Monthly Archives: January 2008

January 17, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Headline of the Day

“Bush drilling plan could threaten polar bears, panel chairman says”: A House committee chairman on Thursday denounced the Bush administration’s planned sale of oil drilling rights in a prime polar bear habitat in Alaska, saying its impact on the bear population is unknown. Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, spoke out against the White House’s planned sale, set for February 6. »
January 17, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

“Rude and ugly”

We’ve written several times about Glen Johnson, the shockingly biased and dishonest AP reporter who covers the Romney campaign. Today, in this exchange, Johnson confronted Romney in South Carolina — and came out the worse for it. Johnson’s bad day culminated in a lady telling him, “I’m not with the campaign. I’m just standing by, but I think you’re rude and ugly.” As Mary Katharine Ham puts it, “Nothing like »
January 17, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Mac is back in South Carolina. . .but why?

When I traveled with the McCain campaign in early November, a reporter asked the Senator (who was still polling poorly) how he planned to win the nomination. McCain said he would do it the traditional way, by winning two of the following three early contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina (he didn’t mention Michigan, which may help explain at some level why his message to Republicans in that »
January 17, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Election (2008 remix)

Reader Judith Sears reminds us of the 1999 film “Election,” starring Reese Witherspoon. Witherspoon plays Tracy Flick, the ferociously ambitious, ethically compromised candidate for student council president. Sears points out that someone has put together a short video that casts Hillary Clinton in the role of Tracy Flick. Say what you will about Tracy Flick, she rises on the strength of her own wiles. At the online home of numerous »
January 17, 2008 — Scott Johnson

A modest proposal

The Yale Daily News devotes a long, long article to the potential reform of Yale’s “ethnic counselor” program. Ethnic counselors seem to fall roughly into the same categories as the boxes available for checking on the application for admission, but that point is left vague in the article. Under the refashioned ethnic counelor program, “students would be matched with freshmen in the incoming class who voluntarily self-identify as members of »
January 16, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

“France responds to its friends”

French President Sarkozy continues to demonstrate his commitment to President Bush’s flagging efforts against Iranian domination of the Middle East. Earlier this week, he announced that France will establish a military base in the United Arab Emirates. When it does, France will be the only Western power other than the U.S. to have a permanent defense installation in the Persian Gulf region. France being France, there is a commercial side »
January 16, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

The buck stops where?

The Washington Post provides revealing details (if true) about the destruction of those CIA interrogation tapes. Here is what I took away from the story: First, the CIA professionals who were involved in the interrogations wanted the tapes destroyed early on, before anyone was worrying about terrorist rights. They were sure the tapes would eventually leak, and did not want pictures of the interrogations (or themselves) to appear on television. »
January 16, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Terror News

There were at least two interesting terrorism-related stories today. Frankly, I don’t have much to say about either of them, but they’re worth noting. Former Republican Congressman Mark Deli Siljander was charged with money laundering and other crimes in connection with another faux Islamic charity, Islamic American Relief Agency, that was in reality a terrorist front. The news story is frustratingly cryptic, but this description is tantalizing: [Siljander] was charged »
January 16, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Encyclopedia, Or Smear Machine?

Wikipedia can be a useful tool for getting basic information on a wide range of topics. Sadly, though, the “wiki” concept has shown no ability to generate fair or objective information about controversial subjects. A case in point is the Wikipedia article on Professor John Yoo. We have written about Professor Yoo a number of times, most recently here, and also here, here and elsewhere. Our friend Dafydd ab Hugh »
January 16, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

Remembrance of embarrassments past

Hillary Clinton has to be embarrassed to have outpolled that uncommitted fellow in Michigan by only about 15 percentage points. She »
January 16, 2008 — Paul Mirengoff

A mindless bureaucracy reacts

Yesterday, I noted that the Center for Individual Rights (CIR) has sued the New York City school system over its use of a racial quota for admission to the prestigious Mark Twain Intermediate School. The quota is mandated by a court order from 1974 which was intended to promote the admission of minority students. But today, it serves the oppositie purpose, excluding minority applicants with better credentials than whites. In »
January 16, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Thinking about “Uncommitted”

Yesterday “Uncommitted” pulled a stunning 40 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary in Michigan. It’s hard to imagine 236,723 Democratic voters trudging to the polls to pull the lever for “Uncommitted,” and it is a striking result. If only the Republicans could run “Uncommitted” against Ms. Hillary, they might roll to an impressive victory next November. If “Uncommitted” isn’t at the top of the Democratic ticket himself, however, »
January 16, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Media Alert

We noted here and elsewhere Jim Vicevich’s excellent radio show, originating from Hartford, Connecticut. At 10:35 eastern (9:35 central) this morning, I’ll be on Jim’s show, talking about the alleged crime wave among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans–according to the New York Times–that I addressed here. You don’t have to be in Hartford to hear it; go here to listen on the web. »
January 16, 2008 — Scott Johnson

War by other means

We haven’t gotten to the incredible story of the lawsuit brought against Professor John Yoo on behalf of Jose Padilla, as I understand it, for Yoo’s role in authoring (in my view clearly correct) legal memos advising the president on the law applicable to the detention of enemy combatants. Earlier this week the Yale Daily News reported on the connection of Professor Yoo’s alma mater to the lawsuit against him. »
January 16, 2008 — Scott Johnson

Letters to the public editor

We’ve received copies of two messages responding to Sunday’s New York Times column by “public editor” Clark Hoyt objecting to the Times’s hiring of Bill Kristol as an op-ed columnist. Hoyt reported that messages he had received ran approximately 700-1 against Kristol’s selection. He quoted a message from one member of “arguably the most elite audience in the nation” to editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal condemning Kristol (twice) as “traiterous.” »
January 16, 2008 — Scott Johnson

To whom it may concern: An update

Last night we reported that the McCain campaign blasted a telephone call with Senator Lieberman’s appeal for Democrats to vote for Senator McCain in Michigan’s Republican primary yesterday. According to reader Ronald Knott, the text of the message was as follows (emphasis added): Hi. This Senator Joe Lieberman. I »
January 15, 2008 — John Hinderaker

Mitt Romney, Ronald Reagan, and the Election of 2008

Now that Mitt Romney appears to have won a solid victory in Michigan, I want to make a couple of points about his campaign in the context of this year’s election season. First, the pervasive commentary over the last week to the effect that Michigan was do-or-die for Romney was, I think, nonsense. Even if Romney had lost narrowly to McCain in Michigan, which is not a winner-take-all state, he »