February 25, 2015

Same Sex Marriage and <em>Dred Scott</em>

America is at a constitutional crossroads.  The federal courts are threatening radically to revise the family law of all fifty states.  There is no Constitutional justification for them to do so.  If we don't stop them the American...

September 30, 2007

President Thompson

Conventional wisdom is hardening around the proposition that Fred Dalton Thompson is too lazy, ill-prepared, tired, old, lackluster, inexperienced, inconsistent and bald to make a successful run for President. Of course, conventional wisdom rarely ge...

March 29, 2007

Memo to Mitt: Consider the Virtues of Dick Cheney's Job

No doubt the latest Gallup Poll  came as a shock to you, Governor. It must be very disappointing after all your hard work to have a guy like Fred Thompson eating your lunch as soon as he mentions in passing that he might consider giving serious ...

March 19, 2007

Rudy Giuliani Could be Just the Ticket for Social Conservatives

As the 2008 season gains momentum, political commentators are starting to address key questions about each serious candidate. - Can Hillary Clinton reconcile with her leftist friends who are disturbed by her vote in support of the Iraq war? - Can a m...

March 8, 2007

Get a Grip Mr. President

Scooter Libby is a convicted perjurer because the United States Department of Justice grossly abused its power and because politics short-circuited all the safeguards that are supposed to prevent such abuses. This is one of the most appalling pervers...

January 17, 2007

Will the Next Attack Get Our Attention?

What will our politics look like the day after the next time jihad comes home to America? Ever since September 11, 2001 political leaders of every stripe have been telling us that another catastrophic attack is inevitable. Consensus regarding terrori...

January 12, 2007

The Way Forward

The President has outlined his "way forward" for Iraq and the battlelines are clearly drawn, both in Washington and in Baghdad. Here in the capital of the free world, the fight is between two factions of our political class each of which is...

December 8, 2006

The Iraq Study Group Flunks

"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...

November 15, 2006

A Democrat Restoration?

Twelve years in the congressional minority failed to make a dent in the Democrats' core belief that the universe is unfolding as it should, only when they are in power. They don't bother to argue that their victory in 2006 marks a return to Democrat ...

November 9, 2006

Finding Wisdom in the Wreckage

In retail the customer is always right; in politics the voters are never wrong. Republicans need to bear that in mind as they contemplate the wreckage left behind by Tuesday night's Democrat tide. Defeat can be a great teacher and now is the Rep...

October 13, 2006

Are the Democrats Whigging Out?

Predicting what will happen if the Democrats win control in one or both houses of Congress next month is a burgeoning cottage industry. It is, however, both more interesting and probably more useful to consider what will happen if they don't. If Dem...

October 4, 2006

Dennis Hastert and the Cringing Republicans

Australians used to speak of their "cultural cringe" — a tendency to internalize what they supposed to be the British view that all things Australian are backward and provincial. This colonial residue lingered after many decades of independent ...

September 27, 2006

George W. Bush and the Fancy Theorists

Last week the press, discreet as always, published a nugget mined from the top secret National Intelligence Estimate. The banner headlines suggested that our intelligence experts believe the war in Iraq to be an impediment in the "war on terror" beca...

September 20, 2006

The Moral Exhibitionism of John McCain

If a team of geniuses sat down to design a man who should never be President of the United States they would come up with John McCain. Fortunately the character flaws that make him unfit for the Oval Office also put that office well beyond his reach....

September 18, 2006

Know Your Enemy

Five years after we finally noticed that Muslim enemies were at war with us we still haven't identified those enemies or developed a realistic strategy for victory. The depth of our confusion shows in the ridiculous debates that preoccupy our politic...

June 30, 2006

The Madness of Hamdan

For decades presidents of both parties have failed to take action as the attacks on our way of life have grown ever more outrageous.  Presidential passivity makes the perpetrators bolder and more dangerous.  It also atrophies our capacity t...

June 28, 2006

The Trouble with George W.

George W. Bush is an inside—the—box guy fated to grapple with an outside—the—box world.  That, in a nutshell, is the source of all the political problems that have hobbled his presidency. President Bush isn't likely to ch...

January 27, 2006

Therapeutic Politics

With no shortage of important matters to discuss, why do Democrats insist on talking about trivia?  They are determined to spew piffle even when they plainly pay a political price for doing so.  Consider what our leaders should be grappling...

January 13, 2006

The Stare Decisis Scam

The once obscure law Latin phrase 'stare decisis' used to be the exclusive property of pompous judges and still more pompous first year law students.  Roughly translated it means 'to stand pat.'  Suddenly that phrase is sweeping the nation....

January 9, 2006

Another Scandal that Wasn't

There is often much less than meets the eye in the news from our nation's capital.  Rarely, however, does anything as trivial as the NSA 'domestic spying' story make the front pages and generate gales of heavy breathing from the media elite....

December 2, 2005

Hit 'Em Again, Harder

When he took the nation's highest office, George W. Bush famously called himself a uniter, not a divider, signaling a kinder, gentler approach to Washington politics. Fat lot of good it did him. He faces opponents who offer no quarter, even when the ...

November 21, 2005

We are in Iraq to Stay

America's political elites have a secret they don't intend to share with the voters.  Democrats claim to want our military out of Iraq more or less immediately, though only three of them have the guts to vote that way. President Bush promises w...

November 20, 2005

Is Jack Murtha a Coward and a Traitor?

The prize for the most dramatic oratory in the United States Congress in the new millennium goes to fledgling Representative Jean Schmidt.  In the midst of debate over whether the House of Representatives should vote on a resolution endorsing im...

November 18, 2005

What the President Should be Saying

It's nice that the President is finally ridiculing the ridiculous charge that he lied us into war in Iraq.  I, for one, am grateful for any sign of political life from a White House that sometimes seems to have gone into a second term coma....

November 4, 2005

The Task Ahead for Roberts and Alito

Like John Roberts before him, Samuel Alito has already provoked some skepticism in conservative circles as he does the confirmation tango.  Both Bush nominees have made a point of avoiding any full—throated defense of the right's pet juris...

November 2, 2005

Mr. Justice Alito

For President Bush the third time's the charm. Judge Sam Alito of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit was a sight for sore conservative eyes when he stood beside the President for the announcement of his nomination to the Su...

October 29, 2005

Fifty farm teams

Has the White House learned the right lesson from the Miers debacle?  Any number of people will tell President Bush that after the embarrassing implosion of one Supreme Court nominee he needs to make a soothing 'consensus' choice.  A few of...

October 25, 2005

Why Bad Careers Happen to Good Justices

Why do so many Republican nominees with sterling conservative credentials morph into liberals when they ascend to the Supreme Court?  The list is long and depressing — William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, Sandra Day O'Connor, Ant...

October 17, 2005

To Err is Human – and so is President Bush

In the physical universe every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  Apparently the political universe is no different.  Suddenly the braying Bush haters on the left are balanced by a cadre of deranged Bush groupies of indeterminate i...

October 6, 2005

Talk among yourselves

In every quarrel among friends there is a risk that people will do grave damage by saying things they don't mean and wouldn't say but for their competitive desire to win the argument.  Poorly chosen words can drive wedges between allies and defe...

October 5, 2005

Intellectual decay

Thomas Lifson's optimistic analysis of  Harriet Miers' potential to move the Supreme Court back toward constitutional sanity may be spot on.  Perhaps there is something magical about an off—the—rack corporate litigator who also ...