National Review articles from November 2005

National Review archives from November 2005

Another contested nomination.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
November 7, 2005... NATIONAL REVIEW's opposition to Julie Myers, the president's nominee to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security, seems to me fatally marred by sins of both commission and omission ("The Week," Oct. 24)....

Off with their heads.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
November 7, 2005... Hats off to Adam Keiper for calling out Chris Mooney's misappropriation of Edmund Burke ("A Vast Conspiracy?" Oct. 10). Burke was certainly not, as Mr. Mooney writes, denouncing the Enlightenment when he referred to "sophisters, economists, and...

Before night falls.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
November 7, 2005... Reading the O'Sullivan-Krikorian/ Jacoby immigration debate (Oct. 10), one is struck by a haunting sense of historical deja vu. What, we wonder, might a Roman Gaul circa 350 A.D. have thought as he watched an ever-increasing number of Franks...

We oppose Hillary, too--but then, we're sexist.(The Week)
November 7, 2005... We oppose Hillary, too-but then, we're sexist. Right, Laura?

The U.S. has released an extraordinary communication intercepted this summer from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two, to the network's Iraqi chief, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.(The Week)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The U.S. has released an extraordinary communication intercepted this summer from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two, to the network's Iraqi chief, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The 6,000-word missive is a fascinating window into the enemy's...

In his new book, My FBI, former Bureau director Louis Freeh claims that his old boss refused to pressure the Saudis to cooperate fully in the investigation of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans, preferring to hit up the royal family for a contribution to his future presidential library.(The Week)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... In his new book, My FBI, former Bureau director Louis Freeh claims that his old boss refused to pressure the Saudis to cooperate fully in the investigation of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans, preferring to hit up the...

The conservatives at the Republican Study Committee have gotten the House leadership to cry uncle.(cutting of the budget)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The conservatives at the Republican Study Committee have gotten the House leadership to cry uncle. Tom DeLay had said that there was no fat to cut out of the budget. Now he is, as they say, revising and extending his remarks. He told the...

The investigation into the disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name appears to be reaching the indictment phase.(The Week)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The investigation into the disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name appears to be reaching the indictment phase. As we have said all along, it seems highly unlikely that anyone broke the law by intentionally revealing an undercover agent's...

The prosecution of Tom DeLay stumbles on.(The Week ...)(motion for Travis County DA Ronnie Earle to produce a key document)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The prosecution of Tom DeLay stumbles on. After lawyers for DeLay's co-defendants filed a motion for Travis County DA Ronnie Earle to produce a key document he had referred to in his indictments--a list of seven candidates for the Texas house...

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, wasn't too happy when Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, received an invitation to speak before a Connecticut chapter of the NAACP.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, wasn't too happy when Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, received an invitation to speak before a Connecticut chapter of the NAACP. Said Dean, "I'm...

Experiments described in Nature point the way toward embryonic-stem-cell research without its ethical drawbacks.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... Experiments described in Nature point the way toward embryonic-stem-cell research without its ethical drawbacks. It may be possible to extract stem cells from human embryos without killing them. Alternatively, it may be possible to create...

President Bush suspended some regulations governing federal public-works projects in the recovering Gulf states.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... President Bush suspended some regulations governing federal public-works projects in the recovering Gulf states. Because one of the most visible regulations required that "prevailing" (read: union-scale) wages be paid, Democrats screamed that...

Delphi may be the world's largest maker of car parts, but that's just a hobby.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... Delphi may be the world's largest maker of car parts, but that's just a hobby. Its balance sheet looks more like that of a pension fund and a health-insurance provider. Delphi's unions have negotiated such generous benefits for their aged that...

The Internet is one of the freest and most dynamic places on the planet, and some people just can't stand it.(regulations on internet)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The Internet is one of the freest and most dynamic places on the planet, and some people just can't stand it. The thought of freely flowing information terrifies many of those who hold or crave power, and unsettles those who mistrust the...

Readers will doubtless recall the Supreme Court's remarkable decision in Kelo v. New London, which turned the Constitution's "takings clause" (which requires just compensation when private property is seized for "public use") on its head.(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... Readers will doubtless recall the Supreme Court's remarkable decision in Kelo v. New London, which turned the Constitution's "takings clause" (which requires just compensation when private property is seized for "public use") on its head. A...

The latest bad idea from UNESCO is a proposal for a new convention to protect "cultural diversity.".(multiculturalism)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The latest bad idea from UNESCO is a proposal for a new convention to protect "cultural diversity." The convention combines economic protectionism with cultural philistinism--a neat trick. The protectionism comes in an assertion that "cultural...

Paris's former ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Bernard Merimee--who sat on the Security Council in the course of his duties--has been detained by French authorities on suspicion of having received vouchers from Saddam Hussein for 11 million barrels of oil between December 2001 and March 2003.(The Week ...)
November 7, 2005... Paris's former ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Bernard Merimee--who sat on the Security Council in the course of his duties--has been detained by French authorities on suspicion of having received vouchers from Saddam Hussein for 11 million...

Awkward Questions.(The Week ...)(Poem)
November 7, 2005... AWKWARD QUESTIONS Were Iraq, poof!, made whole again, Would MoveOn move on, or, With medication, shape up and Stop being such a bore? Could Kennedy, with counseling, Rejoin the less disturbed? All those...

Relations between the United States and Germany ought to clear now that Gerhard Schroeder has departed.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... * Relations between the United States and Germany ought to clear now that Gerhard Schroeder has departed. For electoral purposes, he opposed American policies in Iraq and Iran, fragmenting what might otherwise have been a more coherent Western...

Abimael Guzman, the brutal, Maoist leader of Shining Path, the Peruvian revolutionary group once so strong, is standing trial in Lima.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... Abimael Guzman, the brutal, Maoist leader of Shining Path, the Peruvian revolutionary group once so strong, is standing trial in Lima. One of the charges against him is terrorism. As the Associated Press reported, "Guzman, a 70- year-old former...

In charge of military intelligence in Beirut from 1982 to 2002, Gen. Ghazi Kenaan was effectively the Syrian Viceroy of Lebanon.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... In charge of military intelligence in Beirut from 1982 to 2002, Gen. Ghazi Kenaan was effectively the Syrian Viceroy of Lebanon. A hardliner in the little Baathist clique around Hafez Assad, and then his son and heir Bashar Assad, Kenaan was...

The Palestinian Authority tells us that, for the first time since 2000, more Palestinians were killed over the course of a year by fellow Palestinians than by Israelis.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The Palestinian Authority tells us that, for the first time since 2000, more Palestinians were killed over the course of a year by fellow Palestinians than by Israelis. No doubt we will soon be instructed that, while it may not have been actual...

The star of New Europe has been Aleksander Kwasniewski, outgoing president of Poland.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The star of New Europe has been Aleksander Kwasniewski, outgoing president of Poland. His evolution from Communist to democrat was genuine, not a mere political expedient. During his ten years in office, the remnants of the Cold War melted....

Those handing out the Nobel prizes have outdone themselves.(The Week ...)(Harold Pinter and Mohamed ElBaradei of International Atomic Energy Agency)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... Those handing out the Nobel prizes have outdone themselves. For literature, we have Harold Pinter, whose main qualification seems to have been his unremitting--and juvenile and specifically anti-American--leftism. He is a worthy successor to...

While devout Muslims were preparing for the festival of Ramadan, with the call of the muezzin ringing out from minarets all across England's green and multicultural land, the town council of Dudley, in Worcestershire, took delivery of some pig-shaped stress relievers--those spongy things you squeeze in your hand while waiting to hear if you got a pay raise.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... While devout Muslims were preparing for the festival of Ramadan, with the call of the muezzin ringing out from minarets all across England's green and multicultural land, the town council of Dudley, in Worcestershire, took delivery of some...

George Clooney's new movie about Edward R. Murrow's devastating attacks on Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Good Night, and Good Luck, gets everything right but the truth.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... George Clooney's new movie about Edward R. Murrow's devastating attacks on Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Good Night, and Good Luck, gets everything right but the truth. He has the chain-smoking, the unconscious sexism, the stiffly gelled hair of the...

It's been raining a lot in the Northeast.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... It's been raining a lot in the Northeast. A lot. To TV news producers, nothing spells "universal interest" like the weather, so naturally the region's diligent reporters have been all over the story. Alas, not all their work left our faith in...

In the topsy-turvy debate over the use of Indian mascots, no sports team has been at the wrong end of the proverbial scalping more often than the Washington Redskins.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... * In the topsy-turvy debate over the use of Indian mascots, no sports team has been at the wrong end of the proverbial scalping more often than the Washington Redskins. Inveterate Indian activist Suzan Shown Harjo has been on the warpath for 13...

"Cry 'God for Harry, England and Saint George!'" King Henry V's rallying cry does not go over very well in modern, multicultural England.(The Week ...)(objection over wearing flag-of-Saint-George tiepins by corrections officers)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... "Cry 'God for Harry, England and Saint George!'" King Henry V's rallying cry does not go over very well in modern, multicultural England. Even less acceptable is Saint George's flag, a red cross quartering a white background, which was carried...

The task set for the knight in the Wife of Bath's Tale was to find out "What thyng is it that wommen moost desiren.".(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... The task set for the knight in the Wife of Bath's Tale was to find out "What thyng is it that wommen moost desiren." We forget what he came up with, but the question seems to present itself anew to each generation of men. What do women want...

There has been a running argument, going back several centuries, between China and Italy over which nation was the first to eat noodles.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
November 7, 2005... There has been a running argument, going back several centuries, between China and Italy over which nation was the first to eat noodles. Did the foodstuff originate in Italy, to be later taken over to China by Marco Polo? Or vice versa? Various...

As readers may well know by now, this is the 50th anniversary of National Review.(The Week ...)
November 7, 2005... As readers may well know by now, this is the 50th anniversary of NATIONAL REVIEW. Yes, that first issue was dated November 19, 1955. In early October of this year, we celebrated with a few events in Washington. First, WFB was questioned by a...

Start over.(THE SUPREME COURT)(nominating Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice)
November 7, 2005... WHEN President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, we called it a missed opportunity. The ensuing debate has confirmed that judgment. For all the debate's fury, a consensus was reached early on that point. Leaving aside the...

Notes & asides.(Cartoon)
November 7, 2005... * Memo to: WFB From: Linda Dear Bill: Thought you'd enjoy seeing one of the photographs from our 50th-anniversary dinner in Washington, D.C. * Dear Mr. Buckley: It is now official. George Bush is responsible for the hurricanes. I...

A constitution.(IRAQ)(constitution-writing and ratification)(Column)
November 7, 2005... TWICE this year the Bush administration has forged ahead with the Iraqi political process over the worries of critics. The first time was the January 30 election, when liberals said a vote could only be a prelude to a civil war. Now the...

Set-aside set-to: if you're going to practice affirmative action on the Court ...(THE SUPREME COURT)(nominating women judges)
November 7, 2005... WHEN President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, adopting the view that there is a set-aside seat on the Supreme Court for a woman, he made clear that he wasn't merely redressing the bad old sexism his nominee...

Ladies and gentlemen, a tax reform: consider this ten-point plan.(PUBLIC POLICY)
November 7, 2005... THE president's tax commission got some bad news on October 15. The Washington Post editorialized in its favor: "[T]he reform panel is heading toward politically explosive but sensible suggestions." Every time in the last decade that the Post's...

Highway (and other) robbery: when it comes to raking in the funds, no one beats Alaska.(PUBLIC POLICY II)(federal spending for bridge construction )
November 7, 2005... IN October, Alaska Airlines ran a promotional deal that would sound odd to anyone unfamiliar with Alaska politics: "Alaska Airlines' popular Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) fares are now on sale, offering savings of up to 35 percent off the...

What it takes: if we are to win the War on Terror, we must do far more.(controlling Islamic fanaticism)
November 7, 2005... IN the first week of October, President Bush used, for the first time, the term "Islamofascism" to describe the enemy we're facing. In itself, this was a watershed in the War on Terror, but if we want to emerge victorious, we must go beyond...

Tories wet, dry, and historic: Lady T. celebrates 80, while today's pols scramble to lead the party.(BRITAIN)(Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Party's leadership elections)
November 7, 2005... London MARGARET THATCHER's 80thbirthday party on the 13th of October was the last great social occasion of Thatcherism. Attended by the Queen and Prince Philip, Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie, many members of the birthday girl's...

How low can they go? Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency win the Nobel Peace Prize.(THE WORLD)(Nobel committee)
November 7, 2005... TEN years ago, a conservative writer asked a strange but pertinent question: Is the Nobel Peace Prize worth winning anymore? The occasion was the giving of the prize to Joseph Rotblat, a physicist who had spent his long life colluding with the...

How low can they go? II: Harold Pinter wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.(THE WORLD II)(Nobel committee of 18 Swedes )
November 7, 2005... THE award of the Nobel Prize for Literature is one of the year's more amusing moments, in its way a little gloss on the age. A committee of 18 Swedes is responsible for it, and they all have membership in perpetuity. Publishers, translators,...

Buckling his chin strap: Sen. George Allen--likable, conservative, and tough--prepares to run for president.(Cover Story)
November 7, 2005... SEN. GEORGE ALLEN is standing on the sideline of an empty Giants Stadium about an hour-and-a-half before the 1 P.M. start of a New York Jets vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. His brother Bruce is general manager of the Bucs, so Allen is here to...

Michael Moore, role model: the lefty propagandist is almost as hypocritical as he is inane.(PERSONALITIES)
November 7, 2005... MICHAEL MOORE is a one-man left-wing industry, churning out books, films, and speeches at an astonishing rate. Iraq, evil corporations, and racism all figure prominently in his message. But he is selling more than a few policy ideas. In fact,...

The specter of difference: what science is uncovering, we will have to come to grips with.(SCIENCE)(Column)
November 7, 2005... IT is a longstanding cliche that human knowledge of the universe advances by a series of dethronements. There was a time when men thought that the whole world was alive with spirits whose main purpose and pleasure was to watch us. Great...

The Scotus diaries ...(the long view)(Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Roberts)
November 7, 2005... From the diary of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: ... and let me just say, oy, that meshugge shiksa, she gets me into her chambers, wants to have a "get to know you" lunch, to which I'm thinking, all right, okay, she's a newbie, they gave her...

Help!!!!(Poem)
November 7, 2005... GERMAN WELFARE It started with Otto von Bismarck, Who spread it around for the Volk. Purportedly, Hillary modeled Her plan after Otto's--now broke. Which brings us to Angela Merkel, Elected to treat the...

The Greek way of war.(A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War)(Book Review)
November 7, 2005... A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War, by Victor Davis Hanson (Random House, 400 pp., $29.95) DEFINITIVE. Engrossing. A masterpiece. It is difficult to marshal all the requisite superlatives for...

Founding mother.(Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade)(Book Review)
November 7, 2005... Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade, by Donald T. Critchlow (Princeton, 438 pp., $29.95) DURING a 1973 debate with Phyllis Schlafly, Betty Friedan fumed, "I'd like to burn you at the stake." But Friedan's...

Telling no tales.(The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln)(Book Review)
November 7, 2005... The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, by Sean Wilentz (Norton, 1,044 pp., $35) SEAN WILENTZ is a scourge of sentimentality in American historical writing, a refuter of pieties, both those in the triumphalist vein of David...

Lanterns.(Poem)
November 7, 2005... LANTERNS A bowl of candies waits beside the door. Or my door--not ours anymore. After the cleaning part, the scraping out, The seeds are drying in the stove And when it's time to carve, The face cut from the...

Life of our charter.(America's Constitution: A Biography)(Book Review)
November 7, 2005... America's Constitution: A Biography, by Akhil Reed Amar (Random House, 672 pp., $29.95) THE idea of Akhil Amar's new book is brilliantly simple. The execution of that idea is very good, but not quite as good as one might have hoped. ...

Broken homes, and hearts.(Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce)(Book Review)
November 7, 2005... Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce, by Elizabeth Marquardt (Crown, 191 pp., $24.95) THE story told by first-time author Elizabeth Marquardt could easily have descended to the maudlin: just one more Gen-Xer relating...

Law's grave study.(THE STRAGGLER)(legal system in England)(Column)
November 7, 2005... I do not know the forms of law; I do know law and reason, though I am no lawyer professed: but I know as much law as any gentleman in England.--King Charles I, at his trial MR. AND MRS. STRAGGLER went down to the local attorney's office...

Chastening the court.(on the right)(nominating Ms. Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court)
November 7, 2005... LO, from moderate left field (I write of Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times op-ed page) comes a voice of concern over the Supreme Court's elevation, over the past 40 years, to moral tribune of America. What brought this on, of course,...

Phoney baloney.(on the right)(criticism on fuel consumption by government bodies)(Column)
November 7, 2005... INEVITABLY, President Bush's itemization of means by which to diminish fuel consumption led to derision. The single most common rhetorical device in all argumentation is the invocation of Alternative Uses. I became starkly conscious of this...

Joke night.(on the right)(aborting black mothers to control crime rates )
November 7, 2005... THE rhetorical blur decalcifies straight thought. William Bennett thought he was being asked about crime rates. Well, he was being asked about crime rates, but the blur took over and the world found itself deliberating whether he wished to...

The Kensington Rottweiler.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
November 21, 2005... Congratulations on David Pryce-Jones's assessment of the ridiculous Harold Pinter (Nov. 7). Those Swedes must have finally lost their marbles. Is there really no other writer in the world worth a Nobel? Apart from his pointless poetry and...

We knew it was a starch.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
November 21, 2005... It is sad to see NR fall into the history-distortion game played by the MSM. To wit, the noodle item in the Nov. 7 issue ("The Week"), last sentence, which informs us that "you don't get spaghetti with just one" meatball. As the globally famous...

Ukrainian national standards.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
November 21, 2005... I found John O'Sullivan's "Restoration" to be an entertaining and informative report on the "new-old Poland" (Oct. 10). I am, however, troubled by his reference to a group of Ukrainians who "wave[d] the blue and white flag whenever Ukraine's...

Generation gap.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
November 21, 2005... I thought I'd correct a minor error in Richard Brookhiser's "The Hunt Is On" (Oct. 24). He refers to the first stop in his search for black jeans as "the Gap." This is like saying you're going shopping at "the Sears," eating at "the...

We suspect that it won't really be Fitzmas.(The Week)
November 21, 2005... We suspect that it won't really be Fitzmas until Karl Rove's chestnuts are roasting on an open fire.

They are called servicemen because they serve us with their time, their efforts, and, too often, their lives.(The Week)(armed forces of the United States)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... They are called servicemen because they serve us with their time, their efforts, and, too often, their lives. The armed forces of the United States have lost 2,000 servicemen in Iraq since March 2003. Many feared that deaths would match or...

The president is fighting a twilight struggle against two cunning, ruthless foes--not just Islamofascism, but also the American foreign-policy bureaucracy.(The Week)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... The president is fighting a twilight struggle against two cunning, ruthless foes--not just Islamofascism, but also the American foreign-policy bureaucracy. That bureaucracy has recently lashed out at George W. Bush. Lawrence Wilkerson, former...

Scowcroft mentioned that he never saw the point of Ronald Reagan's calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire.".(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Scowcroft mentioned that he never saw the point of Ronald Reagan's calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire." George W. Bush drew different lessons. He went to the Reagan Library to speak at the opening ceremonies for a pavilion housing the...

The McCain amendment on torture passed the Senate 90-9.(National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1988-1993)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... The McCain amendment on torture passed the Senate 90-9. That sort of margin usually means legislation is meaningless or noxious. The McCain amendment might be a little of both. It codifies the Army Field Manual with regard to the treatment of...

Markets, financial analysts, economists, pundits, and really, just about everybody, reacted favorably to President Bush's appointment of Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan at the Fed.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Markets, financial analysts, economists, pundits, and really, just about everybody, reacted favorably to President Bush's appointment of Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan at the Fed. Liberals exulted that Bush had not picked a supply-side...

Oil companies are making record profits.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Oil companies are making record profits. ExxonMobil made $9.92 billion in the last quarter, which is 75 percent higher than the same period last year and more than any company has ever made during a quarter. Naturally, politicians are upset....

The president's commission on tax reform outlined two proposals.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... The president's commission on tax reform outlined two proposals. The less ambitious one would replace the five tax rates we currently pay with three, and drop the top rate from 35 percent to 33. It simplifies the tax code--eliminating the...

In our last issue, we praised President Bush for suspending the Davis-Bacon regulations in order to increase the speed and decrease the cost of post-Katrina reconstruction.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... In our last issue, we praised President Bush for suspending the Davis-Bacon regulations in order to increase the speed and decrease the cost of post-Katrina reconstruction. We are sorry to report that he reinstated those regulations under...

Sen. Sam Brownback deserves special commendation for his role in the Miers withdrawal.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Sen. Sam Brownback deserves special commendation for his role in the Miers withdrawal. Early on, he voiced concerns that other senators shared but did not express. When political operatives connected to the White House made clumsy attempts to...

When New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg won a small slice of the $340 million Powerball lottery a few weeks ago, the Beltway was abuzz with financial advice: Pay down the national debt; set up a fund for Republicans mired in legal scandals; give senatorial colleagues interest-free loans.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... When New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg won a small slice of the $340 million Powerball lottery a few weeks ago, the Beltway was abuzz with financial advice: Pay down the national debt; set up a fund for Republicans mired in legal scandals; give...

Remember the Iraqi constitution--you know, the one that was destined to blow up?(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Remember the Iraqi constitution--you know, the one that was destined to blow up? As it happened, it didn't blow up, but was approved in a referendum with 79 percent voter turnout. One gets the sense, though, that our objective, impartial news...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new president of Iran, said "Israel must be wiped off the map.".(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new president of Iran, said "Israel must be wiped off the map." Since he said it at a student rally called "The World Without Zionism," it was not exactly a surprise. Much critical comment ensued, even a tut-tut from...

Iran goes psycho.(The Week)(Poem)
November 21, 2005... IRAN GOES PSYCHO Reprising Khomeini's anathema, Directed at Israel's Jews-- "Wiped off," as" cartographers put it-- The president's Persian made news. Uncharacteristically, Kofi Was exercised by the event, ...

Bashar Assad, Syria's Baathist dictator, is looking mighty lonely these days.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Bashar Assad, Syria's Baathist dictator, is looking mighty lonely these days. In response to a report finding that high-level security officials in Assad's government conspired in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik...

Three teenage girls on their way to school in eastern Indonesia were decapitated by a gang of masked men dressed in black.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Three teenage girls on their way to school in eastern Indonesia were decapitated by a gang of masked men dressed in black. This was in a district rife with Islamist violence against Christians. Back in May, a bomb killed 22 people in a nearby...

There's nothing like a good comeuppance.(The Week)(George Galloway and possible corruption)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... There's nothing like a good comeuppance. Over the past few years, British MP George Galloway has been one of the loudest and dumbest critics of the war in Iraq. He has also been a staunch apologist for some of the worst elements the Middle East...

French police are talking about "guerrilla" violence, and interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to wage "war without mercy.".(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... French police are talking about "guerrilla" violence, and interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to wage "war without mercy." The uproar began when two young African men electrocuted themselves in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois,...

One of Prince Charles's purposes in making his first post-Di visit to these shores, according to the Sunday Telegraph, was to communicate his concerns that the United States has been "too confrontational" in its attitudes toward Islam.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... One of Prince Charles's purposes in making his first post-Di visit to these shores, according to the Sunday Telegraph, was to communicate his concerns that the United States has been "too confrontational" in its attitudes toward Islam. The...

Going to hell, or whatever.(nomination of Samuel Alito)
November 21, 2005... President Bush should have ended his prepared comments on his nomination of Judge Samuel Alito with "Release the hounds!" Within minutes of the nomination, packs of our best and brightest legal minds were loosed upon the plains of the Internet,...

The one thing to be said in favor of the P.C.-"diversity" cult is that it occasionally adds to the world's stock of fun by throwing up some hilarious linguistic absurdity.(The Week)(politically correct terms)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... The one thing to be said in favor of the P.C.-"diversity" cult is that it occasionally adds to the world's stock of fun by throwing up some hilarious linguistic absurdity. Consider, for example, Jones College, a college-prep selective high...

There are, of course, worse things than being excluded.(The Week)(racist comments of Kamau Kambon)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... There are, of course, worse things than being excluded. Participating in a panel at Howard University Law School, Mr. Kamau Kambon offered a solution to the problems facing black people: "We have to exterminate white people off the face of the...

Larry Flynt, proprietor of Hustler magazine, generously donated $1,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.(The Week)(Brief article)
November 21, 2005... Larry Flynt, proprietor of Hustler magazine, generously donated $1,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. Given what we know about the goings-on in the Clinton White House, it's not hard to understand why Leisure-Suit Larry might feel a bond...