All That Is Necessary

Category: Uncategorized

  • Park51 Would Be the Most Expensive Islamic Center in North America

    One of the first thoughts that occurred to me when I began writing about the planned 13-story, 100,000 square foot, $100 million Islamic center near Ground Zero is, “surely this would be the biggest Islamic facility in the country?” To me, the trophy-building scale of the project is what makes it objectionable at that site. […]

  • A Symposium on Moderate Islam — and Why the Ground Zero Imam Doesn’t Qualify

    Two useful features today in the Wall Street Journal.  First, a symposium titled “What is Moderate Islam?“, in which six scholars and thought leaders explore the topic that represents the world’s best hope for peaceful coexistence between Islam and the West. Second, “Letters from the Imam,” in which the man behind a controversial proposed Islamic […]

  • A Politician Admits a Mistake.
    In Other News, Pigs Fly

    As longtime chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank was one of the key architects of the housing bubble, and of the crisis that followed the burst. Not the sole architect, of course — the roots of the crisis stretch back to the Carter administration. (See “In Defense of Wall Street Greed” nearly […]

  • Stumbling Toward a Middle Ground on the So-Called “Ground Zero Mosque”

    Both sides of the controversy cite the First Amendment — freedom of religion vs. freedom of speech — but appealing to the Constitution is missing the point. Nobody — no serious person — is suggesting the government should forbid the project.

  • Obama Fulfills Bush’s Plan for Responsible Withdrawal from Iraq

    Operational discipline limited the display of the American flag while serving in Iraq — but these soldiers from the 4th Stryker Brigade have just crossed the border into Kuwait. Photo: Washington Post Just over a month into the new Administration, I wrote: President Obama today announced an Iraq withdrawal plan that George Bush would be […]

  • It’s Not at Ground Zero and It’s Not a Mosque;
    I Don’t Want It There, But I Don’t Want It Banned

    Thread the needle time. Like the moderate Muslims I quoted in my prior post, I’m opposed to the project that has become known as the “Ground Zero Mosque.”  As a blogger called milowent has pointed out, the project is not at Ground Zero, and it’s not a mosque.  I agree with those narrow statements of […]

  • Muslims Against the Ground Zero Mosque

    When I first started hearing about it, the controversy over a proposed mosque near the gaping hole where the twin towers once stood seemed like an annoying distraction.  I wished the whole discussion would just go away.   I sympathized with the visceral opposition to a monument to Islam near where fanatical Muslims killed so many […]

  • “Islamism Is Not a Movement to be Engaged, It Is an Enemy to be Defeated”

    You’ll never see me use the term “War on Terror” outside of quotation marks.  Terror is not the enemy, it is one of the enemy’s tactics. That part is simple.  Deciding  what to call the enemy is much more complicated. I continue to resist the idea that Islam itself is the enemy, although others are […]

  • Noonan Hears Echoes of Reagan in Governor Christie

    Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan brings out the big guns in today’s Wall Street Journal, comparing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to the Great Communicator. For anyone just joining us, Christie, the man Jersey-based blogger Tigerhawk has dubbed “Governor Awesome,” is working to close an $11 billion deficit in a $29 billion state budget.  He’s […]

  • Sen. James Webb: “White America is Hardly a Monolith”

    In a riff on Nixon-goes-to-China, only a Democrat could get away with stating clearly and frankly the banal truth that sometimes white people suffer from racial discrimination in America.  Fortunately, there’s a prominent Democrat willing to do so:  Sen. James Webb of Virginia, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “Diversity and the […]