March 1, 2007
Don't miss the update below! I missed this yesterday while I traveled to Washington DC for the CPAC conference, but John McCain explicitly announced that he would run for President in 2008. One might think that CPAC would have provided...
The Taliban have a new commander and a new public face for their terrorism. Mullah Dadullah has become the new rock star of the jihad in Waziristan, and his emergence could portend an especially tough spring for Afghanistan and its...
In 2002, the US discovered evidence that North Korea bought at least 20 uranium centrifuges from Pakistan, through the AQ Khan network, even though Pyonyang had agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons. The US accused North Korea of reneging on...
Normally, committee assignments get approved by voice vote with no opposition. The political parties have plenty of incentives to allow themselves to police their own, and confrontation will breed more confrontation later. However, the Republicans have decided to risk it...
I've managed to make it to CPAC's Blogger Row, sponsored by Townhall, and it's looking pretty sweet. We're at one end of the exhibition hall, and we get a great view of the people passing through the hall. CPAC has...
Senator Jim DeMint stopped by Blogger Row, in part to speak to his support for Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. DeMint spoke for just a few minutes, but made the case that the federal government needs a strong CEO...
I have a new essay up at American.com, a project of the American Enterprise Institute, about the new agreement on oil revenue in Iraq. The agreement opens the door to eventual reconciliation and a success for the US in the...
So far, we've spent most of our morning getting to know one another and prepping for some of the more anticipated events scheduled for later. I've been sitting between Jane and Mary Katherine Ham while I've prepped for my interview...
Bill Simon paid a visit to Blogger's Row here at CPAC in his new role as missionary for the Rudy Giuliani campaign. Simon once ran for governor in California, losing to Gray Davis, which helped set the stage for the...
I'm at CPAC's final event of the night to watch Dick Cheney address the CPAC conference. 7:45 PM ET - Thanking the people who introduced him. He also acknowledged the people he met on his last trip, mentioning Bagram specifically,...
Show starts at 10 pm ET! I've completed my interview with Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, one of the presidential contenders in the GOP that has not garnered as much attention. It's not for lack of intelligence and commitment, as...
March 2, 2007
The US has sent a message back to Vladiimir Putin after his eruption at Poland and the Czech Republic for considering the installation of American missile-defense infrastructure. After the Russian president's threat to start aiming medium-tange missiles at eastern Europe,...
I have questioned the use of supplemental appropriations to fund the Iraq war and the general war on terror for quite some time. That approach opens the funding process to even more shenanigans as the bills move through Congress, and...
A little pressure from the United States seems to have refocused Pakistan on their end of the war. Within days of the highest-level visit by the US in a long time, Pervez Musharraf's security forces captured a major Taliban figure...
It's not often I disagree with my friend John Podhoretz at The Corner, but today's post on John McCain and CPAC struck me as rather odd. In response to a post by Kathryn Jean Lopez that scolded McCain for skipping...
The administration has had to fight for its policies on the war for the last several months, if not longer, a task that got tougher after the announcement of the surge in Baghdad and Anbar. The Republicans in the Senate,...
The Hillary Clinton campaign will have a few more questions to answer about her husband's tenure in office after MS-NBC reported this morning that his administration demanded the suppression of her senior thesis at Wellesley: "I got a call from...
Normally, I'd be posting about visits here on Bloggers' Row as they occur, but they have been so overwhelming that it's been almost impossible to get the opportunity to actually write blogs. So far today, we've spoken with Newt Gingrich...
Rudy Giuliani is speaking now at the CPAC conference, and he is drawing huge crowds -- not only in the Regency Ballroom where he is appearing, but also around every monitor in the exhibition hall. He's keeping the CPAC attendees...
Sam Brownback is just coming to the stage now, after we have just fixed our connectivity issues. Serendipity or coincidence? You make the call. I'll live-blog it either way ... 2:01 - Brownback pays homage to Ronald Reagan and Barry...
Sam Brownback paid a visit to Blogger Row after his speech in the hall. NZ Bear and I interviewed him, with his sizable Brownies trailing behind him. It's noisy, and NZ had to tell them to keep the cheering down...
Mitt Romney is speaking now to the CPAC conference. I'm going to appear on Kevin McCullough's radio show in a few minutes and unable to watch all fo his remarks, thanks to a seriously delayed schedule for the speakers. He's...
Governor Mitt Romney just paid a visit to Blogger Row, and a number of the CPAC bloggers got a chance to interview him on the fly. I've podcasted our portion of the interview, and you'll hear NZ Bear and Philip...
March 3, 2007
Ann Coulter is speaking at the moment, and drawing a huge crowd -- with longer lines than those for the Rudy Giuliani. She's definitely one of the stars here at CPAC, and I listened to the audio stream for a...
CQ readers have had plenty of moment-by-moment coverage of the Conservative Political Action Conference, but how has CPAC played to the national media? With the exception of the convergence of Republican presidential hopefuls, it has mostly flown under the national...
The termination of seven US Attorneys resulted from a lack of performance to the priorities of the Bush administration and at least in one case was prompted by a complaint from a Republican Senator regarding that issue. Sources within the...
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...
We're just getting underway here, but the energy level seems to have dialed down. We're about to head into some of the headlining events this morning, but the exhibition hall has barely awoken: Blogger Row is pretty quiet, too. Some...
It remained rather quiet here until just a few moments ago, when Mike Stark showed up and tried to provoke an argument here on Bloggers Row. In case you didn't read about this on Hot Air, Stark showed up yesterday...
The buzz here on the final day of CPAC doesn't have anything to do with policy, but with the dress code for Presidential candidates. Should they wear ties, or open-collar shirts with sport coats? Or, perhaps, a feather boa: Rudy...
CPAC continues to wind down, just before Tim Pawlenty takes the stage for his appearance at the conference. Exhibitors have started disassembling their booths, and the attendees have mostly left the exhibition hall. A couple of exceptions are Major Eric...
Less than a day after Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot" at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the three leading Presidential candidates denounced Coulter for her insult: Three of the leading Republican presidential candidates on Saturday denounced one of...
March 4, 2007
In my pre-blog days, before CQ literally ate all my other hobbies, I studied the Irish language and had become a conversational speaker of an Gaeilge. Is Gaeilgeoirí mé, or at least I used to be, and there was a...
The US and Iraqi armies began their sweep of Sadr City in force today, tackling the toughest nut of the new Baghdad surge strategy. First indications show that the Mahdi Army has melted away: Hundreds of U.S. soldiers entered the...
The Iranians have a plan if the West attacks them over their nuclear program, and they will not restrict themselves to military action. The London Telegraph reports that the Iranians have sent sleeper cells throughout the Gulf states -- and...
Several people e-mailed me the link to the report at ABC's The Blotter about a supposed attack on an al-Qaeda stronghold in Afghanistan over the last few days. The attack targeted an unnamed member of AQ leadership, and some speculated...
Governor Mitt Romney won the straw poll results at the CPAC event, one of the last stories of the conference. He outstripped Rudy Giuliani and left John McCain in the dust, but CPAC attendees will understand the real story behind...
I got back this afternoon from my CPAC adventure, tired out and glad to be home, but happy with the weekend's work. I'll be grateful for my own bed after the rather unpleasant stay I had at the Washington Plaza...
March 5, 2007
One of the eight federal prosecutors terminated in the last three months lost his job after a Republican Senator told the Department of Justice that his state needed a replacement. Pete Domenici admitted yesterday that he requested the change from...
The Chinese plan their largest jump in military spening in five years, Beijing announced yesterday. They will increase spending by 18% in order to hasten the modernization of weapons and defense systems, and also set themselves up as potential arms...
The Democratic win in last year's midterms gave more credibility to the anti-war wing of Congressional Democrats, who spent most of 2006 trying to get reporters to show up to press conferences, and mostly unsuccessfully. With the new majority, these...
The Mecca agreement between Hamas and Fatah supposedly gave the warring Palestinian factions a basis for a unity government, one that would satisfy Western concerns and allow for aid to resume to the Palestinian Authority. The latter certainly proved false...
The Pentagon has not discussed an alternate strategy for Iraq if the surge does not produce the desired results, the Washington Post reports. Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs chairman, parries such questions with the response that "Marines don't talk about failure,"...
Note: This letter will appear simultaneously on a number of conservative blogs this morning. It has been scheduled in advance for that purpose. My personal remarks will appear below. Conservatism treats humans as they are, as moral creatures possessing rational...
I wanted to write something about the degenerative effects of incivility in politics in the wake of the comments and commentary today. Instead, a CQ reader sent me a link to a speech three years ago by Heritage Foundation president...
March 6, 2007
After over a year of supervising two of the most controversial programs adopted by the Bush administration after 9/11, a review panel has given both a clean bill of health on civil-rights protections. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board will...
It's no secret that the Bush surge strategy has a narrow political window to show success, and that the pressure mainly falls on the man who now commands the troops in Iraq. David Petraeus has carved out enough political support...
A disturbing trend towards a shorter average life span has begun to afflict a certain small group of people. They have no connection through ethnicity or environment per se, but instead have one very specific point in common -- all...
The Iranians seem to have misplaced one of their intelligence-service generals. Ali Reza Asgari, last seen in Turkey last month, has not phoned home for the last few weeks, and the Iranians blame the US for his disappearance: The mysterious...
The much-anticipated spring offensive by the Taliban just found itself eclipsed by the late-winter offensive of NATO. The West launched a large operation that aims to push the Taliban out of Helmand province, where the Taliban have scored their only...
The Democrats in Congress have come up with yet another proposal to end the war in Iraq. After the non-binding resolution foundered and the John Murth slow-bleed plan blew up in their faces, the Democrats have hit on their latest...
The conversion of Europe to the multinational Euro currency appears to have created a black market in local currencies, at least in Germany. Carlos, Urstromtalers, Kann Wasses, and Nahgolds have pushed out the continental stanard in twenty-two areas of Germany...
Rudy Giuliani appears to be all in for the 2008 Presidential campaign, and he's got the receipt to show it. Giuliani divested his lucrative investment-banking business for an undisclosed sum, widely seen as a necessary step to his candidacy: An...
I'm hospiblogging at the moment, as the First Mate has had problems today with her blood pressure, so I'm just catching up to the news that Scooter Libby got convicted on four of the five charges he faced in his...
March 7, 2007
Talks with North Korea have begun on a positive note, chief negotiator Christopher Hill told the Los Angeles Times. During the 60-day preliminary period, Hill expects the Kim Jong-Il regime to make honest attempts to meet its obligations and to...
John McCain wants to get rule changes passed in California that will allow independents to vote in the Republican presidential primaries in order to defend against Mitt Romney, the Washington Times reports today. The "stealth" campaign would benefit McCain, his...
Speaking of pardons, Al Kamen of the Washington Post has a contest to pick the date when Scooter Libby will get his from George Bush: U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton has set June 5 for sentencing. He has discretion...
Analysts and Democrats waited only moments after the conviction of Scooter Libby before tying the case around the neck of Vice President Dick Cheney. Following Patrick Fitzgerald's comment in his summation that a "cloud" hovers over the Vice President, many...
Michael Yon has returned from his embed assignment in Iraq. Be sure to read his excellent report. Don't forget to hit the tip jar while you're there. Posting will be light today here at CQ today....
At the same time as the Ann Coulter dustup, Bill Maher came under criticism for saying on his HBO show that "more people would live" if radical Islamist terrorists had succeeded in killing Dick Cheney. Maher, who lost his last...
A former Navy sailor and recent convert to Islam has been arrested for espionage, ABC News is reporting tonight. Paul Hall, now known as Hassan Abujihaad, sent information about Navy warships in the months following the attack on the USS...
After the OJ Simpson jury's post-trial remarks, I honestly thought I'd never hear anything less intelligent from a juror. Apparently, I was wrong. After having voted to convict Scooter Libby on four felony counts, Ann Redington told Chris Matthews that...