Monthly Archives: December 2007

December 21, 2007 — Scott Johnson

The scandal that was (is)

The undermining of the Bush administration by the permanent bureaucracy at the CIA and the State Department. I think it is a scandal, one that I dubbed “Three years of the Condor.” Since the publication of the CIA’s absurd key judgments in the NIE on Iran, the recognition of the scandal has gone mainstream. Last week Jack Kelly wrote an interesting column on the scandal, and Henry Kissinger diplomatically noted »
December 21, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

The scandal that wasn’t

Remember the frenzy over suggestions that, as mayor, Rudy Giuliani tried to hide his visits to Judith Nathan in the Hamptons by burying the associated security costs in the budgets of obscure mayoral agencies? Well, the New York Times has looked deeply into the matter and concluded, based on the relevant city records, that “all eight of Mr. Giuliani’s trips to the Hamptons in 1999 and 2000, including the period »
December 20, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Washington Post fires latest front page salvo against Israel

The reliably anti-Israel Washington Post features a front page story today about the »
December 20, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

The phony victimization of Mike Huckabee

Rod Dreher buys the claim that Huckabee is the victim of an elitist conservative backlash: It’s funny, but when it looked like Rudy Giuliani, a social liberal, was going to be the nominee, we didn’t see many, if any, establishment Republican opinion leaders freaking out over what kind of danger to the future of the party and the nation he represented »
December 20, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

An endorsement I wouldn’t boast about

The Valley News, which serves the “upper valley” of New Hampshire where Dartmouth College is located, has endorsed John McCain. The editors deem McCain “just the ticket for Republicans astonished and appalled” by the Bush administration. Not that they think McCain is “perfect.” To the contrary, the editors disagree with McCain’s opposition to “abortion rights” and dispute his view that “prompt withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would necessarily have »
December 20, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Looking for Mr. Right

CRB editor Charles Kesler reviews the field of Republican presidential candidates in his editorial for the new issue. He speaks for many of us who see the weaknesses of the leading candidates offsetting their strengths, and offers an explanation that supports the perception of the candidates’ weaknesses in our eyes. The Huckabee surge is too recent to have prompted any comment from Kesler in the editorial. Paul Mirengoff has more »
December 20, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Let’s call the whole thing off

Eli Lake reports that one of al Qaeda’s senior theologians is calling on his followers to end their military jihad and saying that 9/11 was a “catastrophe for all Muslims.” It seems to be an interesting development, though it hasn’t received much attention or had much impact. The theologian — Sayed (or Sayyed) Imam al-Sharif — has been incarcerated in Egypt since the assassination of Sadat, where he apparently served »
December 20, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Endorsement with honor

One of the high points of the presidency of Richard Nixon must have been the return of the long-suffering Ameircan prisoners held by Hanoi. The memorable photo of John McCain shaking Nixon’s hand at the ceremony marking the return of the POWs is emblematic of the fidelity that Nxon had shown to our efforts in Vietnam and to the return of the POWs with honor. In his memoirs Henry Kissinger »
December 20, 2007 — Scott Johnson

Confronting Dred Scott

We conclude our preview of the new (Winter) issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here, please) this morning with Professor Michael Zuckert’s review of two new books on the Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in the Dred Scott case. Professor Zuckert’s review is “Confronting Dred Scott.” Lincoln’s contemporaneous speech criticizing the Dred Scott decision is a model of its kind. The following year in his debates with Douglas, Lincoln »
December 19, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Off

Easy come, easy go. It was too good to be true, anyway: when I told my teenage daughters, last year, that Forbes magazine had selected me as one of the top 25 celebrities on the internet, they reacted with incredulity: Britney Spears, maybe; our dad, definitely not. Sadly, Forbes has caught on. This year, I’m a Dropoff. Thankfully, I have lots of good company of various kinds. Thankfully, too, Power »
December 19, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Let the debate rage on

Tony Blankley fears that attacks by Republican journalists and bloggers on the leading Republican presidential contenders »
December 19, 2007 — John Hinderaker

The No-Pardoner’s Tale

Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are fighting over pardons. Huckabee issued an extraordinary number of pardons and commutations when he was governor of Arkansas, and, as we noted here, Huckabee’s championing of parole for rapist Wayne Dumond was an embarrassing lapse in judgment. Romney has made an ad contrasting his record on pardons and commutations with Huckabee’s: Romney’s record is indeed extraordinary: in his years as governor of Massachusetts, he »
December 19, 2007 — John Hinderaker

Media Lowlights of 2007

The Media Research Center has announced its “Notable Quotables of 2007,” recognizing the year’s worst reporting in a number of categories. The grand prize winner, which we commented on here, was McClatchey’s story: “As Violence Falls in Iraq, Cemetery Workers Feel the Pinch.” There are lots of entertaining videos, featuring the year’s most over-the-top left-wing commentary. This one, by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, is a personal favorite. Keep in mind, »
December 19, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

More mush from the Huck

This was Mike Huckabee’s »
December 19, 2007 — Paul Mirengoff

Man-of-the-year?

Apparently, Time Magazine’s man-of-the-year will be Vladimir Putin. It’s no surprise that Time would grant this award to an increasingly anti-American, increasingly despotic foreign strong man. John McCain has said when he looked into Putin’s eyes he saw three letters — K, G, and B. Now that these letters are plain for everyone to see, Time’s award has followed. It’s also no surprise that Time would eschew the obvious choice »
December 19, 2007 — Scott Johnson

William Katz: The past is blasting again

Bill Katz writes: One of the joys of professional writing is the chance to go into a library stack and snoop around. Doing research on your own time is great fun, especially when no one sees you. You can try to convince your spouse that you spent the day hunched over a keyboard, bleeding every golden word as you dreamed, “Soon to be a major motion picture.” I don’t know »
December 19, 2007 — Scott Johnson

About Iran’s Buenos Aires bombings

David Horovitz’s Jerusalem Post column on Iran’s Buenos Aires bombings during the 1990’s provides a current twist on old news: Iran orchestrated two bombings in Buenos Aires in the mid-1990s, killing more than 100 people, primarily because it was furious over Argentina’s cessation of nuclear cooperation with the Islamic Republic, a top Argentinean prosecutor said Tuesday, offering chilling confirmation of the ruthlessness with which Iran has pursued its quest for »