Category: Uncategorized

Remember 1994, when Newt Gingrich became so intoxicated with victory that he went on CNN to give a long Castro-ratory harangue, promising to put the Internet in every home and all the unwashed urchins in orphanages? True, an orphanage is probably better than a meth lab, but the details of Newt’s plan got lost in the reporting, and there was enough of a backlash to cost Republicans the Senate. Americans get scared when people start promising to “expend political capital”...

Is America catching on to what it didn’t last year: that the establishment of order is the key to waging a successful political struggle? Right behind the forces about to retake Fallujah are a shadow government, police to protect them, and loads of reconstruction money. One wonders why we didn’t do this in Baghdad. Rumsfeld had trained thousands of Iraqi paramilitaries, but they were led by Ahmad Chalabi, whom the CIA and State Department despised. There was no excuse for...

Agony in Paris, Toronto, Ramallah, Berlin, and a lot of other places full of people who don’t actually live in America (thus explaining their lack of urgency about protecting it). Agony that we have failed to fulfill their fondest wishes by destroying ourselves. Then they have the gall to pretend they are our allies and friends. Friends who are always there when they need you. France hasn’t been America’s friend since . . . the last time it needed us....

What I wouldn’t give right now for closed-circuit video of Michael Moore on the ledge, with Al Franken trying to lure him back inside with some Boston Market takeout. Hey Michael–you’ll make a smaller crater if you pick a lower floor! Ok, that was a little harsh. . . . Or not. Take a look at this. I’ve never seen a more revolting exploitation of dead heroes for a cause those heroes would undoubtedly have despised.

Here’s The Guardian’s lament for a country it pretends not to have always hated. Those outside America, in the chanceries of Europe and beyond, who hoped that this would be a passing phase, like a Florida hurricane that wreaks havoc only to blow over, will instead have to adjust to a different reality. Don’t you just hate how arrogant those Yanks are? Would it be possible to load more Euro-sneer into a single sentence? We all know how funny hurricanes...

Is America catching on to what it didn’t last year: that the establishment of order is the key to waging a successful political struggle? Right behind the forces about to retake Fallujah are a shadow government, police to protect them, and loads of reconstruction money. One wonders why we didn’t do this in Baghdad. Rumsfeld had trained thousands of Iraqi paramilitaries, but they were led by Ahmad Chalabi, whom the CIA and State Department despised. There was no excuse for...

Agony in Paris, Toronto, Ramallah, Berlin, and a lot of other places full of people who don’t actually live in America (thus explaining their lack of urgency about protecting it). Agony that we have failed to fulfill their fondest wishes by destroying ourselves. Then they have the gall to pretend they are our allies and friends. Friends who are always there when they need you. France hasn’t been America’s friend since . . . the last time it needed us....

What I wouldn’t give right now for closed-circuit video of Michael Moore on the ledge, with Al Franken trying to lure him back inside with some Boston Market takeout. Hey Michael–you’ll make a smaller crater if you pick a lower floor! Ok, that was a little harsh. . . . Or not. Take a look at this. I’ve never seen a more revolting exploitation of dead heroes for a cause those heroes would undoubtedly have despised.

Here’s The Guardian’s lament for a country it pretends not to have always hated. Those outside America, in the chanceries of Europe and beyond, who hoped that this would be a passing phase, like a Florida hurricane that wreaks havoc only to blow over, will instead have to adjust to a different reality. Don’t you just hate how arrogant those Yanks are? Would it be possible to load more Euro-sneer into a single sentence? We all know how funny hurricanes...

Funny, I seem to recall that last week, this election was a referendum on The War. Now that the results are in, the stealth doves who failed to fool enough of us red-staters to win the election can’t accept our answer. That leaves them spinning furiously to retroactively change the question and blunt the sharp tip of defeat. New party line alert: “It was all about gay marriage, and how Karl Rove used it to get all of us mouth-breathing...

Funny, I seem to recall that last week, this election was a referendum on The War. Now that the results are in, the stealth doves who failed to fool enough of us red-staters to win the election can’t accept our answer. That leaves them spinning furiously to retroactively change the question and blunt the sharp tip of defeat. New party line alert: “It was all about gay marriage, and how Karl Rove used it to get all of us mouth-breathing...

That’s the Chinese position on why people are literally dying to get out of North Korea. Let’s look at the numbers. Here’s a chart that tracks the North Korean food situation since 1997: And here’s how those improved harvests have impacted the number of defections during the same time period: So why are so many people leaving North Korea? What would they say if we asked them? Responses like these are among the most typical: “We have come to the...

That’s the Chinese position on why people are literally dying to get out of North Korea. Let’s look at the numbers. Here’s a chart that tracks the North Korean food situation since 1997: And here’s how those improved harvests have impacted the number of defections during the same time period: So why are so many people leaving North Korea? What would they say if we asked them? Responses like these are among the most typical: “We have come to the...

Nov. 2, 7:00 A.M., the first of thirty-one hours that will end in Washington, fifty feet from the President of the United States. When the polls open, the line of voters is longer than the school itself. There are hundreds of people here, some with kids, some in business attire, in all kinds and colors. They read and make polite conversation about everything except politics as they move slowly toward the front of the line, where young volunteer election workers...

Nov. 2, 7:00 A.M., the first of thirty-one hours that will end in Washington, fifty feet from the President of the United States. When the polls open, the line of voters is longer than the school itself. There are hundreds of people here, some with kids, some in business attire, in all kinds and colors. They read and make polite conversation about everything except politics as they move slowly toward the front of the line, where young volunteer election workers...

Kerry was right about one thing–the whole world will be watching what we say through our votes. What they know is that no one can defeat us on a battlefield. Today, they use our political divisions and the opportunism that widens them to defeat us at the ballot box. That is precisely what those who mean us harm will conclude they have done if Kerry wins tomorrow. France and Russia will conclude that they have a free hand to continue...