As I had predicted last year, we have this: Although he says it could turn into a "show trial," Karl Rove tells FOX News he is looking forward to telling the House Judiciary Committee about his alleged role in the firing of federal prosecutors and the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. Until now, …
Barack Obama, the Edgar Faure of American Politics
If I ever write a "self-help" book, it will be All I Ever Knew About Politics I Learned From the French. (Click here for some of what I have actually written.)Â Watching the French makes one a cynic, and at times like this it holds one in good stead. My French teacher in prep school …
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Maybe That’s Why Obama Didn’t Ask Phil Bredesen to be Commerce Secretary
Tennessee's Democrat governor weighs his, and the state's, options: Tennessee could reject a portion of the $787 billion economic stimulus package out of concerns that it would force the state to raise taxes on businesses in the future. At the National Governors Association meetings in Washington, D.C., Gov. Phil Bredesen said this week that he …
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Selling Upward Mobility, Delivering Downward
Jethro Tull fans will remember the line "slowly upstairs/faster down" from Stand Up's "We Used to Know," and that's pretty much what Obama and Democrats are trying to accomplish in their current program. To use another line from the same album, nothing is easy. On the one hand, Obama knows that Americans expect their government …
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It’s Not What School You Went to, It’s The Kind of Person You Are, Part II
Evidently I'm not the only one who has doubts about this: Left to their own devicies with the investment opportunity set now available the banks will earn their way out of the hole over a period of years. Miserably run as the banks are, this is preferable to handing a nationalized system over to the …
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Eric Holder and the Nation of Cowards
The new Attorney General pulled no punches on this one: In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives. "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things …
Maybe We’re Not Americans Any More
To some people at least: As the Obama administration begins to deploy US troops back to the Iraq or Afghan war zones for their fourth or fifth tours of duty, I remain amazed at the silent complicity of my country. Why have we been so quiet? Is it because the Bush administration was, in fact, …
Just Remember What Country We’re Really From, and The “Wag the Dog” War That Didn’t Work
Chuck Colson is trying to making things complicated for Evangelicals: So do we retreat into our sanctuaries? Political columnist Cal Thomas, among others, says we should forget the idea of changing culture through politics and just be the church: help the poor, visit those in prison, and so on. To that I say an emphatic …
Just Think of the Reception If the Republicans Had Been in Control
An old high school classmate pointed me to this, at the Huffington Post of all places: Administration officials were greeted with sarcasm and laughter Monday night when they briefed lawmakers and congressional staff on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's new financial-sector bailout project, according to people who were in the room. The laughter was at its …
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Ward Three Morality: Too Poor to Paint, and Too Proud to Whitewash
David Brooks' piece on Ward Three Morality has me thinking: The essence of the problem is this: Rich people used to set their own norms. For example, if one rich person wanted to use the company helicopter to aerate the ponds on his properties, and the other rich people on his board of directors thought …
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Positive Infinity 