Democrat’s Shameful Racism

Democrats are generally high-minded–can’t we all just get along?–until they are in danger of losing. Then the truth comes out. Loretta Sanchez is a liberal California Democrat who poses as a moderate. This year, she faces a strong challenge from Republican Van Tran. Sanchez’s polling must be turning negative, because she has launched–in Spanish–a racist attack against Van Tran and his supporters. Prepare to be disgusted as you see this »

House Republicans’ Pledge to America

Tomorrow, John Boehner and the House Republicans will unveil their “Pledge To America,” which is consciously modeled on the Contract With America that played a role in the GOP’s 1994 takeover of Congress. CBS News has obtained a draft of the document, which you can download here. So far, I have only had time to skim the Pledge. We will have more to say over the next few days, but »

More on the Buckley Rule

We have written several times about the Buckley Rule–in any election, one should support the most conservative viable candidate–in the context of Delaware’s Senate race. I am a little reluctant to wade back into that debate, but two recent contributions to the discussion are worth noting. Our friend Andy McCarthy disagreed with us and, I guess, with Buckley at the Corner this morning. (Or last night; his post was timed »

Who is Sheldon Berman?

In a post about the reaction of the Louisville (Jefferson County) school system to the 2007 Supreme Court decision striking down as unconstitutional its race-based assignment of children to schools, I mentioned Sheldon Berman, the school superintendent. Berman is attempting to maintain his idea of a proper racial balance in the classroom by implementing a complex assignment system that uses “socioeconomic” based assignments in concert with race-based ones to achieve »

American history for dummies, by dummies

Last week President Obama spoke to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The White House posted the text of his remarks here. The remarks reek of Obama’s characteristic demagogy. If he keeps it up, he may give politicians a bad name. Obama’s treatment of the Declaration of Independence and American history in the peroration of his speech has attracted attention. Here it is: Long before America was even an idea, this land »

Desperate times, cont’d

Daniel Lowenstein is the Director of the Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions at UCLA Law School. He writes to comment on Paul Mirengoff’s “Desperate times call for desperate name-calling.” Four reasons not to lose interest in House races: 1. The fat lady has not sung yet. 2. Even if the Republicans gain control of the House, the margin of control counts. A major reason Nancy Pelosi has »

Uncommon Knowledge with Harvey Mansfield

Last week we posted Peter Robinson’s interview with Harvey Mansfield. Given our format, the interview rotated off the site after a few days. We’ll have another installment of Uncommon Knowledge next week. In the meantime, here is the interview with Professor Mansfield, once more once, after a brief introduction. Harvey C. Mansfield is the William R. Kenan, Jr., professor of government at Harvard University, with which he has been affiliated »

Jumping Ship

News reports indicate that Democratic candidates across the country are distancing themselves from Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and above all the Obama administration. Votes against the Obama agenda are being trumpeted to voters, while Democrats who loyally supported their party’s voyage over the waterfall are asserting a newfound independence. Michael Ramirez depicts the Democrats’ abandonment of their putative leader with characteristic brilliance; click to enlarge: »

The Central Issue of Our Time: Federal Spending

Federal spending has gone insane, bursting all historical bounds, since the Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007. Our friend and technical adviser Joe Malchow forwarded a link to the site Political Calculations, which posed this question: If you were asked to produce a single chart illustrating the biggest single political issue in America today, what would it look like? And produced this chart, which plots total federal spending »