Entries

John Demjanjuk And The Amazing Hypocrisy Of German Justice

Last week, the Munich district attorney’s office announced that it was charging the 88-year-old John Demjanjuk with some 29, 000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged activity as a guard at the Sobibor concentration camp during the Second World War. Germany is seeking the long-time …

Written by John Rosenthal on Saturday March 21, 2009

Justice To President Bush

I came of age in the Midwest, but I have spent much of my adult life on the East Coast, residing in a very blue state. So as a general Bush supporter over the last eight years (though by no means an enthusiastic one) I am often in the presence of those whose views of politics are, to put it …

Written by Brad Schaeffer on Friday March 20, 2009

The Jews Of Venezuela

This past week four of us traveled on a solidarity mission to visit with the Jews of Caracas, Venezuela. I had the honor of traveling with Rabbi Avi Weiss, Gabe Ledeen of our congregation, and Rabbi Adam Scheier of Congregation Shaar Hashamayim in Montreal . For the past few years we …

Written by Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld on Friday March 20, 2009

Shabby Dem Tactics Yield Bad Enviro Results

For the party in power, it is always tempting to believe that the end justifies the means. So it is not surprising that the Democrats have quickly forgotten good government arguments that they made when they were in the minority. Four years ago, congressional Republicans tried to pry open the …

Written by Jim DiPeso on Friday March 20, 2009

Happy Nowruz

Watching President Obama's Nowruz greeting gave me a pang of sadness and nostalgia. Seven years ago, I tried to sell the idea of President Bush doing a Nowruz speech. Nowruz is a pre-Islamic holiday that Iran's religious authorities disapprove - and often try to suppress. Nowruz greetings could …

Written by David Frum on Friday March 20, 2009

Paulson's Bad Aig Deal

You can't really blame the AIG stuff on the Democrats. Paulson and Co. decided to be deliberately nontransparent, which led inexorably to where we are. No one in DC seemed to understand who exactly they were bailing out and why. It's overwhelmingly the counterparties and it's the debt-holders of …

Written by FF Street Scene on Thursday March 19, 2009

Athwart History

The current issue of National Review features a symposium on the continuing relevance of Bill Buckley's famous 1955 editorial in which he pledged to stand athwart History shouting "stop." The editors invited me to contribute: my response follows below. It’s a memorable phrase. But …

Written by David Frum on Thursday March 19, 2009

Lessons Of Aig

I’ve gotten a fairly big response to the following (quickly written) piece in the Washington Post on Thursday: The AIG debacle teaches us two things. First, it does not make sense to try to save any single financial institution. Failed enterprises should fail – and go away. …

Written by Douglas Holtz-Eakin on Thursday March 19, 2009

Tear Down This House

It was a long time coming, but the Rust Belt and Northeast – once the home to working class Reagan Democrats – are now solidly blue. Republicans seeking to retake some of this ground would do well to address the plague of abandoned properties in these regions. There are between …

Written by Henry Clay on Thursday March 19, 2009

Honor Murtha?

Congressman John Murtha was recently awarded the Department of the Navy's highest public service award for non-employees by the Secretary of the Navy. This is an outrage. As you probably know, John Murtha has been the worst of a bad lot in Congress who exploited those serving in combat for …

Written by Gabe Ledeen on Thursday March 19, 2009

Ten Thoughts On Aig

1. If I worked at AIG, I'd be ashamed to take a bonus, and I am dismayed that anybody there could feel otherwise. 2. The evidence is accumulating that the Obama administration has been much, much less than candid about its AIG decision-making. In particular: for the president to argue that Tim …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday March 18, 2009

Will Massachusetts Health Plan Repeat Past Failures?

Trouble in Massachusetts ? For years, liberals have pointed to the Bay State and urged America to follow Boston ’s lead in health reform. But all is not well in the land of near-universal health care. Three years ago, Massachusetts enacted perhaps the boldest state …

Written by David Gratzer on Wednesday March 18, 2009

Don't Fix What Ain't Broken: The Israeli Electoral System "As Is" Helps - Not Hinders - Peace

Every time Israelis go to polls, and this time is no exception, the local political system falls into "goalitzia", a word coined by Yitzhak Rabin from "goal", or disgust, and "coalitzia", or coalition. While voters may feel frustrated, since they can never be quite sure who the winner is, even …

Written by Jean Granville on Wednesday March 18, 2009

A Republican Looks At His Party

I am a 41-year-old small business owner in the financial energy space. I went to the University of Illinois, started as a clerk on the Chicago Merc and now am a well to-do-businessman (I even appear on Fox Business every Tuesday as an oil analyst of sorts). My father was a wounded Marine …

Written by Brad Schaeffer on Wednesday March 18, 2009

Political Thought For The Day

The Republican nomination for the ballot line opposite Chris Dodd in 2010 suddenly got a lot more valuable.

Written by David Frum on Wednesday March 18, 2009

How Progressive Are You?

The Center for American Progress offers a fascinating interactive quiz, more sophisticated than usual, here . (For anyone wondering: I scored 142 out of 400, which qualifies me as "very conservative.")

Written by David Frum on Wednesday March 18, 2009

Deal Or War?

My column in the current issue of The Week : President Bush discovered in 2005 that he could not push through Social Security or immigration reform without persuading the country first. And he discovered in 2005 and 2006 the horrible political costs of having taken the country to war …

Written by David Frum on Wednesday March 18, 2009

Carter Leaving The White House March 18: You Provide The Caption!

Written by FF Washington Insider on Wednesday March 18, 2009

Obama Misstates The Aig Facts

President Obama said today: "Tim Geithner didn't draft these contracts with AIG." (You can view the clip here .) Maybe not. But the NY Fed was the opposite party to them. NY Fed chief at the time? Tim Geithner. If Geithner didn't draft the contracts, he did approve them. Read for yourself on the …

Written by FF Washington Insider on Wednesday March 18, 2009

Tax Reform Must Be Part Of Health Reform

In the fall, the campaign of Barack Obama had harsh words for Senator John McCain’s health-care plan. Obama campaign ads charged that the McCain proposal would result in the “largest middle-class tax increase in history.” Senator Biden warned that “for the first time …

Written by David Gratzer on Wednesday March 18, 2009