George W. Bush

February 2, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Watching “Zero Dark Thirty” with the CIA

Featured image Former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen is an AEI fellow, a Washington Post columnist, and author of Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack. When it comes to the techniques used by the CIA to interrogate detainees in the aftermath of 9/11, Thiessen knows what he is talking about. Prompted by the controversy over Kathryn Bigelow’s film Zero Dark Thirty and its »
January 5, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Clearing my spindle: I’m Not OK edition

Featured image I think the following items will be of interest to Power Line readers. I’d like to bring them to your attention without much comment. While our attention was turned elsewhere this past October, the space shuttle Endeavour made its final journey: it traveled 12-miles from Los Angeles International Airport, through Inglewood, to the California Science Center in Exposition Park. Reader Zack Russ writes that he came across this wonderful time-lapse »
December 17, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Learning from “Zero Dark Thirty”

Featured image New York Post film critic Kyle Smith has seen two previews of Zero Dark Thirty, the Osama bin Laden manhunt thriller that is opening in New York and Los Angeles just in time for Oscar consideration. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal, the team responsible for The Hurt Locker, the film promised to be something more than an advertisement for Barack Obama, although the filmmakers famously had »
November 8, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

The economy and the election

Featured image Please don’t miss Allahpundit’s analysis of the national exit poll. For that matter, check out the poll numbers themselves. I want to focus on the data about the economy, since the exit poll confirms that this was, primarily, an election about the economy. To understand how President Obama won an election about the economy is this weak economy, consider two sets of numbers. First, 39 percent of voters think the »
July 24, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

Does Obama ’12 equal Bush ’04? The President can only hope so

Featured image Barack Obama began his presidency expecting to be the next Abraham Lincoln. Now, he hopes he can be George W. Bush. This is evident from his campaign strategy. Team Obama understands that it can’t campaign on its man’s record. However, it views Obama’s opponent as John Kerry redux — a rich, out of touch Massachusetts man who is easily ridiculed and plausibly demonized. Thus, Obama and his advisers hope to »
July 19, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Uncommon Knowledge with George W. Bush

Featured image Peter Robinson recently sat down with President Bush in Dallas to record an interview for Uncommon Knowledge. Two books provide the frame for the interview. In Decision Points, now out in paperback, Bush looks back on his presidency. The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs is a collection of essays edited by Brendan Miniter with a foreword by Bush and derived from the George W. Bush Institute. One »
June 8, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

How to praise your predecessor with class

Featured image I wrote here about President Obama’s remarks during the ceremony in which portraits of George W. and Laura Bush were unveiled at the White House. Unfortunately, Obama found it difficult to offer any praise of Bush that did not refer, usually self-servingly, to himself. And, I wrote, to the very limited extent that Obama managed to offer such praise, “there wasn’t much warmth or charity in it – it fell »
May 31, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

Bush portraits unveiled at White House; Obama is “congenial”

Featured image Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura returned to the White House today for the unveiling of their portraits. The former President’s parents – themselves a former President and a former First Lady – were also in attendance. They received the longest ovation of the day. President and Ms. Obama both spoke. Peter Wehner, who was present as a former member of the Bush staff, got it exactly »