Archive for June, 2010

Good For You, Joe Barton

Congressman Barton, sir, never mind what the party leaders made you say in riposte to your own verbal thrust last week. You were right the first time—right to call out the White House for tactics extralegal at best, embarrassing to many who continue for some odd reason to look to the Oval Office for moral leadership.

A Man of One Idea

(A review of The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, by Viktor Suvorov; Annapolis: Naval Institute Press; 384 pp., $38.95

The Russian edition of Viktor Suvorov’s Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War? sports a blurb on the back, quoting a review of the English translation of the book published in a British newspaper on May 5, 1990.

Credo for Conservatives IV: More Abortion Debate

Nature gives us the sort of answer she always gives–general rules and statistical averages to which there are exceptions. [Cf. David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature III.12 ) From the Christian perspective nature is the tarnished mirror in which we can only glimpse, obscurely, the true reality. A face-to-face encounter with nature’s Creator is possible only to those who study his Word and participate in his sacraments.

Still the Metric System in Short Pants

Yahoo has decided to promote the World Cup by prominently featuring scores to games on its home page. Last night, I saw a World Cup game playing on some of the TVs at a local sports bar. Thus does an event that used to receive as much coverage in America as spelling bees in Uzbekistan creep slowly into the American consciousness.

What Price Afghanistan?

“The narrative . . . has been too negative.”

So says Defense Secretary Robert Gates of political and press commentary about the war in Afghanistan. It reminds him of the pessimism of June 2007, before the Iraqi surge began to succeed, said Gates.

Devil’s Brew in Dixie

Our small but proud State can’t seem to stay out of the political spotlight. We had barely recovered from the exposure of our present Governor’s exotic extra-marital affair when we made the headlines again as a result of the surprising outcome of the Republican primary for the next governor.

Conservative Credo IV: The Abortion Debate

In the 20th century the most powerful and difficult transitions in human life have been turned into political war zones in which the different sides routinely invoke the power of government to establish and enforce their points of view. Few debates have been so heated as those involving the decision to terminate life.

Bailing Out Politicians Now?

Even lifelong Democratic pol Steny Hoyer, majority leader of the U.S. House, is balking at Barack Obama’s latest bailout proposal. “I think there is spending fatigue,” said Steny. “It’s tough in both houses to get votes.”

What’s the Mama Grizzly Up To?

Looking over Palin’s endorsements—McCain over J.D., Fiorina over DeVore, Branstad over Bob Vander Plaats and Rod Roberts—the lady is not running for Mrs. Conservative. The one explanation that makes the most sense of all the seeming inconsistencies in endorsements is that Mama Grizzly is thinking about moving the Wasilla brood into the big house.

An Anniversary Ignored

Tuesday was the 43rd anniversary of an event that many want to see vanish down the Memory Hole. On June 8, 1967, Israeli airmen and sailors killed 33 American sailors and one civilian during their attack on the USS Liberty, and wounded another 171 American sailors.