Articles

January 31, 2007
War and Presidential Popularity
Frederick J. Chiaventone
Whatever one might think of President Bush's much touted popularity numbers - or perhaps one should say unpopularity numbers - in the polls, the historical convergence of conflict and Presidential approval ratings is almost universally dismal. More

January 31, 2007
Resisting Global Warming Panic
J.R. Dunn
It may well turn out that George W. Bush's greatest service to the country won't involve terrorism or Iraq at all, but his steadfast refusal to be buffaloed into joining the panicky consensus on global warming. More

January 31, 2007
The Kennedy, Chavez & Chomsky Pipeline
Marc Sheppard
Have you seen the latest Citgo-sponsored commercial for Citizens Energy Corporation? At first glance you may have mistaken it for a Saturday Night Live sketch and watched it prepared for a good laugh. That is, until you'd realized it was all too serious. More

January 30, 2007
Splitting the Evangelicals from Israel
Ed Lasky
A new strategy seems to be emerging that seeks to weaken American support for Israel. More

January 30, 2007
The Noble Savage is French Toast
James Lewis
Nicholas Wade is a science writer for the New York Times, who used to be as Politically Correct as anyone in that mob on 42nd Street. No longer. More

January 30, 2007
Group Think Is Killing Us in Iraq
Michael Nyilis
Making a mistake in war can get you killed. And when you have bad intelligence, military commanders make bad decisions-and many people get killed. More

January 29, 2007
What You See (in the Media) is Not What You Get (in the Libby Trial)
Clarice Feldman
In the wake of the first week of the Libby Trial, Patrick Fitzgerald's soufflé has turned into a pancake. Of course, if you are getting your news of the trial from the press you're certain to believe Libby is in trouble. Nothing could be further from the truth. More

January 29, 2007
The Offensiveness of Taking Offense
Selwyn Duke
Whether it's an off-color joke or colorful commentary, it's now hard to make anything but the most plain vanilla statements without offending somebody. In fact, so ingrained is the notion of being offended that it's become a topic of TV commercial satire. More

January 29, 2007
The Media Have Changed War
J.R. Dunn
The weekend before last showed us yet another facet of the problem of war and the modern media. More

January 28, 2007
Answering the call
Douglas Hanson
It was one of those truly miserable days. But these were Soldiers training for war, and as old geezers like me used to say about this type of clime, "Perfect weather for training!" More

January 28, 2007
Two Good Guys and the Other G Word
Richard Baehr
Super Bowl XLI has lots of folks excited, and with one week to go before the big game, lots of predictable story lines about the teams, coaches, and cities are in the media. More

January 28, 2007
Leadership and the Border Chaos
Chad Kent
One thread in today's culture is a certain horror of any kind of conflict or confrontation. It is a norm passionately held by some More

January 27, 2007
Feminism and Politics: A Matter of Convenience
Pamela Meister
While I was too young to understand the women's liberation movement during its heyday (the late 1960s through the 1970s), I do remember the television commercial for Enjoli perfume More

January 27, 2007
First Do No Harm. Then Do Something.
Linda Halderman, MD
"First, do no harm" is the foundation of modern medicine. Governor Schwarzenegger's healthcare proposal is an easy target for critics. But criticism alone is not adequate. More

January 27, 2007
Paradise Lost; Why the Left Loves Muhammad
Timothy Birdnow
Conservatives seem baffled by the animosity held by liberals towards Christians and Jews. More

January 26, 2007
Iraq and the Ghost of Johnnie Cochran
Michael J. O'Shea
It was a wickedly simple strategy. It still is. Killer becomes accuser, cop gets crucified, killer walks. Brentwood the stage then, Baghdad the stage now. More

January 26, 2007
Iran's Un-Theocracy
Vel Nirtist
Why are the Muslim s not convinced that democracy is right for them? Theocracy. More

January 26, 2007
Reality TV Conducts a Seminar on Racism
Christopher Chantrill
In this age of situational ethics and values clarification how do you know when you cross the line? More

January 25, 2007
Lebanon Inches Toward the Precipice
Rick Moran
In what is being referred to by pro-government forces as an attempted coup, Hezb'allah and their allies in the opposition took to the streets on Tuesday in what was billed as a "General Strike" in order to force the government of Lbeanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to capitulate to opposition demands for a "National Unity Government More

January 25, 2007
What's Your Doctor Worth?
Linda Halderman, MD
How much money does your doctor earn? If your doctor is a Surgeon practicing in rural central California, you're about to find out. More

January 25, 2007
The West Alone
Vasko Kohlmayer
Perhaps at no point in history has a major civilization been vilified more virulently than the West is today. More

January 24, 2007
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Obama
James Lewis
We are nuts. Or at least the MSM are. More

January 24, 2007
The Barker and the Shill: The Fraud of the Fairness Doctrine
Selwyn Duke
If you're old enough to remember the days when freak shows were in carnivals and not daytime television, you may know about the barker and the shill. More

January 24, 2007
The Root of Terror
Vel Nirtist
Though there is plenty of "moral relativism" around, one hears precious little about "factual relativism." Everyone heard that "one's terrorist is another's freedom fighter," but I wonder how many among the advocates of that position would state with similarly genuine conviction that "one man's round Earth is another's flat one." More

January 23, 2007
Some Thoughts on the Libby Pre Trial Activities
Clarice Feldman
On Sunday I described some interesting material from the copious Libby pre trial documents. Little of the back story that is revealed in pretrial documents and proceedings ever makes it to press despite its considerable value. More

January 23, 2007
Pat Leahy: Canary in a Data Mine
Marc Sheppard
The new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is demanding he be kept apprised of covert technologies our intelligence agencies use to thwart terrorism. More

January 23, 2007
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Horses
Seth Cooper
Sooner or later the Living Constitution will meet bestiality. The sex-with-animals crowd as alternative lifestyle is on display in a film which just premiered at the Sundance Festival. More

January 22, 2007
How the AP helped stoke civil war in Iraq
James Lewis
The Associated Press is among the large news organizations whose reporting in Iraq has been challenged by bloggers. Beyond the specifics of any one incident, a certain pattern and practice of news gathering has made for systematic bias. The end result is propaganda. More

January 22, 2007
Fantasy and Reality: 24 and the War on Terror
Douglas Hanson
Jack Bauer is a fantasy figure of great appeal because of his singular focus on protecting America from the ravages of terrorism. We're rightly anxious, and we want someone who gets the job done. More

January 22, 2007
Let's Talk About the Butterflies and the Bees
Selwyn Duke
Last week, many commemorated Muhammad Ali's sixty-fifth birthday with a zeal reminiscent of Roman pagans cheering a triumphant Caesar. And as I ponder this, I'm reminded of how people are as quick to forget as they are to condemn. More

January 21, 2007
The Mitchell Mystery at the Libby Trial
Clarice Feldman
Over the weekend an intriguing mystery about Andrea Mitchell surfaced. More

January 21, 2007
The Psychology of the Self-Hating Liberal
Graham Cunningham
The good news is that, after a whole century of heading in the wrong direction, a moral and intellectual challenge to the bleeding-heart version of liberalism is finally welling up in the West. More

January 21, 2007
A Mighty Weapon
Matt May
"Scholarly" is sometimes a term used to describe academic work or even mainstream trade books on history and politics that are boring. But the latest effort from Dr. Douglas Wilson entitled Lincoln's Sword is a scholarly work that illuminates a topic of fascination. More

January 20, 2007
Insanity and the Mistake Trap
Amil Imani
Insanity comes in numerous types as well as degrees. It is also widely prevalent in groups, even in nations as a whole. More

January 20, 2007
Miracles and New Testament Studies: Conclusion
James Arlandson
The purpose of the series on miracles has been to keep the door to miracles open. If it is slammed shut before they have a chance to be investigated, then that answers the question always in favor of a closed natural system that excludes the supernatural More

January 20, 2007
Response to Patrick Poole re Health Care Crisis
Steven M. Warshawsky
As someone who takes strong positions on hot button issues, I expect that people will disagree with me. I also expect that people will attack me, frequently without responding to the specific arguments I make. More

January 19, 2007
How do we know if we are winning or losing in Iraq?
Greg Richards
How do we know if we are winning or losing in Iraq? We know that the MSM has a very dangerous model - "if it bleeds, it leads." More

January 19, 2007
Europe's Anti-American Blinders
Pamela Meister
Europe needs to hate us for its own reasons having nothing to do with American behavior. More

January 19, 2007
Health Insurance and "Adequate" Care
Patrick Poole
Health insurance is the key to adequate medical care. The standard of care supplied to those without insurance and lacking substantial means is perhaps "adequate" by some lights, but you wouldn't settle for it. More

January 18, 2007
Defending the Media's Right Flank
J.R. Dunn
Recent weeks have seen the appearance of editorials by Max Boot and Rich Lowry attempting to make the case that the media (by which they mean the legacy media more or less exclusively) has always been correct about the situation in Iraq More

January 18, 2007
Soft People, Hard People
Selwyn Duke
If the 1976 western The Last Hard Men has it right, we Occidentals metamorphosed into jellyfish sometime around the early twentieth century. More

January 18, 2007
The Treachery of the "Two State Solution"
Rachel Neuwirth
Almost everyone involved in diplomacy aimed at a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict thinks that the solution is a "two-state solution" -a state of Israel and a state of Palestine, living in mutual harmony, side by side, without terror or conflict between them. More

January 17, 2007
Will the Next Attack Get Our Attention?
J. Peter Mulhern
What will our politics look like the day after the next time jihad comes home to America? More

January 17, 2007
Governor Schwarzenegger's Flawed Health Care Plan
Linda Halderman, MD
Paved with good intentions, California's proposed road to Universal Health Coverage will lead straight to chaos. More

January 17, 2007
Governor Schwarzenegger Should Go to Nashville
Patrick Poole
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off his first full term in office this week by announcing during his state-of-the-state address that he intends to implement a state health insurance plan to cover all residents, including illegal aliens. But before riding the universal health care train too far, Gov. Schwarzenegger might want to make a stop in Nashville More

January 16, 2007
Why Global Warming is Probably a Crock
James Lewis
As a scientist I've learned never to say "never." So human-caused global warming is always a hypothesis to hold, at least until climate science becomes mature. (Climate science is very immature right now.) More

January 16, 2007
The Duplicity of Redeployment
Jonathan D. Strong
It did not take long after the defeat Saddam Hussein's military machine by US and coalition forces for Democrats to start calling for retreat. Even the use of the word "quagmire" made a speedy appearance within weeks of the invasion of Afghanistan More

January 16, 2007
Ashley "X"
Miguel A. Guanipa
There is something unsettling about the taking of steps to manipulate the natural growth of any human being. Unless the person's growth represents a life threatening condition, it is hard to justify this type of treatment. More

January 15, 2007
Ronald Reagan: The Crusader
Herbert E. Meyer
The complicated business of understanding how Ronald Reagan led the Free World to victory in the Cold War has just become much easier. Run to your nearest bookstore and buy a copy of The Crusader, by Paul Kengor. More

January 15, 2007
Remembering Dr. King
Bob Weir
For those who don't remember or choose to forget, April 4, 1968 was another day that will live in infamy. More

January 15, 2007
How about Equality Day?
Ari Kaufman
I do not deny the tireless and intrepid work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nor his lofty place in history; to do so would be disingenuous. However, as others have mused in recent years, why is he the only individual whom the United States currently honors with a national holiday? More

January 14, 2007
Descent into Hell
Rick Moran
Tonight, 16 million TV viewers will make themselves as comfortable as possible on the edge of their seats as Fox Network's pulse-pounding actioneer 24 returns for another season. More

January 14, 2007
Chris Dodd's Cuba Initiative
Pamela Meister
Late last week, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) officially announced his intention to enter the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate More

January 14, 2007
"Old" Europe and Israel
Vel Nirtist
Richard Baehr's detailed analysis of the stark contrast in popular support of Israel here in the US and across the Atlantic left out, I think, one critically important piece: Europe's history, which differs markedly from that of the US. More

January 13, 2007
Why Europe Abandoned Israel
Richard Baehr
Why is Israel viewed so differently in Europe than in the United States? More

January 13, 2007
Do Miracles Happen Today?
James Arlandson
Has anyone recovered immediately after words of prayer or even commands of healing have been spoken? It is time to investigate this and apply the results to philosophical and theological arguments. More

January 13, 2007
What are these "Laws of Nature"?
Paul Shlichta
The term 'laws of nature' can be interpreted in at least two conflicting ways. More

January 12, 2007
The Way Forward
J. Peter Mulhern
The President has outlined his "way forward" for Iraq and the battlelines are clearly drawn, both in Washington and in Baghdad. Here in the capital of the free world, the fight is between two factions of our political class each of which is trying to avoid tasting the bitter along with the sweet. More

January 12, 2007
Opposing Minimum Wage Hike Is Bad Politics
Steven M. Warshawsky
Among the first items on the Democrats' "100 hours" agenda is raising the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour. I think the President would be making a serious mistake if he opposes the proposed minimum wage increase. More

January 12, 2007
Beyond Bias: When the Media Fabricates News
Steven Zak
A recent Gallup poll found that 56% of Americans think the media's coverage of events in Iraq is inaccurate, nearly two thirds of those believing that the media portray the situation as worse than it is. More

January 11, 2007
Admiral Fallon and CENTCOM
Douglas Hanson
When it was announced by the President last week that Navy Admiral William J. Fallon, current commander of Pacific Command (PACOM), will replace Central Command (CENTCOM) boss Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the reaction was nearly universal: why a Navy man to lead what are predominately Army and Marine forces in the Central Region? More

January 11, 2007
Changing Diapers, Serving Leftovers, and Caring for the Country in a Single Bound: Nancy Pelosi Capitalizes on Motherhood and Apple Pie
Pamela Meister
When Nancy Pelosi broke through the "marble ceiling" and became that role model for other women, was her experience in changing diapers and attending Mother's Day Teas at her children's elementary school really instrumental in her rise through the rank and file of politics? More

January 11, 2007
Pelosi: God Bless the Child that's not at Home
Marc Sheppard
The history-making first Madame of the House marketed her recent three day victory-dance as a celebration of children. More

January 10, 2007
The Fascists are Coming, The Fascists are Coming
J.R. Dunn
The American left never, under any circumstances, engages in anything that can be called McCarthyite tactics. They leave that to the far right, so I guess we'll have to call it something else. More

January 10, 2007
The Right Stuff
Frederick J. Chiaventone
I had a note from an old friend the other night. He's got a new job and has to move on for a while. His name is Lieutenant General Dave Petraeus. More

January 10, 2007
The New UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon
William Lalor
It's a curious exercise to predict the impact new Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon might have on the United Nations. At first, I asked myself why I'd even care. More

January 9, 2007
The 100 Hours of Democratic Superstition
Christopher Chantrill
How do you spell superstition? The professional atheists have been busy spelling it out lately More

January 9, 2007
Mitt Romney: A Massachusetts Liberal for President
Selwyn Duke
With the 2008 presidential campaign looming just on the horizon, speculation about political fortunes abounds. On the Democrat side, Lady Hillary is waiting in the wings. Enter Mitt Romney More

January 9, 2007
Mitt Romney: A Leader for America
Amy D. Goldstein
There is a good reason that politicos call the run-up to an election "the silly season." We have too much at stake in the 2008 Presidential election to slip into this. More

January 8, 2007
Iraq And 911:Not the Same Battle, but the Same War
Scott Malensek
It's been too often said that, "Iraq and 911 are not the same battle." The fact is that's right - they are not the same battle, but they are the same war; the same jihad. More

January 8, 2007
Truce or Consequences
Robert Latona
The collapse of the phoney peace process with ETA spells more than just political and personal humiliation for Spanish Premier Rodriguez Zapatero. In the end, it was the hard men who got their way. More

January 8, 2007
What to do about Iran
Amil Imani
There is no shortage of proposals regarding what to do about the present Iran conundrum. Some proposals are authored by experts such as Henry Kissinger, while others are put forward by a variety of lesser luminaries. I am one of the lesser luminaries. More

January 7, 2007
Iraq And 911:Not the Same Battle, but the Same War
Scott Malensek
It's been too often said that, "Iraq and 911 are not the same battle." The fact is that's right - they are not the same battle, but they are the same war; the same jihad. More

January 7, 2007
Hell's Coming with Us
Adriana Ramirez
My favorite line in any movie represents the quintessential battle cry needed in today's war. It reverberates in the tone of victory. More

January 7, 2007
Scientific "Consensus": Gateway to Tyranny
William D. Zeranski
The next time someone asks, "Do you believe in Global Warming?" Inquire why they are asking a religious question, because that is what they are asking. Belief is for religion not science. More

January 7, 2007
Smoking and Charley Fisher
Bob Weir
Smoking is a nasty, dirty, smelly habit that can kill you slowly, emaciating your lungs until they can no longer hold a quantity of oxygen without rupturing. More

January 6, 2007
Massachusetts Liberals Unhinged
John Kinsellagh
Should people wish to know what life under unrestrained liberalism would be like, they should tune in to the contentious issues surrounding the latest same sex marriage controversy which were resurrected this past week in Massachusetts. More

January 6, 2007
Transplanting the Heart of the Matter
Dan Gordon
It has become an axiomatic belief that solving the Israeli Palestinian conflict is central to resolving numerous other problems in the Middle East. Jerusalem per se is not the issue. The heart of the matter is Al-Aqsa and the Mosque of Omar. More

January 6, 2007
Miracles and the Laws of Nature
James Arlandson
Miracles, if they happen, are exceedingly rare, but compared to what? More

January 5, 2007
Breaking the Hold of Hegemonist Doctrine
J.R. Dunn
Hegemonism is the doctrine holding that every American action on the international stage should be examined under suspicion of evil intent. And what does it foresee occurring in Iraq - and the Middle East at large - after the United States pulls out? More

January 5, 2007
The Heedless People Who Didn't Care About Michael Oher
Christopher Chantrill
Heedlessness has a history in the United States, one that has seen it migrate across social lines. Back in the 1920s rich writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald used to write novels about the heedless rich. More

January 5, 2007
Presidents Ford and Carter: A Stark Juxtaposition
Amy D. Goldstein
Two historic trends collided during the funeral in Grand Rapids, MI for former President Gerald R. Ford. Both had to do with Israel, and both were embodied in the person of former President Jimmy Carter. Those trends are: the process that led to the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty and the campaign to delegitimize Israel in the international community. More

January 4, 2007
The Congressional Oath of Office: A Quandary
Paul Shlichta
Keith Ellison's plan to take the Congressional oath of office with his hand on the Quran has triggered one of those disputes that seem to generate more heat than light. In such cases, it is usually best to defer discussion until one has first defined the problem More

January 4, 2007
Ellison and the Oath: A Matter of Faith
Rick Moran
What do you get when you throw a stick of dynamite into a room full of nitroglycerine? Let me rephrase that: What do you get when religion, politics, and powerful symbols of American tradition all intersect to form a combination of controversy and conundrum? More

January 4, 2007
Bringing Conservatism Back to the American People
Steven M. Warshawsky
Conservatives are lousy proselytizers. Despite the Reagan Revolution of 1980 and the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, the country today appears less hospitable than at any time in recent memory to core conservative ideas of limited government, private property, free enterprise, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and patriotism. More

January 3, 2007
On Going Roman
J.R. Dunn
Much in the way of criticism of the United States comes in the form of accusations of imperialism. According to this view, echoed by everyone from Harold Pinter to Noam Chomsky to the Arab press, the U.S. has for decades run roughshod over the globe, in defiance of agreements and civilized norms. More

January 3, 2007
Bush and Einstein
Vel Nirtist
One hundred and twenty-five years ago, in 1881, the world of science was in a state of bliss. All big questions about the Universe having been answered two centuries earlier by Newton. In the year 2001, we lived in another sort of perfect world yet again. All friction between different cultures and religions was supposedly ironed out by declaring all of them simply "different". More

January 3, 2007
Europe's End: Not with Bang but a Whimper
Henry P. Wickham, Jr.
Mark Steyn's recent best seller, America Alone is a gloomy book on Europe's future. By Europe, Mr. Steyn means primarily what Donald Rumsfeld once referred to contemptuously as "Old Europe." More

January 2, 2007
Rewriting the Rules of War
Col. Tom Snodgrass
A curious thing happened in American thinking about warfare in 1961 - the rules needed to be rewritten, or so thought "the best and brightest" civilian strategists that President Kennedy brought with him into the White House. More

January 2, 2007
Where`s the Beef?
Timothy Birdnow
In the mid 1980`s the Wendy's Hamburger chain ran a very successful advertising campaign in which an octogenarian (who sounded amazingly like Helen Thomas) bellyached about the stingy amount of meat on her sandwich; "where`s the beef?" became a nationally known slogan More

January 2, 2007
A Conspiracy of Ignorance
David J. Rusin
As a student of human nature, Benjamin Franklin knew that the demands of confidentiality are often little match for the gossip instinct. "Three may keep a secret," he wryly noted, "if two of them are dead." More

January 1, 2007
Threats, Real and Imagined
Steven Feinstein
Mankind's existence is always being threatened, or so it seems. The number of societal-threatening events that have occurred in roughly the last thirty years is nothing short of amazing. In the late 1970's, Newsweek cited several scientific climactic studies that pointed to an unmistakable cooling trend in the Earth's weather pattern. More

January 1, 2007
Breaking Private Ryan?
By Michael Lopez-Calderon
President George W. Bush included in his Christmas 2006 wish list a larger Army and Marine Corps. While it is admirable that the Commander in Chief longs for a larger military, many are concerned that the current one will soon reach the breaking point. More

January 1, 2007
What is the balance sheet on Iraq?
Greg Richards
We must evaluate the situation in Iraq in terms of the interests of the United States. If we accept the point of view of our enemies, or even of Iraqis, we are faced with an impossible situation because our enemies want us to lose, and we cannot satisfy all the objectives of all Iraqis - we cannot be the "good guys" to everybody. More