All That Is Necessary

Category: Uncategorized

  • Conservatives Should Support Obama When He Gets Something Right

    Parts of the right-o-sphere are all aflutter, debating whether President Obama deserves any credit for the rescue of a maritime hero held by pirates. It’s a reminder that Obama Derangement Syndrome is no more appropriate than its more wide-spread predecessor, Bush Derangement Syndrome. In The Corner, Jonah Goldberg piped up promptly and congratulated the President […]

  • “Easter SEALs” Rescue Captain, Kill Pirates; More to Come

    Best possible ending: Three dead pirates, no good guys hurt, one hero captain survives after winning his crew’s freedom by offering himself as a hostage.  On Easter Sunday, no less.  (I wish I had thought of Easter SEALs!) Shades of United Airlines Flight 93, as the American crew apparently fought back and retook the Maersk […]

  • Obama’s Not-So-Invisible Hand

    Now that the Automaker-in-Chief has fired the CEO of General Motors and instructed Chrysler to sell itself to Fiat by the end of April,  he’s turning his attention to a variety of other essential American industries, from blue jeans (“Levis yes; Wrangler no”) to toothpaste to ballpoint pens.  President Obama also graciously acknowledged the important […]

  • Slouching Towards Europe: Obama’s Domestic Agenda Undercuts American Exceptionalism

    I’ve been pleasantly surprised by President Obama’s steadfastness regarding national security issues.  After winning his party’s nomination by promising to surrender in Iraq more quickly than the other Democrats would, Obama has: retained his predecessor’s defense secretary; adopted his predecessor’s timetable for responsible disengagement in Iraq; supported his own rhetoric about the importance of Afghanistan […]

  • Abortion Should Be Safe And Legal — But It Stops A Beating Heart

    The abortion issue lends itself to extremism.  The only logically consistent positions are at the extremes. The pro-life extreme can be summed up in three words: “Abortion is murder.”  The pro-choice extreme is more complicated.  The mainstream pro-choice movement’s rallying cry of “keep abortion safe and legal” doesn’t come close to being extreme.  Something can […]

  • Oliphant Takes Dehumanization of Jews into the Mainstream

    Clifford May of the indispensable Foundation for Defense of Democracies weighs in on the Oliphant cartoon: Let’s not call the political cartoonist Pat Oliphant an anti-Semite or even an Israel-basher. Let’s just be clear about what he is doing: encouraging those whose intentions are genocidal. … The symbolism here is unoriginal. Dehumanizing Jews in cartoons […]

  • A.T.I.N Has a New Look and a New Address

    After a lot more effort than I expected, I’m pleased to unveil version 2.0 of All That Is Necessary. For those who care about such details, I’ve migrated my original Blogger blog to the WordPress platform, hosted on my personal domain, kirkpetersen.net. (I’m .net because kirkpetersen.com, no relation, had already been snapped up by a […]

  • Oliphant’s Cartoon Is Not Just Despicable, It’s Dangerous

    At Israel Insider, Barry Rubin does the best job I’ve seen of describing precisely why Pat Oliphant’s recent cartoon — featuring a goose-stepping, headless swordsman pushing a Jew-shark-on-a-unicycle — is so powerful, and so powerfully offensive. Hat tip: Andy McCarthy. Is the cartoon truly anti-Semitic, or is it “merely” anti-Israel? I say both, but whatever. […]

  • Funny, He Doesn’t Sound Like a “Greedy Bastard”

    I’ve held my tongue about the AIG bonuses because I haven’t had the energy to take on the torch-and-pitchfork brigades. But although I can understand the populist anger, and maybe even share it a bit, the frenzied response has turned me off since the day the story broke. Comes now an AIG executive named Jake […]

  • Responsible Economic Policy is a National Security Issue

    John Bolton, who gets my vote for America’s best-ever ambassador to the United Nations (plus I love the mustache), describes how Rahm Emanuel’s never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste mentality will weaken the security of the United States, by devaluing the dollar and making us more dependent on financing from China and other countries that do not share our values. […]