It must be said: Rep. Anthony D. Weiner is what’s wrong with America today. Once again, when confronted with behavior that clearly speaks to the character of a man’s heart, we’re being asked to accept that he’s not entirely responsible for his actions because of some unspecified “disorder.” (Maybe narcissism, maybe obsessive-compulsive disorder, maybe chronic […]
Remember how you felt when Nancy Pelosi told us that we would know what was in the Obamacare bill after it had been passed by the House of Representatives? For a lot of Americans – in and out of the Tea Party movement – that quintessential expression of political elitist arrogance and contempt for the […]
In case you missed Meet the Press Sunday morning: Blah, blah, blah, job growth… unemployment numbers. Blah, blah, blah, recession… debt reduction. Blah, blah, blah recovery… tax credits. Blah, blah, blah health care… social security. Blah, blah, blah, Democrats… Republicans. Blah. And so it went up to the interview with Rick Santorum and through the […]
The Syrian government must resist the uprising — and has the people’s backing in quelling forces seeking “destabilization and Islamization” — according to one of the country’s most respected Catholic bishops. In a strongly worded defense of President Bashar al-Assad’s response to the protests and instability, Bishop Antoine Audo accused the media, including the BBC and Al […]
Another week, another dozen or so images of Weenie the Tweeter in various states of disrobe. I can only imagine the suffering of the poor wife, the humiliation of the family and friends at the sight of this debacle. Yet there is something worse than that. The poor guy wants to keep his job as […]
It is rare to hear a UN discussion on youth that include a message of hope for their future. Often, UN agencies view youth as a problem or liability, whose large numbers in the developing world are a destabilizing force for society and the economy, and whose futures will be full of hardships. Last week, […]
A “Woman Screams for Help After TSA Molestation,” and the “Texas Pat Down Ban May Be Back.” Those are just two of the headlines breaking around the nation this morning, as summer travel picks up—and so do concerns over excessive airport security. How much indignity are you willing to endure if told it’s for safety’s […]
It was 24 years ago, in June 1987, that Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech calling on Mikhail Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall.” In 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the foundations that had undergirded world politics for decades were likewise crumbling, John Mearsheimer penned his celebrated article: “Why […]
The new Constitution, passed by the Hungarian Parliament with a resounding majority and carried out by Viktor Orban’s government, has been signed on 25 April 2011 by Mr Pál Schmitt, the Hungarian President. Because this new Constitution has stirred much debate in Europe, the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) has taken the initiative […]
I have been in Washington now for nearly forty years and, in all that time, I can’t recall seeing anything quite like Robert Gates’ ongoing farewell to arms. In a series of speeches over the past few days — at Notre Dame, at the American Enterprise Institute and at the Naval Academy — the outgoing Secretary of […]
The revolt in Syria offers great opportunities, humanitarian and geo-political. Western states should quickly and robustly seize the moment to dispatch strongman Bashar al-Assad and his accomplice. Many benefits will follow when they reach their appointed dustbin of history. Foreign: The malign but tactically brilliant Hafez al-Assad blighted the Middle East with disproportionate Syrian influence […]
The brutal murder of the head of Turkey’s Catholic Church, Bishop Luigi Padovese, on June 3, 2010, has rattled the country’s small, diverse, and hard-pressed Christian community.[1] The 62-year-old bishop, who spearheaded the Vatican’s efforts to improve Muslim-Christian relations in Turkey, was stabbed repeatedly at his Iskenderun home by his driver and bodyguard Murat Altun, […]
No matter how good a system is “on paper,” it must arise from a people’s own experience and tradition. We do not preserve the idea of tradition by destroying it — no matter how flawed it might be — and imposing an alien system. On the other hand, tradition is neither something fixed for all […]
One of the problems with Obama’s Middle East speech was that parts of it were so deliberately balanced — so meant to appease all sides — that they go nowhere. For example, look at the portions where he discusses democracy in the Middle East versus the alternative — Islamist rule, which he does not name. […]
I faithfully listen to audiobooks as a means of coping with northern Virginia traffic. Recently, I have been engrossed by Edmund Morris’s Colonel Roosevelt (2010), which, like the first volume of his biographical trilogy, could very well earn him another Pulitzer Prize. At one point in the book, Theodore Roosevelt describes the workings of politics […]
President Obama’s latest paean to what he calls “the Muslim world,” delivered at the State Department today, was an exercise in whistling past the graveyard of real and growing dangers and a litany of misleading statements that borders on official malpractice. Its most important upshot is this: The United States is now prepared to do […]
The Development of Regalism Regalism was a development of the late Middle Ages and early modern period that sought to centralize all power in the hands of the king. All social and economic institutions, even — or especially — the Church, were brought under royal control. This was the beginning of the modern “nation-state,” in […]
To posit the significance of Osama bin Laden’s demise, we must first decide which came first — the chicken or the egg? Quaint as it is, this question is fundamentally an inquiry into the nature of cause and effect. In our context, did Osama bin Laden “create” the idea of jihad, or did the centuries-old […]
Days ago in Egypt, throngs of Muslims (henceforth, “Islamists”), estimated at 3,000, fired guns and rifles and hurled Molotov cocktails at Coptic churches, homes, and businesses in the Imbaba region near Cairo: twelve Christians were killed—some shot by snipers atop rooftops—232 injured; three churches were set aflame to cries of “Allahu Akbar,” while Coptic homes […]
As someone with the highly unusual task of researching old, declassified Soviet and Communist Party USA archives, I often get quizzical looks as to why certain things from the distant past still matter. Well, it’s indeed true that past is often prologue. And it’s striking to see how something in communist archives from, say, the […]
The announcement that one is a monarchist is greeted with the same regard as the announcement that one has joined the Flat-Earth Society, or espouses geo-centrism, or has expressed a belief in a world only 6,000 years old, where God planted fossils in the ground just for fun. Politically, monarchism has a prestige just a […]
Surprisingly, on net, last week was not a good one for the Free World. Despite the signal accomplishment of liquidating Osama bin Laden, Western civilization suffered serious reverses on several fronts. What these reverses all have in common is a deference to the doctrine our enemies’ call “shariah,” in a manner they perceive to be […]
For a long time I supposed that social issues — abortion, same-sex marriage, and the rest — were the great dividing line in American politics, with the collapse of natural law thinking at the root of the problem. While I still see the culture war resulting from this as a large part of what ails […]
Although the execution of Osama bin Laden was mainly a symbolic and psychological act of counterterrorism, its most immediate consequence, ironically, affects U.S.-Pakistan relations. In response to Pakistani upset about their national sovereignty being trespassed, the Zardari government severely condemned what it called “an unauthorized unilateral action.” Members of U.S. congress, already disappointed in the […]
