Gerald Ford's death has brought back into the news for a few days a lot of political history that roughly half of all living Americans were born too late to experience. And then there is Ford's successor, Jimmy Carter. More

I may be one of the only people in the United States who does not indulge in the frenzy of resolution-making between Christmas and New Year's Day. I am not entirely clear whether that makes me either disinterested or impervious, but it is true. More

It is amazing that in universities almost no one is taught how to teach. It is assumed that because one has a degree in a field one knows how to teach. Like many assumptions, this one is dubious. More

A recent New Yorker article "Knowing the Enemy" has aroused more comment than such pieces usually attract this time of year. It deals with recent efforts by social scientists, anthropologists prominent among them, to assist with the Iraq war and the War on Terror in general. More

For you religio-centric clods who haven't yet expanded your celebratory horizons - and you know who you are - I bring a message of tolerance and inclusiveness: December 26 marks the start of Kwanzaa. More

A UCLA Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Saree Makdisi , appears to have an axe to grind. More

Like a dutiful dancing partner, Senator Barack Obama has begun courting the evangelical right, and some are already waltzing along in perfect time. More

The news that Saddam Hussein has lost his final legal appeal and that he will be hanged sometime within the next 30 days should be welcome news for war-weary Americans. To deny him the hangman's noose is to say that he - and all of us for that matter - is less than a human. More

Keith Ellison, the first ever Muslim elected to the US Congress, announced his intention of taking the oath of office placing his hand on Islam's supreme holy book, the Quran, when the new 110th Congress convenes in January next year. More

Let's look at the coming decade --- 2007-2017, rather than just the year 2007. It's a lot more interesting and significant. More

It is nearly a quarter century now since the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its somber warning about the nation's education system: "A Nation at Risk." More

For one moment, the world's focus on Iran shifted from its regime's nuclear program to what many still naively call "elections". Once again, the business-hungry European nations have applauded the 'victory' of the self-proclaimed 'reformists' in the local council elections. More

Whether we are winning or losing in Iraq is open to debate, but it's clear that our national conversation about the war has begun to fail. Today our elected leaders, our most influential commentators, and even ordinary Americans chatting among themselves at work or at their dinner tables, have begun to repeat their lines like wind-up dolls. More

CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid's planned retirement in the middle of a war reflects a business as usual mentality on the part of our senior leaders, who seemingly find it impossible to fight and kill the enemy all the way to victory. More

Growing up on Ian Flemming novels and James Bond films leaves one, or at least it left me, with a deep appreciation for eccentric villains. In Turkmenistan, we had Saparmurat Niyazov. Niyazov never took center stage in the world of whacky dictators - he lacked the barbarity of Islam Karimov and never had Kim Jong-il's fashion sense - but he was nonetheless a tyrant of cinematic proportions. More

Henry Kissinger is first and foremost a historian of European Great Power politics. The first rule of that long history is to split one's most powerful opponents and play them against each other. All the Euro Powers tried it, century after century. More

North Korea's apparent detonation of a nuclear device in October, and threats to test fire nuclear missiles present the United States with no useful military option, but may have finally sent enough of a chill down Chinese spines that we may be able to do something that the US Navy is quite good at --- establish and maintain an effective quarantine of the Pyongyang regime. More

The question de jour in the national debate on Iraq is simply: Is there a military "solution" on the Iraqi front of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)? More

Benjamin Able awakes before dawn to the nostalgic aroma of bread baking in his mother's kitchen. His uniform hangs on the closet door, neatly pressed and waiting for him, just as he knew it would be. He smiles. Homemade bread. Pressed uniform. Ah, the comforts of home. More

For many of us, this is a rather bleak Christmas. It seems as if our enemies are getting steadily stronger while our society is beginning to come apart at the seams. I remember another bleak Christmas, in 1941, when it also appeared that the whole world was against us and that the powers of evil might at last prevail. More

In our Part Two here, we turn our attention towards the historian's task of investigating past events. The same problems confronting the believer in the realm of science emerge in the realm of history. The same basic regularities that happen today also happened in the past, so they preclude miracles. Or the regularity of past and present events makes miracles highly improbable compared to people's testimony. More

Those spread so far out everywhere, Those sent to man the wire. Patrolling on the front line, As peacefully here we bask, Protecting what is yours and mine, That's their hard, dreary task. More

There is a wonderful interpretation of mankind's fall from Eden by Scott Hahn. He asks the question so many of us forget to ask: While Eve was trying to fend off the serpent's temptations, where was Adam? More

One of the great geniuses of the Enlightenment was David Hume (1711-1776). In his essay on miracles (Section X) in his book Enquiries concerning Human Understanding, he doubts that miracles have ever occurred and even can occur. More

In yet another breath-taking display of callous disregard for public safety against potential terror attacks, the New York Times yesterday published information obtained from a disgruntled Port Authority employee concerning the dangerous vulnerability of the PATH transit tunnels running beneath the Hudson River More

Anyone who's traveled in Malaysia and Indonesia can testify to the friendly, open-minded character of most of the citizens. And amazingly, they are Muslims. More

In an article about Jesus by Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, he asserts that Jesus starts out as a human Jewish prophet, but that the Church in the first four centuries turned him into the majestic Messiah and worldwide Savior. Though Meacham's rationalist version of church history was written recently (March 2006), it has been circulating for over two hundred years, and it will crop up again and again. More

Nearly complete results from two important elections of 16 December 2006 in Iran reflect the defiant mood of the Iranians and their determination to work toward "regime change." More

It has been announced recently that John Abizaid, our top general in Iraq, will retire early next year. By all accounts, Abazaid is now and has been an exemplary soldier, a servant of the Republic. More

This article is the conclusion of the seven-part series on pacifism and the sword in the New Testament. The purpose of the series has been to bring clarity to many contradictory and confusing opinions circulating around the web and in the print media. More

Remember when fear of flying was a normal, human response to an inner doubt that a 3 quarter million pound hunk of metal had any business being 30,000 feet in the air? More

Deliberately bringing a child into the world without a father and exposing that child's moral formation to an atmosphere of homosexuality is a "benign reality," according to Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post. Marcus was writing in praise of "Mary Cheney's pregnancy," only regretting that it hadn't occurred during the 2004 election cycle. More

Now that neocons are being slow-roasted in effigy all over the world, this may be the right time to ask the question: Why isn't the whole Left neoconservative? Remember that  neocons like Norman  Podhoretz and Daniel P. Moynihan were former left-wingers who saw the light --- which only... More

Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, announced that he would take his Congressional oath using a Koran, rather than a Bible. This bit of news would have passed under the radar were it not for the fact that Dennis Prager wrote a column objecting. More

The international Left has pretty much succeeded in tarnishing the word "Zionism" as a Bad Thing. It's become Jimmy Carter's shorthand for Evil. Today's trendy anti-Zionism is odd, because the longing for Zion happens to be embedded in the Holiday Season --- for Jews, Christians and yes, even Muslims. More

Everyone knows that sex sells. It has been a truism for hundreds, more likely thousands of years. Until now. Because the number one seller is no longer sex. It's fear. More

The Iraq Study Group (ISG) recently released its version of the "road map" to guide America's policy in Iraq. The ISG turned into a colossal dud, a missed opportunity of huge magnitude. Its failure to engage with the real dilemmas, and instead substitute a combination of wishful thinking and hostility toward Israel, was actually quite predictable. More

What do these episodes have in common? Item: A few years ago an Egyptian college professor wrote that subatomic particles must be the "jinns" or Arabian desert spirits that Mohammed wrote about in the Koran. More

How does the old carol go? Something like this? God rest ye merry, bureaucrats? At this time of good cheer we ought not to forget bureaucrats More

Much as been made of the demonstrated ignorance of Silvestre Reyes, the newly named chair of the House Intelligence Committee. But Reyes is far from alone in failing to have learned the most basic facts of the forces arrayed against us. Reyes' position requires that he provide oversight of our intelligence operations, and those in charge of those operations have demonstrated they know little more than Reyes does More

For decades the Saudis have sent out money and missionaries to establish radical West-hating madrassas and mosques all over the world. Many American mosques are controlled by the Saudis, and Saudi-funded Muslim "civil rights" organizations peddle a carefully tailored PR campaign about Muslim victimization to the American sucker media. All this serves the Wahhabi creed More

The dictionary defines apartheid as: An official policy of racial segregation promulgated in the Republic of South Africa with a view to promoting and maintaining white ascendancy. Islam, by fiat, discriminates against women. More

A long time ago I read a short online piece about how women could get their men to put the toilet seat down. Inherent in it was the idea that this was an example of men's lack of consideration. More

American Thinker had the honor of talking with a man who is a law enforcement legend in his own time: Maricopa County (Phoenix) Sheriff Joe Arpaio. More

Road rage! Just the sound of it is scary. The thought of someone with a short temper, operating a huge metal monster that weighs a couple of thousand pounds is enough to quicken the pulse. More

Newt Gingrich recently began a series of Fox TV News Specials to address compelling public policy issues with "Why Does College Cost So Much and Is It Worth It?" The program scored higher than expected ratings. Here is the response of Velma Montoya, an economist who writes about higher education. More

I have just read a mea culpa by Vietnam War protestor, novelist and poet, Pat Conroy, who possesses the literary skills to express what I am willing to bet many other older American males, his former brothers at the barricades, also feel, but lack the skills and the honesty to articulate More

Christians are commanded to love their enemies, so are Christian soldiers and police officers permitted to kill them? How can they maintain their witness about God when they may have to pull the trigger? More

The criminal prosecution of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, former executives of AIPAC (the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has been in progress now for over a year (although the trial date has constantly been delayed), is a national disgrace. More

Of all the Jewish holidays, the one that I think best captures the contemporary Jewish zeitgeist, the one that is the most relevant to the current (and, if certain trends are not reversed, the last?) chapter in Jewish history, is Hannuka. More

We present a four-part dialogue on the possibility of fundamentally changing the nature of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. First comes a proposal from Dan Gordon, a response from Richard Baehr, and shorter rejoinders More

The global economy is held together by silken threads of trust, the belief that contracts will be honored once signed. Without the assurance that governments will honor their agreements, individuals and companies would be reluctant to advance the substantial sums necessary to undertake large scale projects, such as drilling for oil or natural gas. More

UN Ambassador John Bolton leaves his position with a parting cannon shot: Formally charging Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "with inciting genocide ...." More

"I shall be an autocrat, that's my trade." Thus quipped the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, who stamped Russian authority onto the international stage, seizing vast swathes of territory and establishing Russia as a formidable power in the middle of the eighteenth century. It appears that Vladimir Putin has taken her example to heart. More

'Tis the season, and once again Christmas is under siege by various political and commercial interests. If you haven't heard, for several years, Christmas, including even the word "Christmas," has been under attack More

Being Iranian is defined by a state of mind, not by a place of residence. The barbaric Islamist mullahs and their mercenaries presently ruling Iran are not Iranians. They are Islamofascists who have betrayed their magnificent heritage and have enlisted themselves in the service of a most oppressive, discriminating and demeaning ideology. More

Last week, the Iraq Study Group told the President and the nation that we need to prepare for retreat from Iraq. In their numerous recommendations, there are none that are directed towards actually winning the present conflict. Permit me, if you will, to make a completely out-of-Left-field suggestion, one I doubt will ever be entertained inside the Beltway More

Imagine for a moment that a sex scandal involving pages had forced a Democrat Congressman holding a safe seat to resign in disgrace weeks before crucial midterm elections More

They believe and preach that the 20th century Nazi plan to thoroughly remove the presence of Jews from Europe never actually culminated in genocide. They assert that the "myth" of the Holocaust is either a monstrous hoax or a gross exaggeration perpetrated by Jews solely for the financial benefit of Israel. More

The latest excuse for the media to publish hagiographic photos suggesting a place on Mount Rushmore, inaccurately apply adjectives like "moderate," "centrist" and "non-ideological," and otherwise indulge its embarrassing schoolgirl crush on Barack Obama was his December 10, 2006 trip to New Hampshire. More

John Bolton, America's best Ambassador to the UN in our generation, will be leaving his post in the next few weeks. But few have considered the future of John Bolton himself. More

It looks like the United States has ended up acting like a Charlie Chaplin restaurant waiter, carrying a gigantic pile of dinner plates all piled on top of each other. Like Chaplin in the comedy stunt, the US has been dancing around trying to keep all the plates from crashing down. The consequences of failure would be disastrous for the region and the world. More

On Veterans' Day, November 11, 2005, President George W. Bush, described the determination of Islamic terrorists, who "want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions." Yet, as we now see, the U.S. is running, not only from the Middle East. More

Less than two weeks before her almost certain reelection to a third term, Olympia Snowe issued a fatwa against Exxon-Mobil and climate change policy skeptics who have had the audacity to openly question her advocacy of Kyoto derived mandatory greenhouse gas emissions controls. Senator Snowe urged Exxon-Mobil to stop resisting her efforts to pass symbolic, expensive and futile GHG regulatory legislation, and most especially to gag two vocal critics More

I have often heard confusing and confused uses of "turn the other cheek." The saying seems so imbalanced and out of touch with reality, as it circulates around the world, out of context and isolated. Someone gets punched, and he is told to turn the other cheek. I also hear pacifists say this to the government when it is about to respond to an attack. More

J.R. Dunn's recent blog in American Thinker on the anti-anti-terror campaign, brought to consciousness my own unstated thoughts about the series of obviously staged aggressive assaults on our rational responses to provocative conduct suggesting terrorism. More

Despite being under enormous pressure, the March 14th Forces and Prime Minister Siniora are continuing to resist calls for their resignations and the formation of a Hezb'allah dominated "National Unity Government. More

"Think twice about what you are going to say, especially if you are going to say what you're thinking." So goes the old adage. This advice is a caution that seems to garner very little support in an era when airing one's dirty laundry in public is considered a noble gesture More

"The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.... The United States should immediately launch a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. [sacrificing Israel to entice our Muslim enemies into bailing us out].... There it is, the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report in a nutshell. More

It's always amazed me how quickly the American left managed to twist the 9/11 attacks into a club with which to beat their own country. I recall watching the smoke from the towers late in the day, exhausted from stress and emotions I could scarcely identify, and thinking, "They'll never be able to defile this." More

When it comes to this country's trade and budget deficits, just how concerned are America's taxpayers? The future impact of continuing trade and budget deficits requires attention.. More

Forget the Executive Summary which is a collection of platitudes and wish-lists. If the assumptions in the Executive Summary were true - for instance that Iraq's neighbors see themselves as having a stake in a stable and successful Iraq - the problem would have been solved long ago and our troops would be home. More

Napoleon famously said "An Army marches on its stomach." In the same sense, wars are won with money. Of course, brave warriors, advanced technologies, and many other factors are essential. But without the funds to pay for them, victory is impossible. More

A long time ago in a land far away the Prophet Muhammad, who had united the Arabian tribes under the banner of Islam, died. The ensuing battles over naming his rightful successor sparked a schism in the Muslim community which endures to this day. More

In the post-9/11 era, the Bush administration's new project of spreading freedom and democracy in the dictators-ruled countries became one of the most discussed and closely followed topics in the media and at all levels of society. As the world gets increasing plagued by violence unleashed by the Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist groups, a way to turn the tide of violence towards peace seemed a desirable idea to the peace and freedom-loving people in the world. More

James Baker is now quoted as having said during the Bush I administration, "F the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway." It's quite likely that Baker said that; it's standard Washington trash talk. More

The precedents you set really do matter. The effect of hate crime law is that it empowers the authorities to administer harsher punishment when hateful motives are discerned. More

What exactly did United States Senator-elect Jim Webb mean when he wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "the most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century." More

Whatever one can say about Hillary Clinton, it cannot be said that she evokes lukewarm responses from people. Since her days as First Lady during the 1990s, Clinton has gained both a devoted following - and just as large a group of people who hold her in great dislike. More

In November economist and former British Lord Chancellor Nigel Lawson in Maggie Thatcher's government rose to give an address at the Centre for Policy Studies in London. What his audience were privileged to experience was nothing less than a rare phenomenon: sheer force of reason in public debate. More

Well, it only took three weeks for the first unhappy liberal to recognize that he might have been conned by the Democrats' bait and switch campaign scheme. It probably would have happened sooner, but the really dedicated pols have been too busy celebrating to notice all the pre-election promises being taken back like unwanted gifts the day after Christmas. More

People are familiar with Islam's classification of the world into the Dar-ul-Solh-the house of peace, meaning the house of Islam-and the Dar-ul-Harb-the house of war, meaning the house of non-Islam. Ironically, the self-proclaimed house of peace, from its early years, has waged war against the house of war. More

Canada has a new Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion, a man barely known outside of his own province, and detested by many within Quebec itself. More

The European Union would have you believe it's the latest sign of progressive humanity, a peaceful and prosperous socialist union where previously only war and discord used to reign. Skeptics might point out that the EU is basically a revived Frankish Empire (5th-10th century CE), an attempt to unify Germany and France in an effort to control all of Europe. More

Conspiracy theories have been around for centuries, if not millennia. Conspiracy theories offer explanatory models of complex events to large audiences of the unsophisticated and under-educated. More

Here is a puzzle to contemplate. What can possibly explain the enormous, the stupefying failures of the Left in the 20th century? What went wrong? We start with ideas that seem, considered in the abstract, self-evidently attractive in principle: liberty, equality, fraternity, community, production for use. More

In 1948, one year after the death of legendary Charles Scribner's Sons editor Maxwell Perkins - editor of Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, and Wolfe - the annual Books in Print index listed 85,000 titles from only 357 book publishers. The small scale of the book trade at that time meant that book publishers continued their tradition of being gatekeepers of our culture and knowledge; publishing, it was thought, was a calling for those for whom commerce was a secondary consideration More

Confusion too often prevails over discussions on the relation between the Church and the State. Things get even more complicated when the sword - military and law enforcement - is brought into the debate. More

It is ironic that the very people who claim to have the most concern for the plight of the innocent men, women, and children being massacred in the Darfur region of the Republic of Sudan are complicit in this humanitarian crisis. On many levels this conflict represents a failure of the media and liberal ideology with its distain for decisive military action. More

We know that we are being lied to. Sometimes we just don't realize how much we are being lied to. The more sordid the Islamic present seems, the more we are told of the glories of the Islamic past. And the most glorious of the glories of Islam, the most enlightened of its enlightenments, are the "Islamic science" and "Islamic philosophy" of the Golden Age. More

In the run-up to Pope Benedict's current visit to Turkey, TIME Magazine opened its pages to Tariq Ramadan, Europe's favorite Islamist and perhaps the most influential Muslim figure in the West today. Ramadan chided the Pope and Europe for ignoring the positive contributions of Islam to the development of rational thought in the West. More