All That Is Necessary

Month: January 2009

  • Bush, Reagan, Moral Clarity, and the Politics of Evil

    President Bush has outpaced former President Reagan when it comes to calling evil by its name. What remains to be seen is whether history will vindicate Bush as it has Reagan. From President Bush’s farewell address to the nation last night (hat tip: K-Lo): As we address these challenges — and others we cannot foresee […]

  • Honeymoon-Over Watch: Obama Treasury Secretary Draws Scrutiny on Taxes

    Joe owed a hell of a lot less tax than Timothy Geithner. (Photo: Jae C. Hong / AP) (Instalanche! Welcome Instapundit readers, and readers from TigerHawk and Living al Dente.) There’s already plenty of opposition to Obama in the right-wing fever swamps of the Internets, of course. (I would link that sentence to Ann Coulter’s […]

  • Captured Hamas Map Shows "Human Shield" Strategy

    Further proof that Hamas deliberately puts Palestinians in harm’s way. The only thing more valuable to Hamas than dead Israelis is dead Palestinians. (Hat tip: Jonah)

  • "A Sickness in the Soul of Middle-Eastern Islam"

    I don’t agree with every syllable of Ralph Peters’s column in today’s New York Post, but this part works: Israel hasn’t killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israel didn’t kill them. Hamas did. … Peace is […]

  • Gaza: A Time for War, a Time for Peace

    At Pajamas Media, Middle East commentator Eli Bernstein examines Israel’s war against Hamas in the context of the ancient doctrine of a “just war.” He concludes, of course, that Israel has the right to use military force to protect its people. Further, he argues that Israel now has a moral obligation to continue its operation […]

  • Israel vs. Hamas: How Much Violence is Enough

    A law professor considers the notion of proportionality in Forbes: The claim is that it is not permissible for the Israelis to kill many individuals, including civilians, to stop sporadic deaths from rocket fire. Sorry. As with individual aggression, proportionality has no place in dealing with deadly force, where the right rule is that all […]

  • Israel’s Further Adventures in Social Media

    Israel continues and escalates its efforts to use social media to press its case in the global court of public opinion. Benjamin Netanyahu, the once and perhaps future Prime Minister, is pulling out all the stops to explain Israel’s position in the war with Hamas. In addition to an excellent op-ed in the Wednesday Wall […]

  • Hamas Deploys Children in PR Offensive

    A debate is raging over civilian deaths, some of them children, at a Palestinian school. GAZA CITY, Gaza (AP) — Israeli mortar shells exploded Tuesday near a U.N. school in Gaza that was sheltering hundreds of people displaced by Israel’s onslaught against Hamas militants, killing at least 30 Palestinians, tearing bodies apart and staining streets […]

  • A Centrist Obama May Help Moderate the Democratic Party

    Today’s edition of Obama Silver Lining Watch (hereafter OSLW) starts with a trip down memory lane. In my very first substantive post on this blog, way back in July 2008, I discussed how Obama was, inevitably, moderating his stance on multiple issues after finally knocking Hillary Clinton out of the race: But it turns out […]

  • An Off-Season of Renewal and Hope

    My friend Dennis was wandering with his camera one day in late December and snapped this photo of Shea Stadium, in the process of being disassembled. Gone already is the outfield fence, over which Kevin McReynolds hit a homer in the 14th inning to beat the Expos in August 1989. It was by far the […]