Monthly Archives: November 2012

Dartmouth’s new president

Featured image Yesterday, Dartmouth announced that Phillip J. Hanlon, Provost at the University of Michigan, will be the College’s new President. Hanlon is a member of the Dartmouth class of 1977. In addition to his administrative responsibilities at Michigan, he is a distinguished professor of mathematics. Joe Asch, my go-to person on Dartmouth matters now that my daughter has graduated, says he’s “thrilled” with the selection of Hanlon and considers it a »

Israel responds to the U.N.’s Palestinian upgrade (Updated)

Featured image Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, recently said that the day after Palestine gains recognition as a nonmember state at the United Nations, “Life will not be the same.” Erekat was right. The New York Times reports: As the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade the Palestinians’ status Thursday night, Israel took steps toward building housing in a controversial area of East Jerusalem known as E1, where Jewish »

Beyond the Green Weenie

Featured image The Green Weenie Award is troublesome this week, because some kinds of environmental wackiness descend into a realm so sordid that it deserves something a lot worse than a Green Weenie.  Like a jail sentence, for example. The news media has always covered eco-terrorism as weakly as possible.  The usual asymmetry can be observed.  While every time an abortion clinic is bombed or vandalized, or an abortion doctor murdered, the »

Inside Mitt Romney’s polling numbers

Featured image I doubt that many of our readers want to look back at the election; more likely they have gotten beyond that defeat, as November draws to a close. But a few may find it worthwhile to read this piece by Noam Scheiber about Romney’s internal polling numbers. The Romney campaign’s polls, taken during the final weekend of the campaign, showed him pulling away in North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida, and »

“Behind the Music” of The Claremont Institute—An Exclusive Memoir and Preview

Featured image Today (Churchill’s birthday, by no coincidence) our long-time friends at the Claremont Institute are launching a new video project entitled “The American Mind,” hosted by Charles R. Kesler, editor of the Institute’s indispensible journal, the Claremont Review of Books.  The Institute kindly gave Power Line a preview and first crack at announcing its launch. Is this just another think tank video venture?  On the surface, it appears the answer would »

Annals of Government Medicine

Featured image The Daily Mail reports on a worthy addition to our annals series: Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial “death pathways.” Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults. But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young »

Meet the new nonmember observer state

Featured image The United Nations General Assembly voted 138-9 (with 41 abstentions) on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations. The New York Times story is here; the Washington Post story is here. The UN has posted an announcement here. From its new perch the Palestinian Authority will have a few more tools to harass the legitimate government of Israel, but you can see why UN »

Obama to Republicans: my offer is this, nothing

Featured image Tim Geithner presented John Boehner with the Obama plan for averting the “fiscal cliff.” According to the New York Times, Obama’s plan calls for $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, $50 billion in immediate stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing, and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits. President Obama would also agree to a goal of finding $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other »

Susan Rice continues to “disappoint”

Featured image Susan Collins met with Susan Rice today. Rice was hoping, no doubt, to make a better impression on the Maine moderate than she did earlier this week on John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte. If Rice succeeded, she did so only marginally. Collins said afterwards that the meeting left her with a sense of disappointment with Rice. She added that she is not ready at this point to support »

The Fiscal Cliff Compromise

Featured image Michael Ramirez foresees the “compromise” that will emerge from the secret talks between Barack Obama and John Boehner: The compromise will be a balanced approach, too; Republicans will be balanced on the precipice. »

Al Sharpton, deadbeat

Featured image The Washington Post reports that Al Sharpton’s group, the National Action Network, owes its landlord more than $28,000, according to the landlord. This amount includes seven months of unpaid rent. A spokesperson for Sharpton denied that his organization is in arrears. It ­e-mailed the Post a copy of a check the group has written out to the landlord for $16,950. But the landlord says it has not received the check »

How Secret Negotiations Play Into the Democrats’ Hands

Featured image So now John Boehner is angry that the White House leaked a one-sided version of his latest conversation with President Obama to the press: Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Republican leaders are fuming after a late night phone call with President Barack Obama was leaked to the press, despite an agreement that it would not be, according to several GOP aides. As if this should come as a »

Secret Negotiations: A Path to Disaster

Featured image Reports from Washington indicate that John Boehner and Barack Obama are negotiating the nation’s fiscal future under the cover of darkness. Boehner apparently reports to his House Republican caucus from time to time, and Mitch McConnell might have some idea what is going on, but no Republican other than Boehner seems to be playing a significant role. Washington Republicans who are most knowledgeable about the budget are apparently being shut »

Yes, They Are Too Socialists

Featured image Democrats and liberals always bristle when you throw the “S-word” (socialism) at them, but have a look at the table below from a new Gallup poll released today: more than half (53%) of Democrats or Democrat-leaners say they have a positive attitude toward socialism.   But I think the more striking number here is the line just above it: 75 percent of Democrats have a positive image of the federal government »

Who won, Hamas or Israel?

Featured image I’m a fan of Lee Smith. However, I was not persuaded by his argument that Israel won and Hamas lost their latest confrontation. Smith acknowledges that Hamas claims victory and that many Israelis concur with Hamas on this point. In fact, initial opinion polling showed a majority of Israelis dissatisfied with the outcome of the confrontation. But Smith contends that both sides have it wrong. Hamas’ proclamation of victory should »

Christmas Books and the Education of Statesmen

Featured image I’m working up toward a Christmas book gift list for the Claremont Review in a few more days, and the process has made me press ahead further into Jean Yarbrough’s indispensable new book, mentioned here previously, Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition.  There are lots of TR books out there—some of them even pretty good, though most are not that good on the question of exploring and untangling his »

The reviews are in — appeal immediately

Featured image The AP plays this straight down the line, but the dateline should be Absurdistan: An Egyptian court convicted in absentia Wednesday seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor, sentencing them to death on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that had sparked riots in parts of the Muslim world. The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are »