Mona Charen from Creators Syndicate

Irreplaceable Irving for 09/22/2009

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Irving Kristol, who passed away last week at the age of 89, was like everyone's favorite uncle — if the uncle were a transformative intellectual of empyrean stature. He was both a warm and approachable human being and a penetrating social critic. He was, in a very American way, a practical man, and his approach to ideas was always firmly and refreshingly reality-based.

Irving Krist ...

Updated: Tue Sep 22, 2009

Obama's Self-Worship for 09/25/2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

President Obama's speech to the United Nations has been called naive and even "post-American." It was something else, as well: the most extravagant excursion into self-worship we have yet seen in an American leader.

Beware of politicians who claim to be "humbled by the responsibility the American people have placed upon me." It's a neon sign flashing the opposite. And ...

Updated: Fri Sep 25, 2009

Who Needs Religion? for 09/29/2009

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Well, that's one way to look at it. Writing in Haaretz, Orna Coussin praised Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement that began Sunday night and ended Monday night) as the ultimate green holiday. Coussin is a secular Israeli and was expressing her appreciation for the fact that everyone is obliged to travel by foot on Yom Kippur. All traffic stops in Israel. No cars, busses, trains, or taxis cl ...

Updated: Tue Sep 29, 2009

Repeat After Me: Mothers Belong at Work for 10/02/2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

There is nothing that makes some members of the chattering class more jumpy than the idea that women may be choosing to stay at home with their children. Still evidently shaken by a 2003 New York Times piece on female Princeton grads who elected to stay home and raise children, the Washington Post let out a nearly audible sigh of relief as it headlined a story on Census Bureau data "Most S ...

Updated: Fri Oct 02, 2009

And You Say Conservatism Is Dying? for 10/06/2009

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Strangely, chatter about the "death of conservatism" is circulating this fall. I say "strangely" because we are in the midst of the greatest left/liberal moment in living memory. Liberal policies are careening out of Washington and mowing down innocent bystanders. This is the greatest opportunity since the Carter administration to illustrate to voters why conservatism is to ...

Updated: Tue Oct 06, 2009

When the First Amendment Counts Most, Court Has Been AWOL for 10/09/2009

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The air was thick with hypotheticals at the Supreme Court last week as the justices considered whether a law designed to outlaw videos depicting cruelty to animals was constitutional. Because there is no floor to human decadence, so-called "crush videos" depicting women in high heels crushing small animals to death enjoyed a certain popularity. Congress outlawed them. Most of the just ...

Updated: Fri Oct 09, 2009

Can Obama Rise to Harding's Level? for 10/13/2009

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Picture this: It is midnight on Nov. 4, 2009. The previous day's elections in Virginia, New York's 23rd congressional district, and New Jersey have all been won by Republicans. Health reform is stalled. The latest employment numbers are still dismaying. President Obama cannot sleep. He paces the halls of the White House and comes upon a portrait of Warren Harding. Since President Obama is nothi ...

Updated: Tue Oct 13, 2009

The Democrats' Coming Defeat for 10/16/2009

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

"There is a tide in the affairs of men" — Shakespeare

Yes, but undertows, too. As Obama, Pelosi, and Reid rush to transform America into a European-style social democratic state, they must be nervous; they must feel the sand sliding under their feet. The 2010 elections are just over the horizon and the omens are not encouraging for them. Thomas Jefferson warned that " ...

Updated: Fri Oct 16, 2009

Obama's Moral Leadership Balloon Crashes -- No One Inside for 10/20/2009

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The world thinks better of the United States, we are told, because Barack Obama is in the White House. Maybe the world is wrong.

It's fanciful, of course, to speak of what "the world" thinks about anything. It's safe to say that among Norwegian prize givers and Canadian avant-garde filmmakers, Obama is extremely popular. And certainly among bien pensant Americans, the advent of ...

Updated: Tue Oct 20, 2009

Maria Shriver Misses the Point for 10/23/2009

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Maria Shriver's new report, "A Woman's Nation Changes Everything," has received a full dress media rollout. We are invited to examine the changes in women's lives over the past several decades and to deplore, as usual, the obstacles to full equality that women supposedly face. Published in cooperation with the Center for American Progress, "A Woman's Nation" claims to be rec ...

Updated: Fri Oct 23, 2009

Government by Holiday Inn Express for 10/27/2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

You've seen those commercials in which an airline pilot, or surgeon, or nuclear engineer is giving expert advice only to acknowledge eventually to his nonplussed listeners that while he is not actually a fill-in-the-blank, he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Do you ever get the feeling that we are getting Holiday Inn Express government?

Does anything they say make basic econ ...

Updated: Tue Oct 27, 2009

Fighting the Lies Harder Than Fighting the War for 10/30/2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The war over the war in Gaza is heating up. Next week, the United Nations General Assembly will consider the tendentious Goldstone Report, the highest profile exercise in blaming the victim in the U.N.'s tawdry history. Simultaneously, lawyers in Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and Norway are drawing up criminal indictments against IDF officers who participated in the Gaza operation. ...

Updated: Fri Oct 30, 2009

Health Care Overhaul IV: This Time, It's Personal for 11/03/2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

I labeled it "Health Care Overhaul IV" for convenience. In fact, a new 2,000-page behemoth seems to emerge more than once a week from the maw of Congress, so it's becoming impossible to keep track.

Until now, my reasons for opposing this fright mask were entirely dispassionate and flowed from 1) common sense (how are they going to provide more care for less money, and can we af ...

Updated: Tue Nov 03, 2009

Are You with Us or with Them? for 11/06/2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

President Obama likes to preen himself on his supposed moral superiority to his predecessor. He announced the closing of Guantanamo in his first week on the job (though 10 months on, it remains open) to advertise the new administration's disdain for George Bush's war-fighting tactics. And at every opportunity since, he has stressed that his policies — on taxes, on the Middle East, on heal ...

Updated: Fri Nov 06, 2009

Backlash Hogwash for 11/10/2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

"U.S. Homeland Security officials are working with groups around the United States to head off any possible anti-Muslim backlash following the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas."

The Department of Homeland Security is in good company in its confusion. Gen. George Casey, the Army's top general, also worried that "this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some ...

Updated: Tue Nov 10, 2009

Backlash Hogwash for 11/10/2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

"U.S. Homeland Security officials are working with groups around the United States to head off any possible anti-Muslim backlash following the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas."

Democrats May Regret 'Pass Anything' Strategy for 11/13/2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Former President Bill Clinton visited Capitol Hill recently to deliver a pep talk to Senate Democrats. "It's not important to be perfect here. It's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling," he reportedly told senators. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sounded a similar theme in an interview with the New York Times. "I'm sure there are a lot of people sitting i ...

Updated: Fri Nov 13, 2009

How Low Can He Go? for 11/17/2009

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

President Obama, who nearly prostrated himself before the king of Saudi Arabia last April, has once again bowed low to a monarch — this time to the emperor of Japan.

What to make of this obsequious body language?

After the presidential frame went perpendicular before the Saudi royal, the White House at first denied that the president had bowed. He was merely leaning over, ...

Updated: Tue Nov 17, 2009

Holder's True Motive for 11/20/2009

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Attorney General Eric Holder adopted a tough guy pose when he announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will be tried in federal court for the most heinous terror attack on Americans in history. "After eight years of delay," he intoned, "those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September 11 will finally face justice. It is past time to finally act."

...

Updated: Fri Nov 20, 2009

Nurse Ratched Democrats for 11/24/2009

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The president and his party in Congress are attempting to dig this country so deep into debt that we may not be able to climb out. This is a strong and resilient country, but we wouldn’t be the first great nation to bankrupt ourselves.

Four months ago, while the Democrats were hatching their health care behemoths, only policy wonks noticed a report issued by the Social Security and ...

Updated: Tue Nov 24, 2009