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Back in mid-June, Leslie Gelb floated an idea in an op-ed piece that he published in The Wall Street Journal. After the midterms, he argued, when Robert Gates resigned his position as Secretary of Defense, Hillary Clinton should be given the job in preparation for making her the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2012. As a booby prize – Gelb spoke, of course, in more flattering terms – Joe Biden could be made Secretary of State. Apart from fact that it requires one to suppose that a man known as “loose lips,” notorious for blurting out the first thing that comes...

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be deluged by polls. Most of them will be honestly conducted. Others will constitute an attempt to discourage the voters on one side or another. How can one separate the sheep from the goats? You should start with one key question. What are the pollsters’ turn-out expectations, and do they make any sense? Jay Cost went to the heart of the matter in his post this morning. As he put it, “the partisan composition of the electorate remains the critical unresolved issue of this cycle. Every pollster is making a guess as...

The election is now over and the results are in – except in Alaska, Colorado, Washington, and a congressional district here and there. And one by one the usual suspects are weighing in with their comments. Most of these are utterly predictable, and some are downright mendacious, as one would expect. When President Obama denied that the biggest Republican victory since the 1920s was a referendum on the policies embraced by his party and his administration, he was either lying or deep in denial – and the same thing can be said about The New York Times, which opined yesterday...

A bit less than a year ago, I posted piece entitled Is Barack Obama a One-Trick Pony? I raised this question with an eye to three thumbsuckers that had recently appeared – one on Politico by veteran commentator Elizabeth Drew; another, entitled Amateur Hour at the White House, written by Leslie Gelb for The Daily Beast; and a third, drawing on the remarks of these two well-known Democratic scribes, published in The Wall Street Journal by Peggy Noonan. Noonan had two things to say – first, that no one among her liberal acquaintances really loved Barack Obama the way so...

As I noted yesterday in an earlier post, the grand jury report incident to the indictment for murder and infanticide of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was released earlier this week, and it suggests that what those most opposed to abortion have always claimed about the so-called abortion mills is all too true. As at one reporter put it, Gosnell and his associates not only broke state law by performing abortions after 24 weeks—they also killed live babies by stabbing them with scissors and cutting their spinal cords. Law enforcement officials found blood-stained furniture, unsterilized instruments and fetal remains scattered about...

Sad to say, what I wrote last year at this time is hardly less apt today: “The State of the Union Address is ordinarily a bore. It generally consists of a laundry list of proposals, and the list nearly always seems interminable. If Barack Obama has moxie, however, tonight could be different. His State of the Union Address could be a real game changer.” “Here,” I then wrote, “is how he could do it – if he was really intent on saving his Presidency and on turning a disgraceful performance in that office into something worthy of eulogy. This evening,...

The grand jury report incident to the indictment for murder and infanticide of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell has now been released, and it is telling. Some three-hundred pages in length, it reveals that the abortion mill that Dr. Gosnell ran at the Women’s Medical Society had not been inspected since 1993. “According to the prosecutors,” Marian Wang at ProPublica reports, “Gosnell and his associates not only broke state law by performing abortions after 24 weeks—they also killed live babies by stabbing them with scissors and cutting their spinal cords.”

"Brian Kennedy talked about U.S. national security and the recently ratified Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia." "C-SPAN2 will broadcast today's "First Principles on First Fridays" lecture delivered at Hillsdale College's Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, in Washington, D.C. “It’s Not Just the Economy, Stupid” Brian T. Kennedy President, The Claremont Institute" "About Today's Lecture With threats to American national security from around the globe growing daily, citizens and elected officials alike must realize that not just economic issues matter. What are the dangers? And what must be done to protect American national security?...

Brian Kennedy, the president of the Claremont Institute, publisher of the Claremont Review of Books, and director of the Institute’s Ballistic Missile Defense Project, will speak at the January First Principles on First Fridays program through Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington. “It’s Not Just The Economy Stupid” Brian Kennedy President, Claremont Institute November 5, 2010 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. 227 Massachusetts Avenue, NE • Washington, DC 20002 Lunch Provided With threats to American national security from around the globe growing daily, citizens and elected officials must realize that not just...

With faith in experts and hope that the administrative state will expand indefinitely, America's ruling elite--Republican and Democrat--are at war with America. Standing against this elite is America's "country class," who believe in God and insist upon a return to constitutional principles. What do the 2010 election results tell us about this ongoing battle?

Angelo Codevilla to Speak on War of the Ruling Class and the 2010 Election Results Washington, D.C. — Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston Univesity, senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, will speak at the November First Principles on First Fridays program through Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington. “Does America Have A Ruling Class” Angelo Codevilla Author, The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It and The American Spectator article that inspired it November...

When I read in the news this weekend not only that Barack Obama has asked Joe Biden to be his running mate in 2012 but that that he considers his original selection of Biden as his running mate back in 2008 as “the single best decision I have made,” I was taken aback. After all, in Washington, Biden is a bit of a joke.

The rediscovery of the Constitution and of the value of free markets is possibly the most exciting political trend of the last two years. But there is a cockroach in the cream: Americans are, as the Wall Street Journal put it today, “sour on trade.” Fully 53 percent of Americans, according to the WSJ/NBC poll, believe that free-trade agreements have hurt the U. S. Only 32 percent believed that in 1999. Of course, current trade agreements could stand improvement, but such a trend toward protectionism is alarming. And the Democrats are trying to score points with protectionist rhetoric in the...

Last night, a friend sent me a draft of the Pledge to America that the House Republicans will be releasing today. It rewards study. Back in early August, I wrote a lengthy post entitled John Boehner’s Testing Time, arguing in some detail that we live in a critical time in which the ordinary rules of politics do not apply. In ordinary circumstances, we are condemned to a politics focused largely on patronage – in which political struggle revolves around finding the means to satisfy party constituents. In such circumstances, the dynamic I described in Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift pertains. Federal...

Congressman Mike Pence spoke at Hillsdale College Monday night at the invitation of the Young Republicans. I attended the dinner held in his honor before the talk, briefly chatted with him, and listened with care and interest to his talk – which had as its subject “the Presidency and the Constitution.” Pence, who has represented Indiana’s ninth district in Congress since 2001, attended Hanover College not far from Madison, Indiana – where my grandfather once owned a dry goods store. There, I knew, he had studied with my friend G. M. Curtis. On that ground alone, I figured that he...

..."The presidency is the most visible thread that runs through the tapestry of the American government. More often than not, for good or for ill, it sets the tone for the other branches and spurs the expectations of the people. Its powers are vast and consequential, its requirements -- from the outset and by definition -- impossible for mortals to fulfill without humility and insistent attention to its purpose as set forth in the Constitution of the United States."....

President and Mrs. Arnn, Mr. John Cervini, Mr. David Bobb, Elliot Gaiser, College Republicans and each and every one of the faculty and students of Hillsdale College here today.… As I am sure you know, honor is what allows us to do what is right despite the cost. Even greater honor is required to do what is right in the face of superior power. And the greatest honor is to stand strong even if it means standing alone. The long fight of Hillsdale College, standing alone -- then and now for the proposition that all men are created equal, then...

Representative Mike Pence of Indiana's 6th District will give a public lecture on Monday, September 20, at Hillsdale College titled "The Presidency and the Constitution." The lecture will take place in Phillips Auditorium at 8:00 p.m. If you are interested in attending, please contact Patty Corboy at (517) 607-2569 or pcorboy@hillsdale.edu.

Not many Americans know it, but today is Constitution Day. Well, technically, by force of 2004’s Public Law 108-447, it is “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day”—but never mind the fine print. Two hundred twenty-three years ago, on September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, after nearly four months of intense deliberation, 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution, sending it to the states for ratification. The ensuing state contests were hard fought, but the Federalists, who were in favor of the Constitution, prevailed, the Constitution was adopted, and the work of the Convention was vindicated. Before “social studies” replaced civics...

Today marks Constitution Day. On 17 September 1787, in Philadelphia, the Framers of the American Constitution added their signatures to the document they had produced, and soon thereafter it was dispatched to the Continental Congress for consideration by the states. On this day, it is appropriate that we, their heirs, reconsider their handiwork and ask whether ours is still a constitutional government. In their deliberations, the Framers confronted one great question, and it was largely on this question that the debate between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists during the ratification period turned. Can one establish an enduring republic on an...