National Review articles from June 2006

National Review archives from June 2006

Congressional mandate.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... Kate O'Beirne and Richard Lowry's "A Congress Gone to Pot" (May 22) hit the nail on the head--or, maybe more appropriately, it pounded the final nail into the Republican coffin. It seems the Republican majority in Congress has lost its focus on...

A misleading picture.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... The photo of the elephant on your cover was not relevant to O'Beirne and Lowry's story on the collapse of the GOP Congress. The pictured elephant has an obvious backbone--the Republicans on Capitol Hill do not. Barbara Dahlin Sawyer,...

High on life.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... Regarding the reference to medical marijuana in The Week (May 22): I am always suspicious that the proponents of medical marijuana consist of users who smoked dope before they acquired their medical problem. It would be interesting to see a...

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... I was amused by the paragraph in The Week (May 22) about the Juilliard School. They warned that an opera production included "gunshots and herbal cigarettes"--never mind, as you pointed out, "fornication, perversion, assault, madness, murder."...

Nostra culpa.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... In "The Word on the Street," (May 22) Richard Nadler describes al-Jazeera as "the Arabic TV-news station broadcast from Dubai." Al-Jazeera is actually headquartered in Doha, the capital of Qatar. David Morgenstern Washington, D.C.

Greetings!(Letter to the editor)
June 5, 2006... Dear Yankee oil-sucking vampires (see, I can begin with the intent of insulting one magazine but encompass the entire nation, too):... EDITOR'S NOTE: This is how a Canadian reader began a not-altogether-approving letter to us. The rest of...

Not to be overly dismissive of worried civil libertarians.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Not to be overly dismissive of worried civil libertarians: but could the government and the phone companies, working in tandem, ever really be effective?

Congress voted, by healthy margins (244-185 in the House, 54-44 in the Senate), to extend the tax cuts on dividends and capital gains through the end of 2010.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Congress voted, by healthy margins (244-185 in the House, 54-44 in the Senate), to extend the tax cuts on dividends and capital gains through the end of 2010. Now all the tax cuts will expire at that time. It was a wise, and overdue, move....

The judicial-confirmation wars have started again--sort of.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... The judicial-confirmation wars have started again--sort of. Employing the kind of tactics they perfected in earlier fights against Bush nominees, Democrats forced Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a second hearing on...

Howard Dean, interviewed by the Christian Broadcasting Network, said that the Democratic platform regards marriage as between a man and a woman.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Howard Dean, interviewed by the Christian Broadcasting Network, said that the Democratic platform regards marriage as between a man and a woman. He was wrong. Rather than making that commonsense point, the platform actually says that marriage...

Sen. John McCain gave the commencement address at Liberty University, founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Sen. John McCain gave the commencement address at Liberty University, founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. It was a grave and sober speech, calling for national unity even in division. "Let us remember, we are not enemies. We are compatriots...

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D., R.I.) had a spot of bother the other day.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D., R.I.) had a spot of bother the other day. Driving on Capitol Hill at 3 A.M., at high speed and without lights, the 38-year-old son of Sen. Edward Kennedy crashed into a traffic barrier. It was Representative...

Liberals are touting a study by, of all people, William Niskanen of the Cato Institute.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Liberals are touting a study by, of all people, William Niskanen of the Cato Institute. Niskanen is trying to test the theory, held by many conservatives, that tax cuts "starve the beast"--in other words, that they lead to spending cuts. He...

What is it about the price of oil that drives otherwise sensible pundits batty?(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... What is it about the price of oil that drives otherwise sensible pundits batty? Fareed Zakaria, for example, notes in Newsweek that U.S. gas consumption has doubled over the last three decades, while it has stayed flat in Japan and Europe. But...

The decision by Florida house speaker Allan Bense not to seek the Republican U.S. Senate nomination practically guarantees that it will go to Rep. Katherine Harris in September--and this, in turn, practically guarantees the reelection of Democratic senator Bill Nelson in November.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... The decision by Florida house speaker Allan Bense not to seek the Republican U.S. Senate nomination practically guarantees that it will go to Rep. Katherine Harris in September--and this, in turn, practically guarantees the reelection of...

Judicial Watch has uncovered documents showing how aggressively the Clinton administration pushed to bring RU 486, a regimen of drugs to induce abortion, to the United States.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Judicial Watch has uncovered documents showing how aggressively the Clinton administration pushed to bring RU 486, a regimen of drugs to induce abortion, to the United States. Those documents, obtained from the Clinton Presidential Library,...

A new report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, finds that fewer women are using contraception, and that abortion rates are therefore declining more slowly than they used to.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... A new report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, finds that fewer women are using contraception, and that abortion rates are therefore declining more slowly than they used to. It claims, implausibly and...

After complications during surgery at a hospital in Houston, Andrea Clark, 54, ended up on a respirator and in need of kidney dialysis.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... After complications during surgery at a hospital in Houston, Andrea Clark, 54, ended up on a respirator and in need of kidney dialysis. Her doctor decided it was futile to continue treatment. Her family disagreed. Surely the doctor would defer...

A California newspaper has reported that the Department of Homeland Security provides the Mexican government with intelligence about the activities of American citizen groups that promote border security, such as the Minuteman Project.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... A California newspaper has reported that the Department of Homeland Security provides the Mexican government with intelligence about the activities of American citizen groups that promote border security, such as the Minuteman Project. DHS...

No dragons here.
June 5, 2006... PUBLIC discourse seems monopolized by strange and irrational anthropomorphisms. Politicians talk as if companies--without people--were living, breathing things. Some companies, such as those in the ever-suffering steel sector, are cast as...

Sen. Daniel Akaka, Hawaii Democrat, wants to create a new "native" Hawaiian government.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Sen. Daniel Akaka, Hawaii Democrat, wants to create a new "native" Hawaiian government. His bill, which is scheduled to be debated in the Senate in June, appears to be designed to pacify a small but vocal faction of Hawaiian grievance-mongers...

Alphonso Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, says that, during his tenure, "no contract has ever been awarded, rejected or rescinded due to the personal or political beliefs of the recipient".(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Alphonso Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, says that, during his tenure, "no contract has ever been awarded, rejected or rescinded due to the personal or political beliefs of the recipient." An admirable state of things. Then...

The Hour's Late.(The Week ...)(Poem)
June 5, 2006... THE HOUR'S LATE With polls at 29 percent (Nixon's reached 24), And with the horse departed from A swinging-wide barn door, The president invites the Guard To hold the Rio Grande As hopping-mad...

A late Mother's Day message, from a videotape played in Brooklyn Federal Court at the trial of Shahawar Matin Siraj, a Pakistani national charged with plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station in New York City.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... A late Mother's Day message, from a videotape played in Brooklyn Federal Court at the trial of Shahawar Matin Siraj, a Pakistani national charged with plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station in New York City. Mr. Siraj told Osama...

There was hype aplenty about an "opening of dialogue" when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, sent President Bush a letter; but in reality the missive was full of sound and fury signifying nothing.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... There was hype aplenty about an "opening of dialogue" when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, sent President Bush a letter; but in reality the missive was full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Along rant against U.S. policy, it gave...

In a mid-April raid of an al-Qaeda hideout in Iraq, Coalition forces uncovered a trove of valuable documents.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... In a mid-April raid of an al-Qaeda hideout in Iraq, Coalition forces uncovered a trove of valuable documents. Among the findings is an internal memorandum in which the "Mujahidin" terrorists bemoan the losing battle that they are fighting...

Recall that the old U.N. Human Rights Commission came under fire for including as members some of the world's worst human-rights abusers: China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia among them.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Recall that the old U.N. Human Rights Commission came under fire for including as members some of the world's worst human-rights abusers: China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia among them. We're pleased to report that the new U.N. Human Rights Council's...

Rule One: do not give in to the demands of terrorists, because that will only lead to more demands.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Rule One: Do not give in to the demands of terrorists, because that will only lead to more demands. Early this year, the Palestinians voted in Hamas, a group planning to drive out Israel and take its place. That was their democratic right, but...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian-born member of the Dutch parliament who has risked life and limb by criticizing Muslim brutality, may be ejected from Holland.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian-born member of the Dutch parliament who has risked life and limb by criticizing Muslim brutality, may be ejected from Holland. As she has said--many times over the years--she fudged her refugee application, when...

Thanks to the efforts of the Bush administration, the Sudanese government and the country's largest rebel group have made a deal for peace in Darfur.(The Week ...)
June 5, 2006... Thanks to the efforts of the Bush administration, the Sudanese government and the country's largest rebel group have made a deal for peace in Darfur. Celebrations may be in order, but they should be tempered with skepticism. The violence in the...

Tony Blair needs the skills of an escape-artist if he is to free himself from the chains now binding him.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Tony Blair needs the skills of an escape-artist if he is to free himself from the chains now binding him. First of all, sleaze. The police are investigating how and why he bent the rules for raising money on behalf of his Labour party. Some...

The United States and Japan have reached a new defense agreement.(The Week ...)
June 5, 2006... The United States and Japan have reached a new defense agreement. Considering the ominous rise of China and a nuclear North Korea, the deal could not come at a better time: It not only strengthens our ties in areas of mutual interest, such as...

When it comes to Middle East scholarship, Yale is headed the way of Columbia University (which was the home of the late Edward Said).(The Week ...)(Juan Cole)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... When it comes to Middle East scholarship, Yale is headed the way of Columbia University (which was the home of the late Edward Said). Yale's history department voted to endorse a job offer to University of Michigan professor and professional...

Dan Brown's amazingly successful novel The Da Vinci Code deserves most of the criticisms it has gotten--as history, it is hogwash; as theology, it is garbage; and as a piece of literature, it is at best a readable thriller.(The Week ...)(Brief article)
June 5, 2006... Dan Brown's amazingly successful novel The Da Vinci Code deserves most of the criticisms it has gotten--as history, it is hogwash; as theology, it is garbage; and as a piece of literature, it is at best a readable thriller. With Tom Hanks in...

Abroad at home.(IMMIGRATION)
June 5, 2006... THE most important part of President Bush's televised address to the nation on immigration was not his call for sending unarmed National Guardsmen to temporarily assist the Border Patrol. Rather, it was his formal embrace, for the first time,...

Misplaced fears.(National Security Agency )
June 5, 2006... ASTORM broke loose when USA Today more or less rehashed news that the New York Times had reported five months before: In addition to eavesdropping on the international conversations of suspected al-Qaeda operatives, the National Security Agency...

The bureaucracy wins.(Central Intelligence Agency's Porter Goss )
June 5, 2006... WE'RE tempted to conclude that CIA operatives are still capable of deposing leaders--if only the leaders sent to clean up their agency. Porter Goss is out as the head of the CIA, after 18 frustrating months attempting to reform the recalcitrant...

A. M. Rosenthal, R.I.P.(Obituary)
June 5, 2006... ONLY one in a thousand Americans brushes up against such foreign bodies as newspaper writers and editors. Some bylines become recognizable, but unless the reporters have a life on television, they are sheer palimpsest, and this is the reason...

Notes & asides.(George Roche)(Obituary)
June 5, 2006... * In place of a formal obituary of George W. Roche III, herewith a note from Ronald Trowbridge, a friend and longtime associate. Mr. Trowbridge, a scholar of English literature who served for many years as vice president of Hillsdale College,...

Good economy, bad polls: Bush and the Republicans can't seem to catch a break.(THE NATION)
June 5, 2006... IT seems to happen every week: Some new piece of good economic news comes out, and Republicans sink a little deeper in the polls. In late April, it was estimated that the economy had grown by 4.8 percent during the first quarter of the year. A...

What's the holdup? More stalling, smearing, and fumbling on judicial nominees.(WASHINGTON)
June 5, 2006... THE conservative dissatisfaction with President Bush's performance, which has recently prompted tougher talk from Bush on border security and spending restraint, now threatens the support he has enjoyed on judicial nominations. In the past...

'Mr. Counter-Terrorism Guru': he says he's not, but others say he is.(THE MEDIA)
June 5, 2006... ON July 10, 2001, the New York Times published an opinion article titled "The Declining Terrorist Threat." It was written by Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department counterterrorism official, who argued that Americans spent...

Inventing abuse: if the administration isn't violating civil liberties in its pursuit of terrorists, some people will say it is anyway.(AT WAR)
June 5, 2006... AFTER USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had collaborated with three U.S. phone companies to construct a database of domestic phone records, critics fell all over one another denouncing the program. They called it, among other...

Your 'Robber Baron,' my American hero: or at least that's true in many cases.(HISTORY)
June 5, 2006... IN terms of blunders, it's not quite launching a land war in Southeast Asia, but one would still be well-advised not to rely on Nancy Pelosi for lessons on history or economics. "We are living in a new era of robber barons," the...

Space is for science: and not for shuttles, stations, and Bushian 'vision'.(THE ADMINISTRATION)
June 5, 2006... SOME of the greatest advances of human knowledge in the present age have occurred in the space sciences. There are those wonderful pictures of the planets returned to us by robot spacecraft, resolving what had been fuzzy blobs or mere points of...

Target: Hezbollah: it may well make sense for Israel, and for an endangered world.(THE MIDDLE EAST)
June 5, 2006... IRAN, as its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in his recent letter to George W. Bush, is hearing the sounds of "the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems." That is a general threat to the...

Scare of the century: the alarms and assertions about global warming have gone reprehensibly too far.(Cover story)
June 5, 2006... BUT what, oh what, would the earth do without Time magazine? "Suddenly and unexpectedly," Time announced in a recent issue, "the crisis is upon us." Haven't noticed the crisis? You must not be looking very hard. "The climate is crashing,...

The new immigration politics: wherein, for example, the rich and the poor join hands.(PUBLIC POLICY)
June 5, 2006... THE debate over illegal immigration seems to have grown hackneyed. The same old controversies are rehashed--do illegal aliens contribute more or less than the entitlements they receive? Do they assimilate as fast as previous groups? Is the...

Approval Hell: Americans are an accepting people, to a fault.(CULTURE WATCH)(Column)
June 5, 2006... HAVE you noticed that Americans no longer use the word shocked except when imitating the Claude Rains character in Casablanca? His signature line is a favorite of media pundits who like to show off their knowledge of how Washington really...

Putin, Alarmed.(HELP!!!!)(Poem)
June 5, 2006... PUTIN, ALARMED Birth rates in Russia plummet like Sturgeon and caviar As Vlad--ukases out of date-- Exhorts dad from afar While importuning mother with A cash reward for two; But dad two-times on...

The long view.
June 5, 2006... TO: All newsroom staff FROM: Management RE: Summer 2006 Directives As summer approaches, it's time to refresh and rethink our 2006 directives, and to point them more effectively in the direction of the 2006 midterm elections and...

Rockin' the right.(MUSIC)
June 5, 2006... ON first glance, rock 'n' roll music isn't very conservative. It doesn't fare much better on second or third glance (or listen), either. Neil Young has a new song called "Let's Impeach the President." Last year, the Rolling Stones made news...

The change will come.(The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life)(Book review)
June 5, 2006... The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, by Ramesh Ponnuru (Regnery, 303 pp., $27.95) YEARS ago, the surest way to get the china flying at an uptown dinner party was to say that Alger Hiss...

Accomplice.(books, arts & manners)(Poem)
June 5, 2006... ACCOMPLICE In dusty fields I harvested the vine And sweated at the lever as the grapes were pressed. My aching hands still clutched their vagrant wages, Sleeping in the cold barracks of the dispossessed. But now at...

The last word.(American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation )(Book review)
June 5, 2006... American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation, by Jon Meacham (Random House, 416 pp., $23.95) THIS book is a great poultice on the simmering antagonism between the ultra-separationists (we must not be required to...

Opera boss.(Joe Volpe)
June 5, 2006... WHEN I walk into Joe Volpe's office, he's just getting off the phone--with Luciano Pavarotti. Volpe is general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, only weeks from retirement. Pavarotti, of course, is the biggest opera star of our time (and...

Reading Lolita in Long Island.(THE STRAGGLER)
June 5, 2006... NATURE is, as one of Katherine Hepburn's characters observed, what we are put in this world to rise above. On the other hand, a Frenchman of at least equal sagacity pointed out that he who would act the angel makes himself a beast. Plainly,...

Hanging right there ...(on the right)
June 5, 2006... NEW YORK, APRIL 28 UPCOMING art auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's are hugely noticed in the New York Times. Two Picassos are especially prominent. The first is labeled Dora Maar with Cat, and it is expected to fetch $50 million. The...

Is there a solution?(Z and lung cancer)
June 5, 2006... NEW YORK, MAY 5 I was back home after three days at the Mayo Clinic, and I sat with my wife, having decided on an evening of television. To this end we looked in the morning paper and saw the listing for the story of Bette Davis, coming on...

Bush the evangelist?(on the right)
June 5, 2006... NEW YORK, MAY 9 WHAT is happening to George W. Bush is that dissenters are moving from criticism of him to just plain hostility to him. Swings in the public mood that emphatic aren't unknown to American history, though these days they are...

Rock 'n' roll is dead.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 19, 2006... John J. Miller failed to make the case for conservative rock 'n' roll ("Rockin' the Right," June 5). If the naive bubblegum of The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It be Nice," the finger-gesture defiance of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," and the...

Long live rock 'n' roll.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 19, 2006... I must admit that I thought the idea of compiling the 50 greatest conservative rock songs was cheesy at first. All that changed when I read the article: It was an excellent, fascinating list. I had expected "Taxman" to be number one, but Mr....

Easy answers.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 19, 2006... Jason Lee Steorts, in "Scare of the Century" (June 5), notes that the documented fact of an overall thickening of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps has been used as proof of global warming--more water evaporates as a result of increased...

A swap.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 19, 2006... NR frets in The Week (May 22) that if the Republican party does not oppose Bush's immigration policy, then he will "drag it to destruction." Might I suggest an elegant solution for Republicans? Since Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, does not...

A bad dinner date.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
June 19, 2006... In his review of Ramesh Ponnuru's Party of Death ("The Change Will Come," June 5), Michael M. Uhlmann writes tongue-in-cheek that, when using Ponnuru's effective arguments against abortion at the proverbial "uptown dinner party," you should...

Just when John Kerry had the French vote wrapped up.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * Just when John Kerry had the French vote wrapped up--Al Gore had to go and do Cannes.

Haditha is an insurgent stronghold 150 miles west of Baghdad.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * Haditha is an insurgent stronghold 150 miles west of Baghdad. We will be hearing far more about it in the coming weeks, as we learn how 24 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were killed there during a Marine patrol on the morning...

We all know that liberals are sophisticates who understand the complex nature of reality, while conservatives see the world in absolutes.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * We all know that liberals are sophisticates who understand the complex nature of reality, while conservatives see the world in absolutes. That's why An Inconvenient Truth, the global-warming documentary based on Al Gore's public lectures,...

The conventional wisdom was that President Bush wouldn't be able to get someone of stature to take the post of Treasury secretary whenever John Snow's much-rumored departure finally happened.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * The conventional wisdom was that President Bush wouldn't be able to get someone of stature to take the post of Treasury secretary whenever John Snow's much-rumored departure finally happened. But Bush defied the skeptics and landed Henry...

Senate minority leader Harry Reid criticized an amendment to the Senate's immigration bill that would make English the national language.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * Senate minority leader Harry Reid criticized an amendment to the Senate's immigration bill that would make English the national language. "While the intent may not be there, I really believe this amendment is racist," Reid said. Let us...

Democratic campaign lore holds that John Kerry lost his 2004 bid because he failed to refute decisively the charges launched by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * Democratic campaign lore holds that John Kerry lost his 2004 bid because he failed to refute decisively the charges launched by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The conviction that the Vietnam veteran was the victim of outrageous smears has...

The Washington Post editorializes that "there is a danger in" the convictions of former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * The Washington Post editorializes that "there is a danger in" the convictions of former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. Impressionable people might be led to believe that the corporate-accounting scandals were the work of a...

Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox, the New York Post, and a jillion other media properties, will hold a fundraiser for a senator from New York.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox, the New York Post, and a jillion other media properties, will hold a fundraiser for a senator from New York. She is not Chuck Schumer. Senator Clinton, when asked about the do, called Murdoch "my constituent,"...

If anyone wonders why many conservatives recoil in disgust from the current Congress, look no further than Kentucky Republican Harold Rogers.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * If anyone wonders why many conservatives recoil in disgust from the current Congress, look no further than Kentucky Republican Harold Rogers. As the head of the House appropriations subcommittee for homeland security, he has been a bully for...

House Republicans passed a $2.8 trillion budget that does little to rein in spending and even less to reform entitlements.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * House Republicans passed a $2.8 trillion budget that does little to rein in spending and even less to reform entitlements. As Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation said, "This is a status quo budget, and the status quo continues to...

Hollywood director Rob Reiner has united California's forces of compassion behind a June 6 ballot initiative seeking to create a state universal-preschool program.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * Hollywood director Rob Reiner has united California's forces of compassion behind a June 6 ballot initiative seeking to create a state universal-preschool program. Proposition 82 proposes that California provide free preschool for any...

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin won reelection in a narrow victory against Louisiana lieutenant governor Mitch Landrieu.(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin won reelection in a narrow victory against Louisiana lieutenant governor Mitch Landrieu. Nagin, who is black, took only 6 percent of the white vote in the election's first round in April, but boosted that share to...

Same Ol' Gore.(Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth')
June 19, 2006... IN case you haven't heard, there's a "new Al Gore" in town. Time magazine's Ana Marie Cox dubs him a "rock star." Frank Rich, The New Republic, the Washington Post, The American Prospect, and the rest of the liberal media establishment have...

John McCain went to the New School in New York City's Greenwich Village to deliver a commencement address about the importance of civil debate and respecting the deeply held beliefs of others.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * John McCain went to the New School in New York City's Greenwich Village to deliver a commencement address about the importance of civil debate and respecting the deeply held beliefs of others. Students turned their backs on him, shouted...

University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who became a national figure after likening 9/11 victims to Nazis, has been slapped with a damning 125-page investigative report, commissioned by the university in response to allegations of academic misconduct.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who became a national figure after likening 9/11 victims to Nazis, has been slapped with a damning 125-page investigative report, commissioned by the university in response to allegations of...

The U.S. has announced its willingness to hold direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program if Iran first suspends uranium enrichment and reprocessing.(The Week)
June 19, 2006... * The U.S. has announced its willingness to hold direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program if Iran first suspends uranium enrichment and reprocessing. We lose more than we gain by taking this new tack. If Iran agrees to cease enrichment...

Almost every week sees a new protest against the Iranian regime.(The Week)
June 19, 2006... * Almost every week sees a new protest against the Iranian regime. Unfortunately, most of these protests escape the West's notice, but some are large enough to capture headlines. So it was when Reuters reported that up to 2,000 stone-throwing...

If there is a hell, Moammar Qaddafi has reserved a retirement home in its tropics.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * If there is a hell, Moammar Qaddafi has reserved a retirement home in its tropics. If his decades of iron-fisted rule and his imprisoning of political opponents didn't do it, then his sponsorship of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103...

Whoever believes that the children are our future--that we should teach them well and let them lead the way--ought to take a trip to Saudi Arabia.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 19, 2006... * Whoever believes that the children are our future--that we should teach them well and let them lead the way--ought to take a trip to Saudi Arabia. In 2004 a Saudi royal study group found that the school curriculum "encourages violence toward...