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November 19. That's the date a bust of Vaclav Havel is to be dedicated in National Statuary Hall at this country's Capitol, and it's perfect timing -- for November 19 will also be the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution he led and embodied in his native Czechoslovakia. Oh, the euphoria of those days when the Cold War was drawing to a close and the Soviet Union with it, and one after the other its captive nations were breaking their chains -- none more peacefully, successfully and triumphantly than the one this playwright turned dissident led in his little country....

Derek Jeter aka "The Captain" of the New York Yankees played his last game on Sunday. He ended his career with an RBI single in Boston, after ending his career at home in Yankee stadium with a game-winning, walk-off, RBI single. Jeter defines a leader. He has the 6th highest hit total in the history of baseball. He was the captain of five World Championship teams. But his qualities go so much deeper. Jeter never bragged. He never used words like "I." He gave credit to others for his achievements. He never demeaned or denigrated others. He always made the...

Should any Republican step to any microphone and announce he has changed his mind on global warming, the press will hail him as a hero. He has taken new evidence, processed it, and changed his mind. Should any Republican do the same on gay marriage, tax increases or a host of other matters, the same will happen. The media heralds changed minds, particularly when the mind changed is to the right of center and the change moves the person to the left of center. The ability to process new data, reinterpret existing data and reach different conclusions has value to...

"Boast not thyself of tomorrow; For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Proverbs 27:1. President Obama is a great leader. Really. Just ask him. Seemingly ignored in the coverage of the president's ISIS speech last night was the moment when President Obama claimed that the ISIS threat was being met with "strength and resolve," then boasted that his strategy—and by extension he himself—represented "American leadership at its best." Can anyone imagine truly great American leaders--from Washington to Lincoln to Reagan--feeling the need to brag about "strength and resolve" and claim that their plans represented "American leadership at...

<p>The Democratic Party and the mainstream media joined to run interference for Barack Obama when he became a national figure. Obama was painted as a charismatic, competent, new kind of politician. The passage of time destroyed this image. Now, the public increasingly sees Obama as incompetent, untrustworthy and unmotivated.</p>

Call this the wages of dithering. After a summer spent mainly on the golf course and at Democratic fundraisers while terrorists seized vast swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria — and butchered two American journalists on video — Barack Obama returns to work to find his popularity at its lowest ebb in the Washington Post/ABC News poll series. Americans now take a dimmer view of Obama’s leadership capabilities than ever before, and a majority see him as a failure: Barack Obama’s rating for strong leadership has dropped to a new low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll,...

The world is on fire. But don’t go telling that to Secretary of State John Kerry, spending Labor Day on Nantucket, kiteboarding in his stylish bloomers before a late dinner at the Chanticleer. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Let them eat … whatever they want, as they can pay for it with their EBT cards. Did you ever think you would live to see the day when the United States would be in grave peril, under attack, and the White House would be treating the crisis as if it were a shortfall of three votes in a farm...

The vast majority of Americans have never met Phil Weinberg. But that isn't because he's unimportant. It's because he is important. Like millions of Americans who toil largely in anonymity, participating daily in acts of courage and generosity, Phil has never been on CNN or Fox News; while he subscribes to The Wall Street Journal, he's never had his picture dot pixelated. That's because he, like so many other Americans, is too busy making the country work. Phil was born at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston in 1951, just down the block from Fenway Park, and grew up a...

Political ad for Allen Weh.

The Clinton-Obama Benghazi Rule is as follows: “1.) ALWAYS STAND DOWN WHEN MUSLIMS ATTACK, 2.) WAIT FOR THE MUSLIMS TO FINISH THEIR BLOOD SPORT KILLING, AND 3.) THEN DO NOTHING.” Since September 11, 2014, Obama has: * Invoked the field-tested, Clinton-Obama Benghazi Rule for the US in order to allow the ongoing genocide of Christians, and Yazidis in current US Ally Iraq; * Refused to keep his Word on his Redline in Syria; * Released the GITMO FIVE to supervise the rapid growth of ISIS; * Repeatedly proclaimed that HIS "American People" are war weary; * Ordered the dismissing of...

A young black man dies from a police gunshot, and a community bursts into presumptuous anger as if it knows racism is afoot. That community contains rioters who are not sufficiently condemned by officials at any level, local, state or national. As images of tear gas clouds in suburbia subside, we are hit with fresh pictures of an Islamist monster beheading an American citizen while warning our President and our people that he and his brethren are just warming up. Attorney General Eric Holder responds by opening a criminal investigation, as if this were a stabbing on a Georgetown street....

As Barack “Eldrick” Obama approaches his 200th round of golf since his election as president, here’s a fact to put that into perspective: Since January 2009, Tiger Woods has played 269 rounds of golf. And Tiger, beleaguered by injury, is almost certainly done for the year. So that means the president, if he keeps up with his pace of play during his 15-day vacation in Martha’s Vineyard (a round a day) and his normal weekly round, will pass Tiger sometime next spring. Think about that for a minute. The president of the U.S., juggling the American economy and the entire...

In 2008, Americans appointed a president they expected to unify the country, lift the oppressed and restore America's economy and relations in the world. But almost halfway through his second term in office, Americans are more polarized, and the oppressed are more hamstrung. And our country is more unstable than ever among the global community; Iraq is only symptomatic of the greater problem. But a single professional review of Obama's personality profile could have shown us exactly what was in store for us with his leadership style. I ended last week's column by citing Samuel Barondes, a leading psychiatrist and...

Everything that Barack Obama touches seems to turn to dross. Think of it for a minute. He inherited a quiet Iraq (no American combat deaths at all in December 2009). Joe Biden bragged of the calm that it would be the administration’s “greatest achievement.” But by pulling out all U.S. peacekeepers — mostly for a 2012 reelection talking point — Obama ensured an ISIS wasteland. He put his promised eye on Afghanistan at last, and we have lost more soldiers there than during the Bush administration and a Taliban victory seems likely after more than a decade of lost American...

I have had the privilege of speaking at scores of American colleges and universities over the last decade. I have no recollection of meeting a finer bunch of people than the ones I met at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. Their students, their alumni, and their professors are the best people you'll ever want to meet. That is why it is so difficult to see Bryan turning into a dictatorship that is teetering on the edge of destruction. Accordingly, I write today offering some advice on how I think Bryan can turn things around. The normal procedure for ending a...

There should be no sympathy for a terrorist aggressor like Hamas who fires thousands of rockets indiscriminately into largely populated centers in Israel, targeting civilians.

“We have your back,” President Obama told Israelis when he visited that embattled country recently. Way back, apparently. Mr. Obama’s administration famously claimed to “lead from behind” in overthrowing Libya’s strongman, Khaddafi. Young Sergeant Benjamin Anthony spoke to the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Washington Summit this week. Sgt. Anthony described a different vision of leadership. Ahalai he gave as the Hebrew word for “after me.” Officers in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) they should lead from the front. That used to be America’s idea of leadership, too. You cannot say Secretary John Kerry isn’t alert to his opportunities. He...

Churchill: Never give in. Never, never, never. FDR: The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. Obama: Fore left! Sometimes public service demands too much of a man. Take poor Tony Blinken. Appearing on Morning Joe today, President Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser actually claimed that the president was exhibiting "extraordinary leadership" in putting pressure on Russia over Ukraine. Yes, so "extraordinary" that even as Blinken was being introduced, news was breaking that the Putin-backed Ukrainian rebels had resumed their terrorist ways, shooting down two Ukrainian military planes. View the video here.

Obama Maintains Schedule Despite World CrisesWASHINGTON — As smoke billowed from the downed Malaysian jetliner in the fields of eastern Ukraine on Thursday, President Obama pressed ahead with his schedule: a cheeseburger with fries at the Charcoal Pit in Delaware, a speech about infrastructure and two splashy fund-raisers in New York City. [Snip] “It is rarely a good idea to return to the White House just for show, when the situation can be handled responsibly from the road,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the White House communications director. “Abrupt changes to his schedule can have the unintended consequence of unduly alarming the...

Presidents are supposed to be exemplars. Why else do we build monuments to them? They're supposed to be superhuman and represent the power and virtue of democracy, the iron resolve of a nation before a world of howling enemies, the compassion of a powerful virtue that inspires the fidelity of liberty loving peoples across the globe. Presidents aren't supposed to be shabby. When they are, they diminish the body politic in its teaming millions. We're all affected, admittedly or not. President Barack Obama is shabby and his legacy is composed of a long train of scandal. Nixon's impeachable offense seems...