Monthly Archives: April 2006

April 25, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Senator Frist speaks

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist squeezed me into his schedule for a 15-minute interview this morning; I stretched it to 30 minutes while his staff desperately tried to reach him and get him off the phone. Following the interview, the senator’s assistant emailed me his media schedule this morning: 7:07 am – 7:15 am ABC Good Morning America 7:18 am – 7:28 am Fox News Fox and Friends 7:30 am »
April 25, 2006 — John Hinderaker

Today’s Videos

Michelle Malkin has another terrific Hot Air segment with commentary on Mary McCarthy, immigration policy and more. At Power Line Video, in addition to the Zarqawi video discussed below, check out this report on Secretary Rice’s trip to Greece, which includes some remarkable footage of demonstrators in Athens confronting policemen. »
April 25, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Looking for a few good fellows

Our friends at the Claremont Institute are inviting applications for their annual Lincoln Fellowship program. As its name implies, the Lincoln Fellowship Program places special emphasis on the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln and features several of the finest teachers of politics in the United States including Professors Charles Kesler, Tom West, Ed Erler and John Marini. The program seeks to promote an understanding of the moral basis of law, exemplified »
April 25, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

Professor of venom

As Scott and the daughter formerly known as Little Trunk have reported, Yale is considering whether to hire the rabid leftist and Israel hater Juan Cole for a tenured position to teach about the Middle East. One can argue that the possible hiring of Cole raises a conundrum. As Stanley Kurtz notes, Cole fits well within the mainstream of current American Middle East studies; indeed, he’s been honored as one »
April 25, 2006 — John Hinderaker

If You Don’t Read Anything Else Today…

…read Blog of the Week Thomas Joscelyn’s superb discussion of the Clinton administration’s 1998 attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant named al-Shifa, and its ongoing relevance to debates over intelligence and the connections between Iraq and al Qaeda. Joscelyn notes along the way that recent coverage of al-Shifa by the New York Times has been “ridiculous,” and sets out ten basic facts about the 1998 bombing. Here are just a »
April 25, 2006 — Scott Johnson

That’s the spirit!

Star Tribune deputy editorial page editor Eric Ringham picked up the fine column by our friend Joey Tartakovsky adapted from the current issue of the Claremont Review of Books and published in the Los Angeles Times a week ago Sunday: “For the love of vodka.” This morning Joey wrote to ask if we had wielded our vast influence with the Star Tribune to place his piece. Do I have to »
April 25, 2006 — John Hinderaker

Zarqawi Video

You can watch the entire Zarqawi video, in a high-quality format and in the form in which it was released by al Qaeda, at Power Line News. Zarqawi actaully begins a few minutes into the video; it starts with some general al Qaeda propaganda, which is also interspersed later. Clips include bin Laden and damage done by the recent bombings in Egypt. There is no translation yet, so comments by »
April 25, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

Price gouging defined

Pat Cleary takes a clear-headed look at the increase in gasoline prices. He argues that the causes of the increases we are experiencing are not mysterious, and that there is no need to posit “price-gouging” as an explanation. But if we’re going to blame price-gouging, we’ll need a definition. My friend Craig Harrison offers this two-parter: Price Gouging. Price Gouging is defined to be any profit made by a company »
April 25, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

Old Clinton generals don’t fade away

Jed Babbin, a former deputy under-secretary of defense, puts the criticism of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld by Bill Clinton’s generals into perspective. Neither Gen. Shinseki nor Gen. Zinni comes across looking nearly as good as the administration’s enemies in the MSM portray them. But the real point is that Rumsfeld has done what President Bush wanted him to do — shake up the Pentagon, move our military away from the Cold »
April 25, 2006 — John Hinderaker

The Sinai Bombings: Who’s Responsible?

Blog of the Week »
April 25, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Gill country

I’ve seen country artist Vince Gill in concert three times at the Minnesota State Fair and been astounded each time. He is an awesomely talented singer, songwriter and guitarist who puts on a completely crowd-pleasing show. So it was especially gratifying to see that Gill places the recordings of artists whom I’ve written about here a time or ten — Emmylou Harris, Ray Charles, Hank Williams and Buck Owens — »
April 25, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Senator Frist speaks

Bill Frist sat down for a 30-minute unrecorded on-the-record telephone interview with me this morning. I don’t have time to do it justice before I have to leave for work, but I will be back with an account this evening. Thanks to Senator Frist and the folks at Volpac for squeezing me into his schedule this morning. »
April 25, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Leaking at all costs

Yesterday Rush Limbaugh recalled John’s Standard column of this past November: “Leaking at all costs.” It’s time for another another look. The column opens: THE CIA’S WAR against the Bush administration is one of the great untold stories of the past three years. It is, perhaps, the agency’s most successful covert action of recent times. The CIA has used its budget to fund criticism of the administration by former Democratic »
April 25, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Sparkle

Kathleen McKinley is the proprietor of Rightwingsparkle. She writes that the Houston Chronicle has asked her to be its conservative blogger. She has accordingly also set up shop as TexasSparkle. Kathy’s introduction of herself to Chronicle readers concludes: I am a person of deep faith. I have spent most of my adult life in volunteer work, helping in the community, raising good kids and teaching them to care for others. »
April 25, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

The nanny State Department

Washington Time columnist Suzanne Fields invokes Polonius, the fatherly old bore in “Hamlet,” to ridicule Karen Hughes’s efforts to educate American tourists about how to act abroad. In effect, Hughes has taken the wrong question, “why do they hate us?” and provided an absurd answer in embarrassingly trite language. As Fields puts it, this is Polonius with a tin ear. »
April 25, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

An evening with Mitt Romney

Tonight I had the privilege of attending a dinner with Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and two or three dozen journalist types. Romney’s statements were off the record but I can report the following three impressions: (1) in many ways, Romney would be an exceedingly attractive presidential candidate, (2) Romney is an instinctive problem solver and an instinctive conservative; most of the time the two sets of instincts won’t collide, but »
April 24, 2006 — John Hinderaker

It Might Not Be Smoking, But It’s Getting Awfully Warm

The invaluable Joseph Shahda–jveritas at Free Republic, whose translations of Project Harmony documents we have linked to on several occasions–has translated several documents relating to apparent efforts by Iraq to restart its nuclear weapons program in 2001 and 2002. I say “apparent,” because I don’t know what a “simulation reactor” is, and can’t vouch for some of Shahda’s interpretations of the documents. Here is Shahda’s introduction to his translations: This »