In my last post I suggested that the longest-lasting legacy of the Iraq War might be the paralysis of America’s foreign and defense policy when it comes to dealing with even the most egregious and destabilizing of failed states or rogue regimes. In today’s Washington Post, Richard Cohen provides a good example of this paralysis precisely…
Jennifer Rubin on the Commentary blog, “Contentions” quotes extensively from the column of Charles Krauthammer in this morning’s Washington Post on the famous victory for American arms and American diplomacy in Iraq. “Every conventional wisdom has been turned on its head,” she says: The vilified George Bush did largely accomplish his goal of liberating an entire…
Sympathy for last week’s victims of terrorism in Bombay, India, has finally put an end to a lonely holdout in the media by The Times of London against the forces of political correctness. In today’s paper, an editorial, “Mumbai in The Times“, announces that, henceforth, it will change its adherence to traditional English usage and start…
Not enough attention has been paid to the significance of Barack Obama’s apparent decision, to be announced tomorrow, to leave the Bush administration’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, in place when he takes office in January — and especially to that of the applause he is getting from the media for it. When you consider what…
To make Shakespeare our contemporary is to make him only a brand name, and it cuts us off from our own history — From The American Spectator of November, 2008
Some lucubrations from a conclave of eggheads on the wickedness both of the Bush administration and of the evils it has tried to fight — From The New Criterion of November, 2008
As usual, the financial crisis found the media the slaves of some defunct economist, and their own story line — From The New Criterion of November, 2008
The New York Times is at it again. You’d think that with the election over, the departure of American forces from Iraq successfully negotiated with the Iraqi government and the anti-war left so busy being enraptured by Barack Obama and the earthly paradise that his administration will doubtless be creating in short order, the need…
A weird and often amusing philosophical movie by the screenwriter of Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, only not quite so good as those movies
An enjoyable and well-made film from British director Mike Leigh which, nevertheless, doesn’t quite satisfy
Can we at least hope that the growth in international piracy will put an end to the era of the cool pirate? The idea of pirates as rock stars avant la lettre that we see in the (so far) three installments of the fabulously lucrative Pirates of the Caribbean movies depended on their inhabiting a…
It’s sad but not surprising that even now, after the terrible political price that she and the administration she has so loyally served have paid for their delusion, Condoleezza Rice still doesn’t “get it” — to use the highly intelligent Barack Obama’s favorite put-down. Interviewed in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine about the international challenges…
