Articles
October 31, 2005
Prosecutorial zeal
Ed Lasky
Tough, vigorous prosecutors can be invaluable guardians of the public welfare. Vicious criminal gangs must be pursued, and relentless fearlessness is a necessity. The human tendency to feather one's own nest at the expense of the public needs to be... More
October 31, 2005
A tale of two papers
Clarice Feldman
Physicians have the term "iatrogenic" to describe illness caused by physicians. There is now a need for a new word, "mediagenic," to describe scandals which have their origin in malpractice by the mass media. The indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby... More
October 31, 2005
Say it ain't so, Peggy!
Steven M. Warshawsky
Peggy Noonan is among the very best conservative commentators. She is brilliant, insightful, and a masterful writer. Her weekly column in the Wall Street Journal is a must read. Unfortunately, her latest column, entitled 'A Separate Peace' and loudly proclaiming... More
October 30, 2005
Time to rally
Jonathan D. Strong
It has been a tough week for President, perhaps one of the most difficult of his Presidency apart from 9—11 and the Iraq War. However, like a true conservative and red blooded American its time to cowboy up, dust off,... More
October 30, 2005
Saving people from themselves
Thomas Lifson
The nanny state is marked by an impulse to prevent people from making foolish decisions about their personal welfare. The very notion that wise public officials should make personal choices about the intimate details of foolish citizens' lives is repugnant... More
October 30, 2005
Soldiers and the American media
"A soldier"
Having been on the other side of the world for the past year I must admit that I am not as up to date on current events as I'd like to be. However we do receive the news and are... More
October 29, 2005
One person of substance can change the world
Bob Weir
Fifty years ago, there was a day that began just like every other day in the life of the diminutive black lady in a southern city, where people of her color suffered indignities on a daily basis. It was 1955,... More
October 29, 2005
Fifty farm teams
J. Peter Mulhern
Has the White House learned the right lesson from the Miers debacle? Any number of people will tell President Bush that after the embarrassing implosion of one Supreme Court nominee he needs to make a soothing 'consensus' choice. A few... More
October 29, 2005
The World Too Much With Us
John B. Dwyer
Scooter Libby Indicted! Is Rove Next? Can Bush Be Far Behind? When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife? Friends, I implore you to turn off your TVs and radios — to take at least a brief break from the cacophonous, hysterical... More
October 28, 2005
A pyrrhic victory for opponents of Miers
Rick Moran
The withdrawal of Harriet Miers from her nomination as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was due in no small part to a tiny, but very influential group of conservative writers and thinkers. They viewed the... More
October 28, 2005
The Cost of Real Corruption
Christopher G. Adamo
As of the writing of this column, liberals are practically frothing in anticipation of the rumored indictments of such notable individuals as Karl Rove. Concurrently, they exult over House Majority Leader Tom Delay, who is being dragged with painful slowness through... More
October 28, 2005
The International Solidarity Movement and its friends
Lee Kaplan and the Stop the ISM Team
The entire world woke up Sunday morning to news that a terror attack occurred at a hitchhiking / bus stop in the West Bank area of Gush Etzion. The victims of the attack were identified as Kinneret Mendel and Matat... More
October 27, 2005
Exterminating White People
Selwyn Duke
I've long believed that there's only one difference between Adolf Hitler and some of the misbegotten souls who lurk among us: means. I don't know that I subscribe to the notion that power corrupts, but I do know that it... More
October 27, 2005
Ward Churchill speaks
Jonathan Cohen
Ward Churchill, whose status as a Professor at the University of Colorado is now in doubt due to various charges of biographical and academic fraud, was invited by the DePaul University Cultural Center to give a lecture. DePaul is the... More
October 27, 2005
The War Dead in Perspective
Jonathan D. Strong
The 2,000 mark for the number of soldiers killed in the Iraq War has been touted widely in the media as a grim milestone. This number is significant; it is not to be overlooked; and it is a tremendous loss... More
October 26, 2005
Covering up Iraq's quest for uranium in Africa
Douglas Hanson
The left accepts as gospel the Joseph Wilson—inspired allegation that President Bush lied in his State of the Union address reference to Iraq seeking uranium in Africa. The media and much of the public parrots this line. The allegation is... More
October 26, 2005
Taking constitutionalism seriously
Steven M. Warshawsky
J. Peter Mulhern argued on these pages yesterday that presumptively conservative Supreme Court Justices (he cites William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter) 'morph into liberals when they ascend to the Supreme Court'... More
October 26, 2005
The growing threat to Israel
Richard Baehr
[Editor's note: the following article is the text of an address given by our chief political correspondent Richard Baehr to a gathering at the Los Angeles area home of Tammy Steinsapir, a remarkable hostess who has revived the honorable and... More
October 25, 2005
Mine's bigger
Thomas Lifson
For more than a century skyscrapers have been the visible expression of American ingenuity, energy, and prosperity. The skylines of Manhattan and Chicago were seen as uniquely American phenomena, while lesser cities of the land had their own clusters of... More
October 25, 2005
Why Bad Careers Happen to Good Justices
J. Peter Mulhern
Why do so many Republican nominees with sterling conservative credentials morph into liberals when they ascend to the Supreme Court? The list is long and depressing — William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and of... More
October 25, 2005
Hate crime laws and the path to tyranny
Selwyn Duke
The insidious thing about evolutionary tyranny is that it's gradual progression. It doesn't beat you over the head with the iron fist of a despot or sweep you aside with a wave of revolution, but, rather, is a death by a thousand... More
October 24, 2005
Is Valerie Plame the new Deep Throat?
James Lewis
A few months ago it was finally revealed that Mark Felt, the Deep Throat of Watergate, forged the sword that destroyed Richard Nixon — not for some valid whistle—blowing reason, but to avenge Nixon's choice of an outside Director to... More
October 24, 2005
Democrats and 'The Politics of Polarization'
Christopher Chantrill
To Democrats, the decline of the Democratic Party over the past generation must seem inconceivable. How could the 'amiable dunce' Ronald Reagan have won the presidency? How could the bombastic Newt Gingrich have brought forty years of Democratic Congresses to... More
October 24, 2005
Do they think we're stupid?
Phil Gallagher
Back a couple of years ago I attended a funeral for a family member at the Our Lady Help of Christians church in Newton. It was at a time that the church sex abuse scandal in Boston was at its... More
October 23, 2005
CENTCOM Reports
Douglas Hanson
CENTCOM Weekly Newsletter The US Central Command Newsletter for the week of October 17 can be found here. Some of the good news concerning the War on Terror: The Mosul city government and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)... More
October 22, 2005
North Country
Rosslyn Smith
Being a fan of the British actor Sean Bean ever since he did the Sharpe series, I do try to catch his movies on the big screen, no matter what the subject matter. This led me into the theater this... More
October 22, 2005
Cancelled in Berkeley
J.D. Pendry
Veteran's Day, that is. I was scanning Michelle Malkin's blog when I saw this. Berkeley's Veterans Day ceremony, scheduled for Nov. 11, was abruptly canceled on Monday because the volunteer organizing committee split over the political content. At issue was a... More
October 22, 2005
Water – don't leave home without it
Bob Weir
I see my wife leaving the house to go to the supermarket, which is just about a 2 minute drive. In one hand she has the car keys and in the other she's grasping a plastic bottle of water. 'Are... More
October 21, 2005
Syria and the Hariri conspiracy
Rick Moran
The report released by the United Nations today that details Syrian involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri reads like a bad spy novel. It seems unbelievable, but the facts are clear; so many people were... More
October 21, 2005
The troop strength question
Douglas Hanson
It's been an odd fight in Iraq: there has been a chain of highly visible political victories that have come about before we have completely defeated former regime elements and foreign terrorists. In fact, the Multi—national Force Commander in Iraq,... More
October 21, 2005
Decline and fall
Matt May
The sinister character Noah Cross in the movie Chinatown memorably claimed that 'Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.' Representative John Dingell of Michigan, unfortunately, disproves the maxim. Rep. Dingell is soon to celebrate... More
October 20, 2005
Food and ideology
Thomas Lifson
Sometimes an event comes along which crystallizes a mindset, and stands as self—parody, its serious—minded participants unaware of the irony their ideology embodies. Even the San Francisco Chronicle could not resist noticing the incongruity: Several hundred people gathered at long tables next... More
October 20, 2005
Slave-girls as sexual property in the Quran
James Arlandson
The Quran makes women subordinate to men in many ways. But no women subject to the rule of Quranic law are more unfortunate than slave girls. According to the eternal and unchanging scripture of Islam, men are permitted to treat... More
October 20, 2005
The real culture of corruption
Christopher G. Adamo
From the moment of Tom Delay's indictment, liberal grandstanding has been relentless. Its most notable mouthpieces, led by the ever—shrill House Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, characterized the indictment as solid proof of a 'culture of corruption' among the Republicans.... More
October 19, 2005
South Side Story
Richard Baehr
There is no White Sox Nation. There is also no national White Sox diaspora, only those who left the declining Southwest—Side ethnic neighborhoods and moved to distant suburbs in the last few decades. When the Pale Hose play on the... More
October 19, 2005
The Wrong Questions
Jonathan David Carson, Ph.D.
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Luther Powell and Former President of the United States George Herbert Walker Bush have been severely criticized for pulling up short at the end of the Gulf War, and perhaps they... More
October 19, 2005
Across the pond, they're flying over the cuckoo's nest
Noel S. Williams
Regrettably, here in the United States political correctness has gone mad; but in Britain they've gone absolutely cuckoo. Few sounds get a babies attention more than adults 'cooing.' With slight variations it's done almost universally, leading me to believe it's... More
October 18, 2005
Who Lost Delphi?
Christopher Chantrill and Thomas Lifson
For those of you still transfixed by hurricanes and Supreme Court nominations, here's a more important issue: Who lost Delphi? Dell Who? Delphi Corporation, the former parts division of General Motors, isn't exactly a household word. Its predecessor, Delco Electric,... More
October 18, 2005
A Democrat's lament
Phil Gallagher
Those of us moderate Democrats who fret over the current state of the party might well take a moment and look back in time to lament what might have been, had the party heavyweights possessed the moral fiber to make a few... More
October 18, 2005
Rededication
John B. Dwyer
In the latest of a series of historic actions, the Iraqi people have voted overwhelmingly for a new constitution. In so doing they have affirmed their preference for democracy and rejected resoundingly nihilistic terrorism. They have re—affirmed the Preamble to... More
October 17, 2005
Harriet and the Pundits of Doom
James Lewis
Most of the time modern liberals seem to think with their glands, while conservatives think with their brains. Until Harriet Miers, that is. In the last few weeks the roles have suddenly switched, and my favorite pundits are throwing the heaving... More
October 17, 2005
To Err is Human – and so is President Bush
J. Peter Mulhern
In the physical universe every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Apparently the political universe is no different. Suddenly the braying Bush haters on the left are balanced by a cadre of deranged Bush groupies of indeterminate ideology. The... More
October 17, 2005
My Constitutional Law Crash Course
Dennis Sevakis
'A little knowledge is dangerous' is an aphorism long standing and of good repute. Recently — over the last few days — I've learned that 'a little bit more knowledge' can be quite enlightening and very helpful in reducing the... More
October 16, 2005
The rule of law
Dana Pico
Many liberals seem to confuse the role of Supreme Court Justices and philosopher kings. Instead of the rule of law, they want the rule of "fairness" (as they see it). Even some ostensibly serious publications take this position. The editors... More
October 16, 2005
We DO have some friends in France
James Carey
I've now been "on the ground" here in the Land of Lafayette for 48 hours [I'm here for the semi annual meetings of the Military Knighthood Order of Knights Templar www.osmth.org], and as both a retired military officer and an... More
October 15, 2005
Nip/Tuck – lowest levels of mental corruption
Bob Weir
The new season of Nip/Tuck proved that the show is continuing the ignominious tradition of sexually explicit, profane, and violent television programming, taking it to new depths. In the season premiere, which was solely sponsored by the Sony Corporation, viewers... More
October 14, 2005
Teen drivers and energy use
Ed Lasky
Everyone, not just the greenies, wants to cut our energy use. While some search for a technology fix, and others rail against the appurtenances of middle class suburban life, there is a much simpler step which would bring relief and... More
October 14, 2005
Portrait of an old man ringing a bell
Paul Shlichta
Iraqis go to the polls tomorrow, to vote on a new constitution, another historic step in the spread of democracy. The outcome remains to be seen. Every one of us has a few dozen pictures engraved deeply in our minds;... More
October 14, 2005
Another reason to hate France
Randall Hoven
Running low on reasons to hate France? Here's another one: Rwanda. I'm not talking about the blame poured on the U.N. and the West in general for negligence; I'm talking about France actually helping commit genocide. France not only trained... More
October 13, 2005
What's really going on in the Wilson/Plame grand jury?
Clarice Feldman
Almost everyone watching the grand jury testimony of Judith Miller, Karl Rove, and Lewis 'Scooter' Libby assumes that the investigation led by Special Prosecutor Peter Fitzgerald now centers on the 'outing' of Valerie Plame. But this is nothing more than... More
October 13, 2005
Itching for a fight
Steve Feinstein
Rarely has there been an event as fractious for the GOP as President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to be Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. Leading conservative pundits and analysts have been falling over themselves to see who could... More
October 13, 2005
High-tech job migration - reality or myth
Brian Schwarz
With China's successful launch into orbit of its second manned spaceship, claims and worries that America is losing its edge in many high—tech industries will no doubt increase. Democrats just love to hit the airwaves proclaiming the myth we are... More
October 12, 2005
A Modest Proposal
Rosslyn Smith
Should there be one non—lawyer or lay Justice on the Supreme Court at all times? Is it necessary or desirable that the Court be a uniform body of technically sophisticated specialists? Many have noted the lack of a constitutional requirement... More
October 12, 2005
The Everyman Supreme Court Pick
Geoffrey P. Hunt
The motives assigned to George W. Bush for picking Harriet Miers to be an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court have covered the waterfront: from the conventional analysis that he is ducking a fight with Senate Democrats, to the... More
October 12, 2005
Change the legal culture
Christopher Chantrill
The flap over the nomination of Harriet Miers to be an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court raises an important question. What is the best way to change the jurisprudence of the Court away from its culture of... More
October 11, 2005
The descent into ideology
J. R. Dunn
With the Harriet Miers controversy, conservatism has begun its descent into ideology. Unlike the Left, conservatism has never been an ideological movement, in the sense of possessing an overarching system of thought demanding acceptance in toto. American conservatism is based... More
October 11, 2005
The danger of splitting the Right
James Lewis
Reasonable people can debate the wisdom of nominating Harriet Miers for the high court. But the unrestrained rage by conservative pundits against George W. Bush poses a grave danger that goes far beyond that debate. The Left is licking its... More
October 11, 2005
Mary Landrieu: It's Never Enough
Noel Sheppard
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D—La.) was unhappy last Friday night. After sparring with Senate Republicans, including her counterpart from Louisiana, Sen. David Vitter (R—La.), she didn't get what she wanted — $15 billion in hurricane—related loans to her state without any... More
October 10, 2005
In George We Trust?
Rick Moran
Watching the conservative coalition slowly unravel over the Miers nomination these past two weeks has been an extraordinarily painful experience. Despite all of the hard slogging work done by activists of various stripes over the past quarter century, the winning... More
October 10, 2005
Who elected George Will?
James Lewis
The conservative punditocracy is spittin' mad at the President for nominating Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. I've never seen anything like it ——— rioting pundits! Ranting constitutionalists! All the big names, it seems, are agin' Ms. Miers in a... More
October 09, 2005
Lincoln's Faith
Matthew May
Much has been made of President George W. Bush's faith and devotion to religion since he declared with simple eloquence that his personal hero was 'Christ' during a Republican primary debate in 2000. The mainstream media lampooned and criticized the... More
October 09, 2005
Calame-brain
Thomas Lifson
The New York Times is rapidly becoming a parody of its former status as the newspaper of record. Today's column by Byron* Calame (pronounced "Kuh—lame"), ombudsman ('public editor') for the Times, certainly reads like a parody, an embarrasing wet—kiss to readers... More
October 08, 2005
The return of the primitive
James Lewis
According to multicultural myth there are no civilized cultures, and therefore no primitive ones. Like most leftist articles of faith, this one runs against the great weight of evidence. At birth, we humans are neolithic creatures. Biologically we need socialization... More
October 08, 2005
Turkey: From Failed Reforms to a Modern Jihad Genocide
Andrew G. Bostom
Turkey's ardent desire to enter the European Union may be fulfilled in the near future. As Europe grapples with the prospect of admitting an Islamic nation with a fast—growing population into the borderless would—be superstate, the claim is being made... More
October 08, 2005
Women are inferior to men in the Quran
James Arlandson
Most of the world, aware that Saudi women cannot drive cars, realizes that Muslim women are subordinated to men. Yet Muslim expositors and preachers tell the world that Islam elevates women, so this proves their religion's truthfulness. They imply that... More
October 07, 2005
The Established Religion of the United States
Jonathan David Carson, Ph.D.
We're like a condemned man who worries about the preservatives in his last meal or its cholesterol content. We'll worry about anything but our real worries. If we lived in Sudan, we'd worry about cell phone radiation or the wrinkles... More
October 07, 2005
Call Me a Grinch
Trevor Bothwell
Advocates of school vouchers as a means of harnessing competition and choice to public education, thereby improving the dismal failure of monopoly public schools, with their nineteenth century command and control bureaucracies in charge, have a very good case to... More
October 07, 2005
Ottoman Dhimmitude
Andrew G. Bostom
Turkey is once again storming the gates of Europe. Not the gates of Vienna, as in 1683, but the political portal at the entrance to the European Union, a borderless economic and political entity which wants to become a superstate counterbalance... More
October 06, 2005
Groupthink
Thomas Lifson
Based on some of the commentary from respected conservatives distressed over the SCOTUS nomination of non—judge, non—scholar, non—intellectual Harriet Miers, one would think that the Supreme Court has always been populated by Olympian figures, debating esoteric yet penetrating points of law,... More
October 06, 2005
Talk among yourselves
J. Peter Mulhern
In every quarrel among friends there is a risk that people will do grave damage by saying things they don't mean and wouldn't say but for their competitive desire to win the argument. Poorly chosen words can drive wedges between... More
October 06, 2005
No experience necessary?
Bill Lalor
Soon after Sandra Day O'Connor stepped down last month from the Supreme Court, Stuart Taylor, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, was busy lamenting SCOTUS' disconnect from the 'real—world ramifications' of its work. 'How many remaining justices,' he quizzed, 'have ever held... More
October 05, 2005
Touching a nerve
Thomas Lifson
Something about the nomination of Harriet Miers touched a nerve among many conservatives, especially those who write in public. Although I support the President's choice, I will concede that there are legitimate grounds to question his actions, and looked forward to... More
October 05, 2005
Intellectual decay
J. Peter Mulhern
Thomas Lifson's optimistic analysis of Harriet Miers' potential to move the Supreme Court back toward constitutional sanity may be spot on. Perhaps there is something magical about an off—the—rack corporate litigator who also happens to be a dedicated church lady... More
October 05, 2005
It ain't just a big river in Egypt
Edward L. Daley
On the 26th of September, former Meet the Press moderator Marvin Kalb interviewed Dan (I stick by the story — the story is true) Rather before the National Press Club in a manner which can only be described as shamefully... More
October 05, 2005
E-books
Thomas Lifson
I have just read my first e—book, plunging into the brave new world of publishing's future. I can report that I am extremely happy with my experience. For a mere two dollars, you too can try out the new... More
October 04, 2005
Don't misunderestimate Miers
Thomas Lifson
President Bush is a politician trained in strategic thinking at Harvard Business School, and schooled in tactics by experience and advice, including the experience and advice of his father, whose most lasting political mistake was the nomination of David Souter.... More
October 04, 2005
As a matter of fact, no, I'm not happy it's a woman
Selwyn Duke
Well, we knew it was coming. After having the unmitigated gall to appoint to the High Court that odious creature known as a white man, President Bush has redeemed himself before the altar of baal with an affirmative—action nominee. Oh,... More
October 04, 2005
Turkey: Back to the Future?
Andrew G. Bostom
[Part 1 appears today; Parts 2 and 3 will appear later this week] Once again, Turks are storming the heart of Europe. This time, it is not by the sword, but rather in seeking to join the European Union (EU).... More
October 03, 2005
Plame: there's more to come
Clarice Feldman
The curious case of Judith Miller, recently released from jail to testify before a grand jury convened by Special Prosecutor Peter Fitzgerald, continues to raise questions about what really is under investigation. Many agree that the pieces we can publicly see simply... More
October 03, 2005
Big Ed fights back
Christopher Chantrill
It's back—to—school time so it must be time to view with alarm the shocking state of our nation's colleges. The established higher education industry, Big Ed, is also alarmed — by the rise of for—profit competitiors. The left wing bias... More
October 03, 2005
Using human beings
Selwyn Duke
Confucius must be spinning in his grave. Out of China comes a truly outrageous story, largely ignored by the effluent—stream media. It is the stomach—turning revelation that a Chinese cosmetics company is using, imagine this, human skin from murdered prisoners... More
October 02, 2005
Litigation fever hits China
Thomas Lifson
China is catching litigation fever. Not that victims of pollution or faulty consumer products have begin dragging companies into court, or predatory law firms are launching class action lawsuits on flimsy pretexts. Yet. Instead, a free—lance enforcer is launching a lawsuit... More
October 02, 2005
More drivel from race-baiters
Bob Weir
Comparing President Bush to the Birmingham, Ala., police commissioner whose resistance to the civil rights movement became synonymous with Southern racism, Rep. Charles Rangel recently said of the president: "George Bush is our Bull Connor.' Not only is the New... More
October 01, 2005
Killing from Qur'anic Piety: Tamerlane's Living Legacy
Andrew G. Bostom
Osama bin Laden was far from the first jihadist to kill infidels as an expression of religious piety. This years marks the 600th anniversary of the death of Tamerlane (Timur Lang; 'Timur the Lame', d. 1405), or Amir Timur ('Timur'... More
October 01, 2005
The Sounds of Silence
Amil Imani
Ali was a student at the University of Tehran. He was one of the students who was brutally attacked by the Ansar—i Hezbullah, the militia forces of the Islamic Republic, during an attack storming a dormitory there on July 9th, 1999.... More
October 01, 2005
Alvinism: a social disease
Paul Shlichta
Does anyone still remember the incomparable Marvin Kaplan, creator of dozens of comic icons? In the 1950s TV sitcom "Meet Millie", he played Alvin Prinzmetal, composer, poet, and psychotic. One of Alvin's paranoid peculiarities was that, whenever anyone voiced the... More
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