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Category Archive: News

On the ropes? - September 30, 2007
Responding the Homeland Security advisor Frances Fragos Townsend claim that Al Quaeda is on the ropes, Arnaud de Borchgrave points to the groups impressive cyber-organization. "As former Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid said, 'Al Qaeda's organizing ability in cyberspace...

What's Church For? - July 30, 2006
According to an AOL report, Greg Boyd has lost 1000 members of his church because he has refused to promote conservative political causes. According to the report, "he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch's worship service on a Fourth...

Two Cultures - March 02, 2006
Martin Peretz notes the differences among the Harvard faculties in their responses to Larry Summers' attempts to reform the university: When Harvard hired Summers to "bring the university into modern times," it was electrifying: "You could feel the walls of...

France and Assimilation - November 25, 2005
David Bell has an illuminating article on France in the November 28/December 5 issue of TNR. Contrary to many commentators, he argues, France has a long history of assimilating minorities: "France has been a multiethnic country for a very long...

Defoe and the news - November 05, 2005
In Richard West's fascinating biography of Defoe, he claims that he was "the first master, if not the inventor, of almost every feature of modern newspapers, including the leading article, investigative reporting, the foreign news analysis, the agony aunt, the...

Anglicans and Civil Partnerships - June 08, 2005
The London Times story reporting that Anglican bishops were proposing to endorse celibate homosexual "marriage" was inaccurate in several important respects. For clarity, see the article on the subject at rathernot.classicalanglican.net....

Via Media - June 01, 2005
The London Times Online reported on May 29 on a new proposal regarding gay clergy in the Church of England: "Homosexual priests in the Church of England will be allowed to 'marry' their boyfriends under a proposal drawn up by...

John Paul II - April 25, 2005
Jody Bottum's lengthy piece on "John Paul the Great" (Weekly Standard, April 18) is characteristically insightful and elegant. A couple of Bottum's points stand out. He describes John Paul's "star" quality, emphasizing "an obvious and easily triggered sort of joy:...

Old Men - April 08, 2005
A thought on the coverage of the Pope's funeral: When was the last time you saw so many old men on TV?...

John Paul II - April 02, 2005
The obituaries and eulogies for John Paul II will be written in superlatives. That is as it should be. A handful of men were responsible for the collapse of the Soviet regime, the evil empire that tyrannized millions and cast...

American Foreign Policy - December 07, 2004
Kenneth Minogue provides a superb summary of the case for the Bush foreign policy in the Nov 12 issue of TLS: "the United States is an open liberal democracy with which millions of Europeans are directly acquainted, and it has...

Buttiglione and Europe - November 15, 2004
The European Parliament's opposition to the nomination of philosopher Rocco Buttiglione for the position of justice minister on the European Commission is noteworthy for a number of reasons. As Christopher Caldwell points out in the Novemeber 15 issue of The...

Not Spain - November 03, 2004
Putin had a shrewd comment about the outcome of the election: "If Bush wins, then I can only feel joy that the American people did not allow itself to be intimidated, and made the most sensible decision." What message would...

Huntington and Mexico - June 19, 2004
Enrique Krauze provides some powerful criticisms of Samuel Huntington's claims about the influence of Mexican immigration on American cultural identity in the June 21 issue of TNR. Huntington argues in his recent book that there is a core American culture,...

Reagan - June 15, 2004
The editorial in TNR has a couple of insightful things to say about Reagan. It commends his obsession with communism, and says that, though he did not bring down communism, "he defied it into its final collapse" and "embarrassed his...

More Troops? - June 10, 2004
The ubiquitous Victor Davis Hanson questions the conventional wisdom that the US needs to send more troops into Iraq to establish order and peace. He draws on a number of historical examples to show that it is perfectly possible to...

Richard Clarke - May 03, 2004
Joshua Muravchik has a devastating analysis of Richard Clarke and his book in the May 2004 issue of Commentary. He compares Clarke's book to a comic book, with Clinton playing SuperPresident and the Bush administration as the enemy of the...

Gay Marriage - May 03, 2004
New Republic legal correspondent Jeffrey Rosen argues that there are built-in brakes on the spread of gay marriage from Massachusetts to the rest of the country. Opponents of gay marriage fear that gay couples will flock to Massachusetts, get married,...

Kerry's Strategy - May 03, 2004
Ryan Lizza describes Kerry's current campaign strategy as a version of Muhammed Ali's old "rope-a-dope" technique. While Bush hammers away with hooks and uppercuts, Kerry just stays on the robes and takes a beating. Meanwhile, he has been raising tons...

Numbers on Gay Marriage - April 04, 2004
Mark Stricherz writes in the April 5 Weekly Standard that the Republicans have everything to gain by making gay marriage an election-year issue: "opposition to gay marriage is a far less narrow phenomenon than supposed. The Republican position is, in...

Madrid - March 29, 2004
This from the lead editorial in the March 29 edition of The New Republic: "The new [Spanish] government of the Socialists, led by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, represents the more commonplace EU view of the world: the suspicion of force,...

Weigel on the "Europe Problem" - February 09, 2004
George Weigel has a characteristically clear-headed and insightful analysis of the "Europe problem" in the February issue of First Things. Weigel uses Robert Kagan's Paradise and Power as a jumping off point, but claims that he does not press the...

Editing Error - December 10, 2003
The editors of The New Republic got it right, it IS the correction of the year, issued by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on November 18: "Because of an editing error, a story on the front page yesterday misattributed a quote...

Hunsinger on Iraq - November 23, 2003
George Hunsinger used his lecture at the Bonhoeffer seminar to launch into the Iraqi war. It was truly dreadful. In the name of Bonhoefferian "truth-telling," he said that 10,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed (an estimate that has been discredited);...

Gagnon to Griswold - October 09, 2003
Robert Gagnon, who has written what has been described as THE book on the Bible and homosexuality (still unread by me), offers these illuminating comments on the ancient views of homosexuality in an open letter to ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank...

Gelernter on Iraq - September 30, 2003
The multi-faceted David Gelernter offers a rousing call to the Bush administration to defend their Iraqi policy on a moral rather than strategic basis in the October 6 edition of the Weekly Standard. He compares the debate over Iraq today...

"What Vietnam Syndrome?" - September 07, 2003
In the "What Vietnam syndrome?" category, Lawrence Kaplan reports in The New Republic that opinion polls show that Americans are quite willing to go the distance in Iraq, even at the cost of considerable casualties. One poll asked people the...

Girl Gangs - September 03, 2003
Drudge has a link to an article concerning an all-girl gang in San Francisco that is going about and beating up other women and girls with apparent randomness. Police are astonished at the violence and cruelty of the attacks, some...

Alabama & Ten Commandments - August 22, 2003
Alabama's struggle over the Ten Commandment monument is important and intriguing on a number of fronts. One fascinating aspect is the behavior of Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor. Pryor has been nominated for a federal judicial seat, and when he...

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