Month: June 2010
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Darwinian Selection in the Maplewood BlogolopolisTM
Big cyber-news today in Maplewood, NJ, the place one blogger once called “the center of the blogging universe.” The New York Times abruptly shuttered The Local, its New Jersey experiment in hyperlocal blogging. I’ve chronicled the Maplewood BlogolopolisTM here, here, here and here. Instead of just shutting down, the NYT is passing its baton to […]
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Obama’s Mixed Signals on Afghanistan
The prize for elegant metaphor of the day goes to Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal: With a wink of its left eye, the Obama administration tells its liberal base that a year from now the U.S. will be heading for a quick Afghan exit. “Everyone knows there’s a firm date,” insists White House […]
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The Odd Disinterest in a Real-Life Spy Thriller
Now Homeland Security is using the book to try to deport Yousef for providing "material support" for terrorists — despite the fact that he was saving Israeli lives from those very terrorists.
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“Barack Obama Better Be All In” on Afghanistan
At Contentions, the Commentary magazine blog, Peter Wehner assesses the prospects of success for David Petraeus, whom he calls one of the best generals “in our history”: What Petraeus also needs, apart from time, is the full support of the president and his team. Petraeus had that in Iraq with President Bush. There were no […]
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Obama’s Announcement on McChrystal Makes the Best of a Very Bad Situation
I share the gratitude Obama described for General McChrystal’s service. But what the hell was he thinking giving access to a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine? The threshold decision to participate in a story for an anti-establishment icon was an even bigger lapse of judgment than anything McChrystal or his aides said.
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Zakaria Lays the Right Oily Blame at the Foot of the Wrong Target
It’s up to Obama to keep the media tail from wagging the presidential dog.
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Reaction to Obama’s Speech Reflects the Limits of Government Power
The President and the Left wing of his party believe that government is the answer to every problem. Obama now is being savaged from the Left over an environmental disaster that government is powerless to stop. I didn’t know what the issue would be, but I’m on record from before the inauguration predicting eventual disillusionment. […]
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Some Contrarian Thoughts on the Gulf Oil Disaster
I think my credentials as a critic of President Obama are fairly well established, but it’s absurd to blame him for the oil spill, or for the failure (so far) to stop it. And calls for Obama to show more anger have led only to the demeaning spectacles of Obama saying he wants to know […]
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Brush With “Greatness”: Following in Helen Thomas’s Footsteps
I have the (pick an adjective) distinction of being only the second journalist to interview Jimmy Carter after he left office in early 1981. The first, Carter told me, was Helen Thomas, the long-time White House correspondent who resigned under pressure today after making astonishingly offensive comments to the effect that “the Jews” should get […]
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Islam May Not Be the Enemy, But the Enemy Is Islamic
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has earned the right to be critical of Islam. She was raised as a devout Muslim in Somalia and Kenya. At the age of five, her genitals were cut in a barbaric Somali ritual at the insistence of her Islamic grandmother. In her twenties, her Islamic father gave her in marriage to […]