Monthly Archives: November 2007

November 20, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Imams still flying

It’s hard to imagine a less meritorious suit than the discrimination charge brought by the six flying imams against U.S. Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission in federal court in Minneapolis. The lawsuit is a CAIR production. Having spoken at the imams’ convention that brought the imams to town, Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison is off in the wings. The lawsuit has all the earmarks of a set-up. It »
November 20, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Blaming America first for European fecklessness

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post has written a bizarre column in which she blames the Iraq war for the fact that Europe has not caused Iran to forgo the development of nuclear weapons. Her thesis is that, because of incorrect assessments by the U.S. of Iraq’s WMD program and the resulting “shadow over our competence,” Europeans don’t believe our claim that Iran is developing nukes. Thus, they don’t attempt »
November 20, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

The crucible

For the past two or three years, as I liberal commentators have complained that the war in Iraq is “breaking” our army, I’ve wondered whether the war isn’t producing an offsetting advantage — the experience and knowledge our troops and their commanders are obtaining. The U.S., of course, would never fight a war for that reason, and even the most rabid left-wing conspiracy theorists have not suggested (to my knowledge) »
November 20, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Clinton in trouble in Iowa

The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll from Iowa has Barack Obama leading a tight race with 30 percent of likely caucus-goers supporting him. Hillary Clinton is second with 26 percent, followed by John Edwards with 22 percent. Things may actually be worse for Clinton than these numbers suggest. According to the poll, a disproportionately large number of Clinton supporters have never participated in a caucus. On its face, this suggests »
November 20, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Norman Podhoretz crosses the Daily Ditch

Andrew Sullivan has become such a crude polemicist that he long ago ceased to be worth reading. Sullivan now challenges the authenticity of an Ayatollah Khomeni quotation cited by Norman Podhoretz in “The case for bombing Iran” and in World War IV and congratulates himself for his willingness to concede an error when he makes one, “however innocently.” We documented a good example of Sullivan’s peculiar relationship to factuality as »
November 19, 2007 — John Hinderaker

RealClear Sports

Our friends at RealClear Politics have been holding out on us: not content with being political pundits, they’ve been scheming to expand into the sports world with a new site called RealClear Sports. It looks like a great site, but I can see already that it’s going to be controversial. For example, they’re featuring an article titled “Brady’s The Best Who Ever Played.” That’s presumably aimed at an audience that »
November 19, 2007 — John Hinderaker

The AP Reports on Itself

We wrote here and elsewhere about Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi stringer who has taken many photographs for the Associated Press, some of which are in evident collaboration with Iraqi terrorists. Hussein has been held for 19 months in Iraq after being captured in the company of two terrorists. Now, the AP reports that new evidence has emerged against Hussein, on the basis of which a criminal case is likely to »
November 19, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Undecided in New Hampshire

When I traveled with the McCain campaign in New Hampshire earlier this month, it seemed to me that an awful lot of voters hadn’t made up their mind. Now, a brand new CNN poll confirms this impression. It finds that only 14 percent of Republican voters in New Hampshire have made a definite decision. . Apparently, New Hampshire Republicans have been more successful in identifying candidates for whom they will »
November 19, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Reality trumps public opinion

In a front page story in today’s Washington Post, Peter Baker acknowledges that although the Bush administration is making advances in Iraq and elsewhere, the president’s approval ratings have not improved appreciably. I don’t think there’s much of a mystery here. Most people believe one or both of these two propositions: (1) we shouldn’t have gone to war in Iraq and (2) the administration badly mishandled the war for at »
November 19, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Giving thanks to our troops

The America Supports You program is promoting a national expression of thanks to our military men and women during the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Americans can text a message of thanks to 89-279 (TX ASY) until midnight PDT on Thursday, November 22. The program started on Saturday, and more than 43,000 messages of thanks have already been sent. All major mobile wireless providers »
November 19, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Is Stanford violating the Solomon Amendment? Part Two

On Friday, I suggested that Stanford Law School may be violating the Solomon Amendment by discouraging its students from attending on-campus interviews with military recruiters. My post was based on reports from Stanford law students. They told me that when a student signs up for an interview with the JAG Corps, the career services office proceeds to “gauge” that student’s interest. As part of this process, the student is sent »
November 19, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Rachel Paulose: An Update

My friend Rachel Paulose has announced her resignation from the position of United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota to accept a position of high responsibility and honor in the Department of Justice as Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy (who is also chief of staff to Attorney General Mukasey). Regular readers of this site know that I have written at great length about my high »
November 19, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Path to victory

Our friends at the Claremont Institute conferred the institute’s Winston S. Churchill Statesmanship Award on former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld this past Saturday night. NRO has posted Secretary Rumsfeld’s speech as “Path to victory.” In today’s New York Sun, Eli Lake interviews Secretary Rumsfeld in conjunction with the award. »
November 19, 2007 — Scott Johnson

The noose from MCTC

Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten goes in search of an adult at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. She finds one — an impressive young man who is pursuing his education after three tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine — but she also finds him to be a victim of the politically correct mob at the school. Her column is “Noose outcry is new entry in the campus hall »
November 19, 2007 — Scott Johnson

William Katz: Editor, edit thyself, part 2

Before taking up the question of what the mainstream media must do to win back the confidence of the American people, Bill Katz’s most recent post for us returned to the the subject of the Tonight Show. Bill’s first two contributions to Power Line were “Learning from The Tonight Show” and “Learning from The Tonight Show, part 2.” This morning he continues his discussion of the mainstream media: Part 1 »
November 19, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Learning Lessons from Jihad Jane

We haven’t gotten around to noting the case involving Nada Nadim Prouty (a/k/a Nadia Nadim Al Aouar) dubbed Jihad Jane by the New York Post. The story is a bombshell, though it has received minimal news coverage. Why might that be? It involved an Arab woman who first entered the United States from Lebanon on a visa that she overstayed. She subsequently acquired American citizenship through a sham marriage. Having »
November 18, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Night Ride Home

We observed Joni Mitchell’s birthday a few days back in “The circle game.” To mark her birthday I picked out a video clip from “The Last Waltz” of Mitchell performing “Coyote” at the Band’s Thanksgiving 1976 concert. The song gives a bitter taste of a musician’s life on the road. The blissful counterpart to “Coyote” is “Night Ride Home.” It’s the fourth of July fifteen years later. Mitchell is on »