The Merry-Go-Round
What is one to make of the six retired generals who, in recent days, have called not only for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, but have questioned whether U.S. troops should remain...
View ArticleGetting Serious
While going through boxes during a move some years ago, I found Esso gasoline receipts from the '60s (Esso subsequently became Exxon in the United States). I showed them to my children and they were...
View Article'Flight 93' Soars: A Needed Film
The first impression one gets from the film "United 93," which opens April 28, is that it's predictably normal. Pilots and flight attendants go about routine business, from safety checks to making sure...
View ArticleRunning on Empty
So it has come to this: A group of Senate Republicans has proposed $100 rebates to low-income people to ease their "pain at the gas pump." They also are entertaining the possibility of higher taxes on...
View Article'Mitigating Factors'?
"America you lost. I won!" shouted Zacarias Moussaoui after an Alexandria, Va., jury rejected the death penalty for his admitted role in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000...
View ArticleThe Hillary Factor: 'Not Easily Defined'
The Washington Post carried a strange story on its front page Tuesday (May 30). It was headlined, "Clinton Is A Politician Not Easily Defined: Senator's Platform Remains Unclear." Were the story about...
View ArticleHeal Thyselves
Is there anyone in America who doesn't know that our hospitals are in trouble, along with the rest of the health care system? Three reports released last week by the Institute of Medicine confirm that....
View ArticleCan a Mormon be President?
Consider the following scenario: four candidates are running for president in 2008. One is a pro-choice Protestant who believes in balanced budgets and would cut spending and lower taxes, but is...
View ArticleFiscally Irresponsible
The following is not parody. House Republicans are being told by their leaders to run campaigns this fall on a platform of fiscal discipline that includes cutting spending. This from a party that has...
View ArticleWisdom and Judgment Deficiency
And now for the definition-impaired, the meaning of the word "naive": "deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgment." There was plenty of that on display last week in Pittsburgh and in Washington....
View ArticleClinton Gives Another Famous Finger Wag
President Clinton shook his left index finger at Chris Wallace during an interview on "Fox News Sunday," denying charges he and his administration did too little to catch Osama bin Laden and ward off...
View ArticleLaughing At Honor
In the press accounts of Congressman Mark Foley's resignation from the House over allegations of sexually explicit e-mails between himself and House pages, one frequently encounters the word...
View ArticleNo Safe Places
If terrorism has made us feel unsafe and insecure, the latest shootings in a one-room Amish school in Lancaster County, Pa., can only multiply our fears. Anyone who has ever visited Lancaster County,...
View ArticleCase for Continuing the GOP Majority
Republicans have a fair story to tell about what they've accomplished over the last two years, but their narrative has been interrupted by the trashy subplot of Mark Foley and his trolling for male...
View ArticleSecretary Rice's View Of the World
Sitting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her office recently reminded me of why I loved a professor I had in college. Like him, she is so interested and enthusiastic about her subject that...
View ArticleWhat Exactly Do Voters Really Want?
Conservatives who are upset that Republicans haven't done enough during their 12 years in control of the House and Senate and nearly six years in control of the White House need a slap in the face....
View ArticleMy Trip To Guantanamo
The position of the European left and liberal Democrats on the detention center for suspected terrorists captured on the battlefield has been this: American troops are torturing people on American...
View ArticleShow Some Outrage
The French journalist and novelist Alphonse Karr is credited with saying, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Though Karr lived in the 19th century, his insight could well apply to...
View ArticleThe Rumsfeld Memo
A memo by Donald Rumsfeld, the outgoing defense secretary, recommending changes in American strategy in Iraq is being spun in some quarters as a declaration of capitulation. In fact, it is akin to what...
View ArticleFinishing The Job We Started
By its own admission, the Iraq Study Group has submitted a "flawed" report to the president, to Congress, and to the American people. While the report properly calls for Iraq's government to do more to...
View ArticleWhen Politics Becomes Messianic
As we approach the day once known as Christmas, before it became "holiday," there is a sense that the Messiah, which the day is supposed to acknowledge, is rapidly being supplanted in the public...
View ArticleDishonoring Our Veterans
" to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan..." There has never been a more succinct statement about the obligation and privilege the nation has to care for its...
View ArticleRacing to the Bottom
In the race to the bottom for votes to win office, or to preserve themselves in office, it would be difficult to out-run Republicans as they pander to the Hispanic vote by refusing to control our...
View ArticleEx-President Raking In That Cash
President Clinton is one of a kind, but we knew that already. No president before him has managed to cash in from his time in office with such shameless abandon. A Washington Post story by John Solomon...
View ArticleThe Gingrich Challenge
Admit it, you hate politics: the gotcha games in which a quote can be taken out of context and used as a pretext for bashing one's opponent; the sound bites replacing reasoned argument; the focus...
View ArticleMarch Madness Has Begun
It's time for that annual ritual known as March Madness. No, this March Madness isn't about college basketball. It's about how much money Congress plans to attach to appropriations bills to curry favor...
View ArticleRenewing Eduction
Congress will soon decide whether to renew President Bush's signature education program No Child Left Behind, the goal of which is to bring every public school student to grade level in reading and...
View ArticleBuying and Selling Votes
There are laws even ethics rules against buying votes in Congress. Lobbyists Jack Abramoff and others went to prison for attempting to buy votes and congressmen, and Randy "Duke" Cunningham and...
View ArticleSnow Falling In Spring
Nobody dislikes Tony Snow. By acclamation, people who know him say the White House press secretary is the most decent, kind, and encouraging human being they have ever met. Speaking from personal...
View ArticleGiuliani's Pretzel
Rudy Giuliani is playing the role of a contortionist in his attempts to convince enough pro-life voters to support his presidential candidacy. After an unblemished record as a pro-choice mayor of New...
View ArticleDodging Bullets at Fort Dix
America dodged another bullet several in fact when authorities foiled an alleged terrorist attack on the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey by six men described by authorities as "radical Islamists."...
View ArticleGiuliani's Choice
Republican presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, picked the Friday before Mother's Day to tell students at Houston Baptist University that while he "hates" abortion and finds it "morally wrong," one...
View ArticleUnending War
Before Congress adjourned last week on another of its lengthy holidays, House Speaker Pelosi repeated a phrase she has previously used about the war in Iraq. She again referred to it as "the Bush...
View ArticleSounds Like A Socialist Village
Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has unveiled her economic vision. Should she be given the power to implement it, we can say goodbye to the prosperity and opportunity we...
View ArticleWhose Country Is This?
A former senator and probable Republican presidential candidate, Fred Thompson, brought Virginia Republicans to their feet last Saturday night in Richmond when he said the public no longer believes in...
View ArticleFailing The Next Generation
PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland There are two ways to destroy a nation. One is from without by an invading military force. The other is from within when the people of the nation no longer embrace and...
View Article... Unaffiliated Man
Mayor Bloomberg was never really a Republican; neither was he really a Democrat, the political party he previously left. From DINO, Democrat in name only, he became a RINO, Republican in name only, and...
View ArticleBattle for the Remote
Every night around 11 o'clock my wife reluctantly relinquishes the remote control so that I can select the local newscast we will watch. The scene is familiar to millions of people for whom the TV...
View ArticleResponsible Patriotism
It's a long way from Washington, D.C., to Washington, Ind., where my father was born a century ago next January and where I am attending a Thomas family reunion. On the drive from Indianapolis, one...
View ArticleA Superficial Debate: More Facts Please...
Credit CNN with trying to shake things up in an otherwise dull, exasperating, and too-long campaign season with its YouTube Democratic presidential "debate" Monday night. There was a good deal of...
View ArticleCompetence Over Ideology
The last but unfortunately not the final "debate" among Republican presidential candidates aired Sunday at 10:30 a.m. EST in the apparent hope that no one would watch. Few did. But among those who...
View ArticleThe Threat of a Superstate
Britain's New Labour, despite criticism from Prime Minister Brown of a government that has grown too fast and costs too much, has been quietly planning a vast expansion of government. The Sunday...
View ArticleCheating College Students
"If you can read this, thank a teacher," says the bumper sticker on the car in front of me. But literacy is more than the ability to read a bumper sticker. It also includes the accumulation of basic...
View ArticleEconomic Sacrifices
WOODSTOCK, VT. The Wall Street Journal, no left wing publication, reports that Republicans may soon lose the votes of some economic conservatives. In part, it's because of the unending war in Iraq...
View ArticleThe Threat From Turkey
Just as it appears America may have turned an important corner in Iraq with the reported disabling of Al Qaeda, Turkey is threatening to invade northern Iraq in an attempt to stop attacks by Kurdish...
View ArticleExhuming Hillarycare
In the 1990s, Judicial Watch, an organization that seeks to hold Democrats and Republicans accountable to the law, pursued members of the Clinton administration. The organization's founder, Larry...
View ArticleUn-Super Size Me
If you believe big media, the economy is in trouble. If you worry about job layoffs and your inability to pay bills, you may be thinking about voting for Democrats this fall, which is the point of the...
View ArticleGet Out While You Can
As one group attempts to use California public schools as laboratories to assist children in "coming out" with their nontraditional sexual orientation, another is urging parents to come out from these...
View ArticleIf You Build It, They Won't Come
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to take up the appeal lodged by environmental groups that focused on a two-mile stretch of border fence in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area near...
View ArticleWhy Even Conservatives Liked McGovern Personally
Senator McGovern, who died Sunday, had all manner of evil said about him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was called unpatriotic, disloyal, an appeaser and an enabler of communism....
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