Writing below, Matthew Vadum generously accepts embattled Rep. Eric Massa’s claim that he was forced to retire from Congress due to his opposition to ObamaCare. While this is indeed Massa’s current self-serving explanation, I for one don’t find it credible, not least because it has shifted several times now: He had initially claimed that he [...]
Biden’s Dinner Diplomacy
March 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment
As a presidential candidate, Obama won plaudits from media and political sophisticates for his promise to meet “without preconditions” with America’s enemies. This was to be a break with the putative “cowboy diplomacy” of the Bush years. Obama didn’t get around to explaining how his administration would conduct diplomacy with America’s allies, but now we [...]
Mitch Daniels on the State of the Nation
March 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Thanks to the good folks at the Hudson Institute in New York, I had the chance to hear Republican Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels deliver some remarks today on the somewhat ambitious topic of “the state of the nation.” (Daniels joked that he would have preferred a more modest theme to expound upon, for instance “the [...]
Yes, Looting is a Crime
March 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
It’s a good thing we have post-modern, post-moral professors, or else some might get the crazy notion that looting is a bad thing. From a weekend piece in the Times, apropos the looting that followed last week’s earthquake in Chile, we get these two nuanced views on the morality of – let us dispense with [...]
The New Left and the New Right
March 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment
David Brooks has a provocative column today likening today’s Tea Party movement to the New Left that emerged in the 60s counterculture. Brooks is right about some of the outward similarities: the populist rhetoric; the grassroots activism; the disdain for political elites; and, ultimately, the somewhat diffuse policy agenda defined more by what it stands [...]
Who Carried out the Dubai Assassination?
March 5, 2010 By 15 Comments
New evidence casts doubt on Israel’s involvement.
Troubling Marriage: Child Brides and Jihadist Terror
March 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment
It’s fair to say that Nicholas Kristoff isn’t anyone’s idea of a conservative, but his excellent column today picks up on a theme that incensed some on the Left when it was earlier explored by Middle East scholar Martin Kramer (I wrote about that controversy yesterday).
Kristoff’s column is actually about the moving plight of a [...]
New Questions About Dubai Assassination
March 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment
For those familiar with the stellar reputation of Israel’s clandestine services, the recent hit on a Hamas operative and arms dealer in Dubai seems oddly atypical. It was, to the outside observer, an embarrassingly sloppy effort: The agents who allegedly carried out the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (pictured above) in his luxury hotel room made [...]
The Left’s War on Martin Kramer
March 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment
By and large, a strong indication that someone is losing an argument is their readiness to resort to ad hominem attacks. So it is with the Left’s campaign to smear the eminent Middle East scholar Martin Kramer as a racist and an advocate of “genocide” against Palestinians.
At incendiary issue are some brief remarks that Kramer [...]
The Next Scott Brown?
March 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Can California elect a Republican to the Senate? In a more conventional time, that might seem like a fanciful question. But with Scott Brown’s improbable victory in true-blue Massachusetts, it’s very much within the realm of possibility. Further underscoring that point, today’s New York Times reports on the surprisingly competitive race between three Republican challengers [...]
