February 1, 2007
The Senate moved closer to a non-binding resolution opposing the surge strategy last night when two key members of the chamber reached a compromise on the wording in the bill. John Warner and Carl Levin have agreed to reinforce the...
George Bush has decided to do some Clintonian triangulating in the last two years of his presidency on issues outside the war, it now seems. He surprised observers by using a well-received speech on the economy to Wall Street executives...
It didn't take long for Nancy Pelosi to create the imperial Speakership. She has requested that the Pentagon supply her with military aircraft at all times, and not just for herself, but also for her staff, her colleagues, and her...
Jacques Chirac stunned reporters with his nonchalance over the prospect of a nuclear Iran. One or two little bombs didn't make much of an impression on him, he said in an interview with the New York Times and a French...
With the presidential primary race well under way, the meter has started running on fundraising and spending. Ironically, deficit hawk John McCain has taken the lead on the latter, lapping his competition while doling out over $7 million for his...
One of the key constituencies of the new Democratic majority in the House has started to crumble. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has split along gender lines, a rebellion against the caucus chair led by my old representative from California: A...
I'll be back on my Blog Talk Radio show again tonight at 9 pm CT, ready to take your calls and discuss the issues of the day. Topics usually will be a game-time decision, but I'll be interested in hearing...
John McCain has decided to eschew the competing resolutions expressing disfavor with the new White House surge strategy in favor of an open-ended series of benchmarks intended to demonstrate what progress in Iraq will look like. The resolution gives no...
February 2, 2007
It will be a light posting day today, as the hosting service for CQ had its share of problems overnight. Starting around 7:45 or so, Hosting Matters had a complete failure of some sort; the forums have no explanation, but...
The New York Times indulges itself in the latest oddity of racial politics today regarding Barack Obama. The meme that he will struggle to find support in the black community has floated in the media for the past few weeks;...
Florida has decided to end its use of electronic voting machines, reversing a decision made at the height of the controversy over the 2000 election. The state will opt for the optical-scan technology that retains the paper trail necessary to...
A Canadian mission in London has been evacuated after someone noticed a suspicious package outside: The Canadian High Commission in central London has been evacuated and surrounding streets closed after a suspect package was found, a police spokesman said. "A...
The world may soon adopt "Palestinian cease-fire" as a self-evident oxymoron. Hours after announcing the latest cessation of hostilities between Fatah and Hamas, both groups conducted major attacks on the other, leaving a broadcast station in ruins and ambulances dodging...
The producers of South Park hilariously depicted North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il in their movie Team America: World Police in a musical sequence titled I'm So Ronery. Apparently, that song wouldn't apply to Kim's jet-setting son, whom the London Telegraph...
Earlier today, I accepted an offer from the organizers of the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) next month in Washington DC. I'll be one of the bloggers covering the event from Blogger Alley, similar to what I did at...
February 3, 2007
John Warner has declared that he will filibuster his own non-binding resolution on the surge to protest the conduct of Harry Reid in limiting votes on alternatives, such as John McCain's proposed language that supports the President's new stratey for...
The intelligence community released its National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq yesterday, a nine-page document that the Washington Post correctly characterizes as "bleak". It adopts the term "civil war" for the ongoing conflict in Iraq, and at the same time notes...
It's hard out here for a Wookie. First, clone armies supposedly helping you wind up shooting up your home planet. Then you get stuck on the worst-looking hyperspace vehicle in seven systems, piloted by an undisciplined cowboy who inexplicably winds...
Yesterday, the Rudy Giuliani campaign promoted the results of polling by several groups last month, surveys which shows that Giuliani has more strength in traditionally blue states than other Republicans, especially the former "maverick" John McCain. Once expected to be...
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah told an Egyptian interviewer that Iran and Syria fund, train, and control his organization as an effort to spread radical Shi'ite Islam throughout the region: "Iran assists the organization with money, weapons, and training, motivated by...
The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line's John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I...
It's hard to get surprised by Leftist characterizations of conservatives as fascists The epithet flows so freely that even members of the Senate have used it, the last time by an ex-Klansman. The latest version of the insult comes from...
My friend and radio partner Mitch Berg goes off the deep end with his Super Bowl prediction this weekend: In 1940, everyone - everyone - predicted Sammy Baugh’s Washington Redskins were going to beat the Chicago Bears in the NFL...
Given the more liberal tendencies of Rudy Giuliani on abortion and guns, conservatives have expressed serious misgivings about his run for the nomination. However, the main effect that a President can have on these issues involves his or her outlook...
February 4, 2007
Nancy Pelosi got a Democratic majority in the midterm elections by promising to clean up Congress, to drain the swamp of corruption in Washington, and especially to disconnect lobbyists from legislation. That reform appears to have been derailed, as the...
Britain's latest success against radical Islamist terror may have heralded the beginning of a major offensive by al-Qaeda against the West. Cells in the UK have received instructions to start kidnapping victims, make tapes of them pleading for their lives,...
While the US focuses on Iran as a fomenter of the violence wracking Baghdad and its environs, Iraqi officials have begun pointing west instead east as an explanation. After the worst single bombing in the last four years took 135...
George Bush went into the lion's den yesterday, addressing the new Democratic Party majority in Congress in a closed-door meeting intended to help smooth the way for bipartisanship. By all accounts, Bush did well, using self-deprecating humor to defuse the...
Progress: Some 3 million Muslims put aside their country's violent struggle with political corruption and Islamic extremists and raised their hands in prayer for global peace at one of the world's largest religious gatherings. The final prayer Sunday capped a...
Since I'm going to watch the game and check on the latest in the news, I figured I'd do a bit of a laissez-faire live blog. I'll update it during the pre-game, game, and post-game, but on a low-intensity basis....
February 5, 2007
Claiming that they cannot abide the occupation, Jewish academics in Britain have decided that they value the human rights of Palestinians above the right of Israel to exist. At least, that's the question as they see it: A group of...
The New York Times reports that the Palestinians have begun to sense what a public relations disaster their civil war has become. At the same time they demand recognition as a state, they have proven that they cannot hold one...
Super Bowl commercials generate a lot of foolish analysis, perhaps as much foolishness as contained in the advertisements. This year provided plenty of that in several varieties, reflecting the efforts of ad agencies to make the biggest impression in their...
The classified portion of the National Intelligence Estimate downplays the effect of al-Qaeda in Iraq, declaring them to be a small minority of the Sunni terrorists. However, four of the sixteen intelligence agencies dissented from this view, including the intel...
Both Shi'ite and Sunni Iraqi leaders want the US to accelerate the deployment for the new surge strategy in Baghdad. Shi'ites blame the US for not filling the power vacuum quickly enough after the Mahdi Army started to flee the...
We've all heard the Leo Durocher saying, "Nice guys finish last," a tenet by which Durocher lived his life as manager of both the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. Too often in sports (and business, and politics, etc etc...
Bill Ardolino, having completed his embed mission in Iraq with American forces, has begun to write about his experiences at length. His latest essay tells about his experience on a nighttime raid with US Marines and Iraqi Army forces, and...
Ralph Nader has not gone quietly into that good night, and instead might consider another round of rage against the dying of the political light. He refused to rule out another run for the White House, and punctuated it with...
The Republicans welcomed Harry Reid to Senate leadership today, filibustering the Warner-Levin amendment on the surge strategy in Iraq when Reid tried to push it through without allowing alternatives or amendments to come to the floor. The Democrats could not...
Rudy Giuliani ended most of the speculation by amending his exploratory committee papers today to include a "statement of candidacy". It moves him closer to the eventual commitment to run, but Giuliani all but made that tonight on Hannity &...
Continue reading "Rudy's In, Mostly" »
February 6, 2007
Even in a program full of American heroes, some oddities will emerge, and usually in the most embarrassing circumstances. Such is the case with the space program and three of its astronauts, one of whom has been arrested for plotting...
At the end of a big championship game, the winners appear within minutes wearing T-shirts and caps proclaiming themselves as the champs. Obviously, these pieces of clothing have to be manufactured in bulk before the game in order to make...
A Minnesota family has reeled from the impact of a double homicide in Waseca this weekend in which a father and son lost their lives and the mother has barely managed to survive. Hilary Kruger managed to give a description...
Harry Reid has a dilemma on his hands. His control over the Senate rests on a single vote; even if Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota recovers enough to return to the Senate, the loss of one member of Reid's...
Anne Applebaum offers her solution to global warming, one that she claims any nation serious about the issue can apply without waiting for international accords to come into force. She favors a carbon tax, applied at every level, in order...
Iran blames the United States for the abduction of a diplomat by men in the uniform of the Iraqi Army, according to state news agency IRNA. ABC reports that Iraqi police captured two men involved in the incident, who got...
It has been amusing to see Democrats in Congress attempt to explain away their votes for the war in Iraq over the past year. Most of them have settled on the excuse that the Bush administration deceived them in October...
Earlier today, I had an opportunity to participate in a conference call involving the John McCain campaign and several prominent bloggers. David All live-blogged the event, in which the McCain staff solicited our unvarnished opinions regarding McCain, his campaign efforts,...
I linked to David All's live-blog of the conference call several bloggers held with the John McCain campaign earlier today. Mary Katherine Ham also participated in the call, and has a somewhat different take on the effort to engage conservative...
February 7, 2007
When the Palestinians elected the terrorist group Hamas to lead the proto-state government, the Western nations all agreed to suspend all aid payments to the Palestinian Authority to keep from funding terrorists. Eventually, frightened of domestic public opinion about the...
The US has accused Iran of fomenting the Shi'ite insurgencies and supplying materiel and weapons to an even broader range of terrorists in Iraq. Recently, the US has captured five Iranian agents in Irbil as part of the wider rules...
American nuclear expert David Albright, a former UN inspector on the North Korean impasse, has told the AP that he believes North Korea is ready to shut down its nuclear program for an end to the Korean War and "massive"...
John Podhoretz explains the surprising popularity of Rudy Giuliani in the early stages of the 2008 presidential primary campaign, writing that Republicans want to like Rudy -- if he'll let them. In his New York Post column, Podhoretz notes more...
Betsy Newmark offers an interesting comparison of the late suffragette movement and the sudden Momminess quotient in politics today, and argues that women have gone backwards in their attempt to gain political ascendancy. Instead of arguing equality between the genders,...
One of the accepted facts of the entire Valerie Plame scandal has been that Plame suggested her husband, Joseph Wilson, for the Niger investigation after Dick Cheney requested the research into Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. That timeline...
The campaign of John Edwards, hailed for hiring two progressive bloggers for his 2008 Presidential campaign, has now said they will reconsider that decision in light of the blogging history of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan. The episode reveals the...
The apparent firing of two bloggers by the John Edwards campaign has generated a predictable debate in the blogosphere. Those who find themselves in sympathy with Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, either because or in spite of their inflammatory attacks...
February 8, 2007
Israeli and Lebanese Army troops exchanged fire on the border near Maroun al-Ras, the first shots fired since the cessation of hostilities last summer. A wayward bulldozer apparently sparked the incident, and the UN has started deploying peacekeepers in the...
The Guardian has an interesting look into Jordan's efforts to fight radical Islamist terrorism from the rather unique position of a Muslim monarchy. After a deadly attack on a hotel killed 60 people, mostly from a wedding reception, Jordan formed...
The 2008 primary campaign still seems pretty young to lend much weight to state by state polling -- but we won't let that stop us from having fun with it anyway. Quinnipiac released its results for Florida, a key state...
The US and Iraqi forces have not limited the new full-court press in Baghdad to just the foot soldiers of the insurgencies and independent militias, but also to those who give them political cover. The arrest of a near-Cabinet-level official...