National Review articles from December 2008

National Review archives from December 2008

No need for elites.(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... I strongly disagree with Ramesh Ponnuru ("Reform School," November 17) when he writes the following: "Any sensible politics includes an important role for elites. Developing policies and strategies is necessarily an elite pursuit." I voted...

Roadway socialism.(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... In "Toll Talk" (November 17), Robert VerBruggen proposes congestion pricing as a way to manage traffic on our nation's highways, and responds to the criticism that variable tolls are unfair to the poor. One of the solutions he suggests is to...

"Emanuel.".(The Week)
December 1, 2008... You just knew His right-hand man would be called "Emanuel."

It's said that Barack Obama has chosen to go the good cop/bad cop route in running his White House.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... It's said that Barack Obama has chosen to go the good cop/bad cop route in running his White House. Under this scenario, Obama is the good cop. (We're skeptical, but will wait to see.) The bad cop is his new chief of staff, Illinois Democratic...

Obama has signaled that one of his first items of business will be to ask Congress to pass a massive economic-stimulus package.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Obama has signaled that one of his first items of business will be to ask Congress to pass a massive economic-stimulus package. With Obama in the White House, congressional Democrats can pass their dream bill--extensions of unemployment...

During the campaign, Obama said he would raise taxes on capital gains, dividends, and high earners.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... During the campaign, Obama said he would raise taxes on capital gains, dividends, and high earners. People with high incomes would see their income-tax rates go from 35 to 39.6 percent, with an additional 2 to 4 percent tax imposed to finance...

That $700 billion rescue package for banks is in danger of turning from a safety net into a slush fund.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] That $700 billion rescue package for banks is in danger of turning from a safety net into a slush fund. The scent of money has attracted lobbyists for every interest group in Washington. Now comes word that Treasury...

Two odious items top the Democrats'wish list as the coronation approaches.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Two odious items top the Democrats'wish list as the coronation approaches. The first is reinstatement of the so-called Fairness Doctrine. The second is the abolition of secret-ballot elections in union-organizing votes. Both measures are...

Washington is abuzz with speculation that Obama might nominate Jamie Gorelick to be the next attorney general.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Washington is abuzz with speculation that Obama might nominate Jamie Gorelick to be the next attorney general. It is difficult to imagine a worse choice. As Clinton's deputy AG, Gorelick--over the objections of seasoned prosecutors--heightened...

The campaign continued for Sarah Palin, as blame-shifting McCain aides accused her, anonymously, of not knowing that Africa is a continent rather than a country.(The Week)(John McCain)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The campaign continued for Sarah Palin, as blame-shifting McCain aides accused her, anonymously, of not knowing that Africa is a continent rather than a country. Nonsense, says Steve Biegun, a former NSC aide and Palin briefer, on the record:...

One of John McCain's most potent enemies was time.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... One of John McCain's most potent enemies was time. On the eve of the Republican convention, he turned 72. He was 25 years older than his opponent, 28 years older than his running mate. Elements of his biography--his time in the club of the...

Every election ends in unifying rhetoric, and this one was no different.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Every election ends in unifying rhetoric, and this one was no different. McCain pledged "to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences," and Obama answered his four infinitives with four...

On Election Day, three states passed referenda against same-sex marriage, including notoriously liberal California, which undid a state-supreme-court decision in the process.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... On Election Day, three states passed referenda against same-sex marriage, including notoriously liberal California, which undid a state-supreme-court decision in the process. Same-sex marriage has now been up for a vote in 30 states and lost in...

"Hi. We're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," says an actor playing a Mormon missionary.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... "Hi. We're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," says an actor playing a Mormon missionary. "We're here to take away your rights," adds his colleague. Next, they enter the home of a lesbian couple, pry off their wedding rings,...

Since 1996, Ward Connerly has pushed ballot initiatives to ban racial preferences in California, Washington, and Michigan, where they were approved.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Since 1996, Ward Connerly has pushed ballot initiatives to ban racial preferences in California, Washington, and Michigan, where they were approved. This year, he set an ambitious goal for himself: five initiatives in five states. In the end,...

Hispanics favored Obama over McCain by 67 to 31 percent.(The Week)(Barack Obama and John McCain)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Hispanics favored Obama over McCain by 67 to 31 percent. As a disproportionately low-income group that values social services, they start out leaning toward the Democrats. They favored them more in this election for the same reasons that most...

Exit stage right.
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ASSUMING there's still time for some good, old-fashioned recriminations about the recent unpleasantness at the polls, I'd like to vent my most enduring complaint about the Republican party and Homo republicanus...

The election added another kink to Joe Lieberman's relationship with the Democratic party.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The election added another kink to Joe Lieberman's relationship with the Democratic party. Rejected by Democratic voters in the 2006 primary for his support of the Iraq War and the surge, he had to win reelection as an independent. This year he...

In Minnesota, Republican senator Norm Coleman is, at this writing, sweating out the results of a tight reelection contest with faded jokester Al Franken.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In Minnesota, Republican senator Norm Coleman is, at this writing, sweating out the results of a tight reelection contest with faded jokester Al Franken. Election-night returns showed Coleman ahead by about 700...

When Obama first visited Kenya, his father's country, in 1988, he was greeted by his aunt Zeituni Onyango.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... When Obama first visited Kenya, his father's country, in 1988, he was greeted by his aunt Zeituni Onyango. "'Welcome home,' Zeituni said, kissing me on both cheeks," wrote Obama in his autobiography. Our president-elect has been somewhat less...

The mainstream media's left-wing bias is no secret to anyone who can read, but we're always impressed when someone within the establishment has the temerity to admit it.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The mainstream media's left-wing bias is no secret to anyone who can read, but we're always impressed when someone within the establishment has the temerity to admit it. Such was the case at the Washington Post recently, as its ombudsman,...

In the waning days of the presidential campaign, Joe Biden said: "Mark my words.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... In the waning days of the presidential campaign, Joe Biden said: "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama." In reality, it took only a day or two, as Russian president Dmitry Medvedev delivered a stern...

The election was hardly over before Obama received a letter of congratulation from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--a sort of love letter, really, in the way it mentioned past quarrels only to rise above them.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The election was hardly over before Obama received a letter of congratulation from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--a sort of love letter, really, in the way it mentioned past quarrels only to rise above them. Prompting it was the...

An economic growth rate of 5.8 percent doesn't sound too bad, does it? It does if you're one of the technocrat-thugs who run China.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... An economic growth rate of 5.8 percent doesn't sound too bad, does it? It does if you're one of the technocrat-thugs who run China. The export- and investment-driven Chinese economy grew at an "official" rate (probably somewhat overstated) of...

The National party, Kiwi conservatives, will lead New Zealand's new government.(Association of Consumers and Taxpayers)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The National party, Kiwi conservatives, will lead New Zealand's new government. And there's even better news from down under: The National government will be joined by five members from the ACT party, arguably the most free-market outfit to...

Britain's Queen Mother--which is to say, the mother of the present monarch--died in 2002 at the age of 101.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Britain's Queen Mother--which is to say, the mother of the present monarch--died in 2002 at the age of 101, having survived two world wars, the abdication of her brother-in-law, the disdain of Eleanor Roosevelt (who called her "a little...

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, standing on a site believed to be that of Christ's Resurrection, is managed by six different Christian sects under a complex set of protocols dating from the Ottoman Empire.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, standing on a site believed to be that of Christ's Resurrection, is managed by six different Christian sects under a complex set of protocols dating from the Ottoman Empire. Each sect guards its...

School bake sales are tons of fun, and that worries California's committees for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, whose blue-nosed busybodies fret that their young wards are packing too much tonnage.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... School bake sales are tons of fun, and that worries California's committees for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, whose blue-nosed busybodies fret that their young wards are packing too much tonnage. California has adopted strict...

Amid the generally dismal election news, there were occasional positive results, and several of these came from a most unlikely place: San Francisco.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Amid the generally dismal election news, there were occasional positive results, and several of these came from a most unlikely place: San Francisco. Its citizens resoundingly rejected a proposal to name a sewage-treatment plant after George W....

One of President Bush's unheralded achievements has been his success at keeping left-leaning creative types in obscurity.(The Week)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... One of President Bush's unheralded achievements has been his success at keeping left-leaning creative types in obscurity. He so infuriated the nation's liberal filmmakers that they spent enormous amounts of time and money on an endless series...

Pity Michael Bloomberg. For all his billions, and all his power as mayor of New York (for which office he recently bought himself the chance to seek a third term), there is one place in the city where he cannot indulge his greatest pleasure--running other people's lives.(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Pity Michael Bloomberg. For all his billions, and all his power as mayor of New York (for which office he recently bought himself the chance to seek a third term), there is one place in the city where he cannot indulge his greatest...

Here's a crime-fighting advance not to be sniffed at.(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Here's a crime-fighting advance not to be sniffed at. How to identify an individual for forensic purposes? Fingerprinting is the longest-established method. Retinal scans and voice prints have some limited application. Now scientists from the...

John Leonard was an omnivorous and omnicompetent reviewer, for the New York Times and a raft of other publications.(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... John Leonard was an omnivorous and omnicompetent reviewer, for the New York Times and a raft of other publications. He was also a dedicated man of the Left--except for a brief period at the dawn of his career, when the Harvard dropout sent an...

Michael Crichton was a wildly successful novelist because he told stories well. Yet he was more than an entertainer.(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Michael Crichton was a wildly successful novelist because he told stories well. Yet he was more than an entertainer. His books grappled with a series of difficult questions--everything from genetic engineering (Jurassic Park) and nanotechnology...

Hope amid the ruins.(THE ELECTION)
December 1, 2008... ALL Americans should hope that President-elect Barack Obama's time in office will redound to the country's long-term benefit. The odds are nonetheless against it. Liberals will soon be in the driver's seat in Washington in a way they have not...

Watershed.(THE ELECTION II)(Barack Obama)
December 1, 2008... TO understand what a watershed Barack Obama's election was, one need only compare him with his predecessors. George Washington owned slaves; so, for a time, did Ulysses Grant. Woodrow Wilson showed Birth of a Nation, pro-Klan propaganda, in the...

Why McCain lost: the republican nominee played his bad hand badly.(SPECIAL POST ELECTION ISSUE)(Viewpoint essay)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN the first grim days after the Democratic blowout, three overlapping schools of thought emerged: No Republican could have won this year; McCain lost because he was the type of moderate who can never make the...

In the snake pit: the sad end of the McCain campaign.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)
December 1, 2008... EVERY losing presidential campaign is, to paraphrase Tolstoy, unhappy in its own way. But the McCain campaign in its final days risked descending into political opera buffa. A few days after the election, McCain aides were telling reporters...

Sarah Resartus: Tailoring Palin for the future.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)(vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin)(Viewpoint essay)
December 1, 2008... THESE are the things that can be said, with some degree of certainty, about the candidacy of Sarah Palin for vice president of the United States. First, that picking her as his running mate was the only thing John McCain did all year that...

Back to basics, ahead to particulars: reflect on your beliefs, then explain their relevance.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)(Viewpoint essay)
December 1, 2008... AMERICAN elections tend to give voters mere approximations of what they want. When the public chooses between two candidates, one will win, but generally by being slightly better than the other rather than embodying the will of the people. And...

Beyond tax cuts: to win, the GOP must comprehensively address the cost of middle-class living.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)
December 1, 2008... MICHAEL POLLAN, best known for his polemics against the food-industrial complex, has made a minor villain out of Earl Butz, Richard Nixon's secretary of agriculture. Faced with a sharp spike in inflation, the Nixon White House sought to win the...

Brand: old party :but marketing is only part of the GOP's problem.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)
December 1, 2008... THE Democratic party was always likely to win the White House and a larger congressional majority in 2008. Being by far the most intriguing and persuasive figure in either party, Barack Obama turned that likelihood into a certainty. Read those...

Congressman Kemp's playbook: conservatives should modernize the supply-side message.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)(Jack Kemp)
December 1, 2008... WHEN Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976--with sizable Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress--plenty of pundits speculated about Republicans as an endangered species. A writer for the New York Times contemplated the GOP's...

The four horsemen of Barack Obama: why markets are predicting apocalypse.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)(Barack Obama's platforms)
December 1, 2008... ACCORDING to the University of Iowa's presidential-futures market, John McCain's prospects peaked on March 22, 2008. By that day it was clear he'd be the nominee, though he had not yet been officially nominated. The market implied that his odds...

You paid what for that? We can win the cap-and-trade fight in 2009.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)
December 1, 2008... THE American people have elected a Democratic president and congressional majority. It is incumbent on conservatives to try to work productively with the new leadership until the next election. Part of the role of loyal opposition is to pick...

Roots of defeat: let us study, and emulate, the left's online tactics.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)
December 1, 2008... THE four-year ascent of Barack Obama from state senator to president marks not just the triumph of a man, but the coming of age of a movement. That movement belongs to liberal (or "progressive") Democrats, who in less than a decade have...

Going mainstream: the right faces new media realities.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)
December 1, 2008... ANY program for conservative revival has to take into account the transfigured media. In the last decade, we have witnessed the decline of traditional news organizations and the rise of the new media. Obviously left-leaning but ostensibly...

Not dead yet: there's life in the old GOP--if it will fight.(SPECIAL POST-ELECTION ISSUE)(Republican Party )
December 1, 2008... A WEEK before Jimmy Carter was inaugurated in 1977, I picked my way gingerly across an ice-glazed central Washington to the Mayflower Hotel to attend an ISI dinner at which former candidate Ronald Reagan was to address about 300 conservative...

Help.(Comic)(Cartoon)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "You say that like it's a bad thing." THE QUESTIO IS BEING ASKED CAN OBAMA FIND A WAY TO END THE GAFFES BY BIDEN? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE GIRLS WANT ONE OF THOSE PIT BULLS IN LIPSTICK THEY'VE BEEN...

Transcript: Larry King Live! January 12, 2012.(the long view)(Broadcast transcript)
December 1, 2008... LARRY KING: Tomorrow night! The cast of High School Musical One meets the cast of High School Musical Eighteen! From Baton Rouge, hello! CALLER: Hi, Larry. I was wondering if your guest ever feels lonely? LARRY KING: How about it? Is it...

Brave new volume.(books, arts & manners)(Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy)(In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy, by Yuval Levin (Encounter, 200 pp., $21.95) In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology, by Eric Cohen (Encounter, 180 pp., $21.95) [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] ...

Backcountry boy.(books, arts & manners)(American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham (Random House, 483 pp., $30) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ANDREW JACKSON was the first president to come from beyond the mountains. He was also the first president of North...

Out of darkness.(books, arts & manners)(No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers)
December 1, 2008... No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers, by Michael Novak (Doubleday, 336 pp., $23.95) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHAT hasn't Michael Novak written about in the course of his long career? Whether the subject is sports in...

Celebrating Horne.(MUSIC)(Marilyn Horne)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... PUBLICISTS wrote me to say, "Marilyn Horne is about to celebrate her 75th birthday. And her foundation is about to celebrate its 15th. Would you like to interview her?" Let me give you a word of advice, dear readers: When you have a chance to...

The Final Toast.(Music)(Poem)
December 1, 2008... THE FINAL TOAST I drink to the house past all repair, To the evil of my lifetime, to The isolation that we share, I also drink to you; To lips betraying me with lies, To the world, severe and grave, To the...

No, we can't.(THE STRAGGLER)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I KNOW, I know, we are the land of opportunity. Log cabin to White House! Anyone can be anything! Up by the bootstraps! TV talking heads, motivational speakers, pastors and pedagogues, all want to tell us--and...

No one agrees about God.(letters to the editor)(No One Sees God)(Letter to the editor)
December 15, 2008... It was an honor to have a reviewer of the intellectual talent of John Wilson, the founding editor of a splendid bimonthly review of books, Books and Culture ("Out of Darkness," December 1). I appreciate the kind things he wrote about No One...

Put a cap in your plan.(Letter to the editor)
December 15, 2008... Jim Manzi's suggestion that Republicans oppose cap-and-trade in Congress next year ("You Paid What for That?"; December 1) seems a good blueprint for turning the party into a permanent minority. Obama's campaign rhetoric about reducing...

Explanation and apology.(letters to the editor)(Correction notice)
December 15, 2008... In our last issue, because of a technological glitch, letters with diacritical marks (such as the "e" in "cafe") printed as non-Roman characters. OOps.

One bridge to nowhere is an embarrassment.(The Week)(Unite States government's fiscal stimulus)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... One bridge to nowhere is an embarrassment; a thousand bridges to nowhere are a "fiscal stimulus."

"It's a lot easier to get into these situations than it is to get out of them," says Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit about his ailing bank's real-estate portfolio.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... "It's a lot easier to get into these situations than it is to get out of them," says Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit about his ailing bank's real-estate portfolio. Taxpayers are no doubt feeling the same way about the ongoing federal operation to...

Barack Obama's reported selection of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state shows a few things about him.(The Week)
December 15, 2008... Barack Obama's reported selection of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state shows a few things about him. He trusts in the power of his office to keep the upper hand, and in the power of his cool to handle any agita (cf. George W. Bush and Colin...

This is change we can believe in, or at least respect: Barack Obama wants to keep Bob Gates as secretary of defense.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... This is change we can believe in, or at least respect: Barack Obama wants to keep Bob Gates as secretary of defense. Gates has been the thoughtful, impressive steward of late-second-term Bush defense policy. He has overseen the surge in Iraq...

Mark Halperin, journalistic bigfoot at Time, comes clean on the media love that dare not speak its name: "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq War.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Mark Halperin, journalistic bigfoot at Time, comes clean on the media love that dare not speak its name: "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq War. It was extreme bias--extreme...

We predicted Obama's election would harken a return to September 10 counterterrorism, and his naming of Eric Holder to be attorney general does not dispel that fear.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... We predicted Obama's election would harken a return to September 10 counterterrorism, and his naming of Eric Holder to be attorney general does not dispel that fear. But Holder's conventionally liberal policy views are not the only disturbing...

By naming Greg Craig as White House counsel, Obama has gotten himself a skillful lawyer--Craig led Bill Clinton's impeachment defense.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... By naming Greg Craig as White House counsel, Obama has gotten himself a skillful lawyer--Craig led Bill Clinton's impeachment defense. He has also hired a veteran anti-anti-Communist. As a student at Yale, Craig was an outspoken protester...

Republicans made few changes to their leadership in Congress.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Republicans made few changes to their leadership in Congress. came in the House, where Roy Blunt stepped down as the party whip and Eric Cantor, a younger congressman closer to conservative activists, replaced him. The House Republican leader,...

Senate Democrats voted, by a wide margin, to strip erring brother Joe Lieberman of his seat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, a wrist slap, but left him chairman of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Senate Democrats voted, by a wide margin, to strip erring brother Joe Lieberman of his seat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, a wrist slap, but left him chairman of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. So the Connecticut...

The race between John Dingell and Henry Waxman for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a proxy war between congressional Democrats who want to protect manufacturing jobs from the onslaught of environmental regulations and those who wish to go green without regard to the economic implications.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... The race between John Dingell and Henry Waxman for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a proxy war between congressional Democrats who want to protect manufacturing jobs from the onslaught of environmental...

Weep not for Alaska senator Ted Stevens, who lost his reelection race after being convicted of making false statements about accepting gifts from an oilfield-services company.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Weep not for Alaska senator Ted Stevens, who lost his reelection race after being convicted of making false statements about accepting gifts from an oilfield-services company. Stevens is the longest-serving Republican senator in history, and he...

In her role as governor of Alaska, Palin pardoned a turkey at a farm outside Wasilla before Thanksgiving.(The Week)(Sarah Palin)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... In her role as governor of Alaska, Palin pardoned a turkey at a farm outside Wasilla before Thanksgiving. But during the Q&A afterwards, TV cameras caught some of the unpardoned turkeys behind her, having their blood drained out. Gross,...

What does it take to get fired from the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services?(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... What does it take to get fired from the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services? We now know that using your position for openly political purposes, and in the process violating the privacy of your perceived political enemies, is not...

No person or institution should enter into a public controversy expecting to escape criticism--even unfair and dishonest criticism.(The Week)
December 15, 2008... No person or institution should enter into a public controversy expecting to escape criticism--even unfair and dishonest criticism. But the jihad currently being waged against Mormons is unconscionable. In a Denver suburb, a Book of Mormon was...

The regulators'rough ride.
December 15, 2008... WHAT caused the financial crisis? President-elect Obama had a simple story during the campaign: "Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while...

The Obamas announced that they will send their daughters, Malia and Sasha, to Sidwell Friends, the 125-year-old Quakerrun school.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... The Obamas announced that they will send their daughters, Malia and Sasha, to Sidwell Friends, the 125-year-old Quakerrun school. It was an inclusive, egalitarian gesture--so many offspring of the elite go or have gone there: Joe Biden's...

There is talk of a new New Deal in the air, and even a new Works Progress Administration, with President-elect Obama promising to "put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels.".(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... There is talk of a new New Deal in the air, and even a new Works Progress Administration, with President-elect Obama promising to "put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our...

Pro-choicers respect the sanctity of individual conscience--except, that is, when the conscience in question belongs to a medical worker who wishes not to participate in abortion.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Pro-choicers respect the sanctity of individual conscience--except, that is, when the conscience in question belongs to a medical worker who wishes not to participate in abortion. The Bush administration has proposed regulations to protect such...

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, greeted Barack Obama's election by calling him a "house negro.".(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, greeted Barack Obama's election by calling him a "house negro." Zawahiri's online video also took swipes at Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and included decades-old footage of Malcolm X...

We struck a security pact with the Iraqis.(The Week)(United States military agreement)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... We struck a security pact with the Iraqis. It's imperfect. We protect our troops, but not contractors, from Iraqi law. There are two ill-advised unconditional deadlines in the agreement: June 2009 for U.S. troops to cease combat operations in...

The times, they are a-changin': peace & love & hope hope hope, etc.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... The times, they are a-changin': peace & love & hope hope hope, etc. Except someone forgot to tell Iran. The details of the latest IAEA report make clear that the Islamic Republic now has, or is very close to having, enough nuclear material to...

Russian president Dmitri Medvedev enjoys conducting a one-man permanent demonstration against the United States.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Russian president Dmitri Medvedev enjoys conducting a one-man permanent demonstration against the United States. Latin America must have looked like a promising setting for this favorite pastime of his. A weeklong fiesta began in Peru, at the...

For more than a decade, Daniel Ortega was dictator of Nicaragua.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... For more than a decade, Daniel Ortega was dictator of Nicaragua. Then, in a strange twist of history, he was elected--with 37 percent of the vote, in 2006. But he has not exactly gotten the hang of democracy. In recent municipal elections, he...

The world cares very little about Falun Gong, the spiritual movement persecuted to a barely imaginable degree by the Chinese government.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... The world cares very little about Falun Gong, the spiritual movement persecuted to a barely imaginable degree by the Chinese government. But some people care, including Ethan Gutmann, a writer and specialist on China. In a recent piece for The...

Successive American presidents have tried for almost 20 years to give Somalia a government.(The Week)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Successive American presidents have tried for almost 20 years to give Somalia a government. Neither force nor aid worked. Not really a country any longer, Somalia is a free-for-all for men with guns--for warlords, tribes, and Islamists,...