Monthly Archives: May 2006

May 23, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

Myth and meaning

Peter Wehner, deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House’s Office of Strategic Initiatives, sucessfully takes on four myths about the war in Iraq. The myths are (1) the president misled Americans to convince them to go to war, (2) the Bush administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments, (3) because weapons of mass destruction stockpiles weren’t found, Saddam posed no threat, and (4) promoting democracy »
May 23, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Top secret

In his Washington Post article on possible leak-related prosecution of New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, Walter Pincus refers to a comment by Attorney General Gonzales: On the talk show, when asked if journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information, Gonzales responded, “There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility.” He »
May 23, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Lessons in gatekeeping

Nick Coleman is the long-time metro columnist of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. However, as we’ve noted previously, what he lacks in accuracy and subtlety, he also lacks in class. Steve Marsh is the associate editor of Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine and only the latest Coleman reader to elicit email correspondence demonstrating the point: “The Annotated Nick Coleman Feud (Unabridged).” Rated PG-13 (language). »
May 23, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Juan whiffs

Yesterday we noted Joel Mowbray’s Washington Times “Hatchet man or scholar?” column on the posted pensées of prospective Yale professor Juan Cole. Cole has now posted the most elliptical of responses to Mowbray’s piece, a response that neither mentions Mowbray’s name nor acknowledges Mowbray’s column. Nevertheless, even though he claims he is above responding to criticism such as Mowbray’s, Cole took a whack at Mowbray’s column. As he has under »
May 22, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

An inconvenient blog

Our friend Pat Cleary at the National Association of Manufacturers was astonished to find his Shop Floor blog included in the links provided by Al Gore’s blog, which touts his new film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Pat devotes a section of his blog to debunking arguments by the likes of Gore about global warming. Was the inventor of the internet trying to be fair and balanced? Pat doubts »
May 22, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

The “crux” — another look

My take on this morning’s Washington Post story, “Elections Are Crux Of GOP’s Strategy,” differs a bit from John’s. I focused on the subtitle, “Bush Aides Look to Midterm Vote as Way to Reverse Slide.” That’s an odd notion. Normally a party does well in an election because its leader is popular; the leader does not become popular because his party does well in an election. Yet there is some »
May 22, 2006 — John Hinderaker

Amir Taheri Explains

Over the weekend, we noted the alarming report, originating with Canada’s National Post, that the Iranian Majlis had adopted legislation that 1) prescribed the (boring) clothing to be worn by Muslims, and 2) required non-Muslims–Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews–to wear color-coded badges. We also commented, on Sunday, on the Associated Press story that attempted to debunk the report by quoting, in succession, three Iranian spokesmen. Finally, on Sunday we noted that »
May 22, 2006 — John Hinderaker

Hunting the Taliban

The Associated Press reports on a successful air strike against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan: U.S. warplanes hunting Taliban fighters bombed a religious school and mud-brick homes in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing dozens of suspected militants and 17 civilians in one of the deadliest strikes since the American-led invasion in 2001. Taliban violence escalates each spring in Afghanistan with snow melting on mountain passes. But the scale of the assaults »
May 22, 2006 — John Hinderaker

PoliPundit’s Loss

…is Wizbang’s gain. Lorie Byrd, as we noted a few days ago, has left PoliPundit; today the Wizbang folks let us know that she has joined them. Congratulations all around. Some have been saying, lately, that the group blog is the wave of the future. Maybe, although I don’t think it works well if the voices are too numerous or too heterogenous. Speaking for us, though, it’s the only way »
May 22, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

Showdown?

Jed Babbin is concerned about China’s ability to leverage the anti-Americanism of Cuba and Venezuela to its advantage in its quest to tie up world oil supplies. And he is particularly worried that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and his new Chinese and Iranian allies may attempt to use oil as a weapon against us, as the Saudis did in 1973 with the oil embargo. More generally, Babbin believes that China continues »
May 22, 2006 — Paul Mirengoff

Confucius say

Don’t miss Mark Steyn’s column on immigration. Like Confucius, Steyn believes that “characters” (that is, words) matter. Accordingly, he offers the following words of wisdom: This is not an “immigration” issue. “Immigration” is when you go into a U.S. government office and there’s 100 people filling in paperwork to live in America, and there are a couple of Slovaks, couple of Bangladeshis, couple of New Zealanders, couple of Botswanans, couple »
May 22, 2006 — Scott Johnson

Live from New Haven

This morning I’m attending the Yale University graduation ceremony in which the daughter formerly known as Little Trunk is included. Yesterday at Yale College’s traditional Class Day ceremony for the graduating seniors, CNN’s Anderson Cooper (Yale ’89) was the featured speaker. To say he exceeded expectations understates matters considerably. He was funny, engaging and mercifully free of cliches. A genuine surprise. Not a surprise to readers of this site, on »
May 22, 2006 — John Hinderaker

“Elections Are Crux Of GOP’s Strategy”

That’s the seemingly self-evident title of the Washington Post’s analysis of the Bush administration’s political position, and preview of November’s elections. On reflection, though, the title may not be as silly as it sounds. One would think that electoral victory is the chief, if not sole, object of any political party. Yet it sometimes seems as if the Democrats are pursuing some other agenda, as they dominate Hollywood, Washington and »
May 21, 2006 — John Hinderaker

Blog of the Week: Fraters Libertas

This week’s Blog of the Week is Fraters Libertas, a group blog by a bunch of paleocons who live, or used to, in St. Paul. I do the Northern Alliance radio show with St. Paul (“Brian Ward”) and Chad the Elder, who is, in fact, the elder brother (the “Fraters” reference) of J.B. Doubtless. The fourth Fraters poster is the Atomizer, a part-time call screener. The Fraters guys are humorists, »
May 21, 2006 — John Hinderaker

Don’t Quit When You’re Ahead

William Shawcross, England’s most notable journalist, has an article in today’s London Times titled “It’s no time to quit Iraq — we’re winning.” Shawcross reports from Basra; you should read it all, but here is his conclusion: Even those who were opposed to the invasion of Iraq should recognise that this is a whole new battle — between the values of a liberal civil society and nihilism, sometimes Islamic but »
May 21, 2006 — John Hinderaker

USS New York

This is a terrific story that for some reason I hadn’t heard about: “Warship built out of Twin Towers wreckage”: [A] ship has begun to rise from the ashes of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Bringing together America’s two great calamities of the 21st century, the USS New York is being built in New Orleans with 24 tonnes of steel taken from the collapsed World Trade Centre. [T]he girders taken »
May 21, 2006 — John Hinderaker

So Much for the “Culture of Corruption”

The Democrats will be needing a new campaign theme: A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer. At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the »