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When our middle son was in preschool, his teacher asked him to explain to the (overwhelmingly non-Jewish) class what the Jewish New Year was all about. Four-year-old David told them that on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jews go to a big building and "forgive God." Well, something like that. This week, Jews all over the world are gathering to observe the "Ten Days of Awe," the period that begins with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and culminates with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Like other Jewish holidays (Passover, Sukkot), Rosh Hashanah is celebrated for two days in...

He's handsome, young and a devout Muslim. He is also his country's leading pop star. But would it surprise you to learn that one of his songs, a tune that topped the charts, is called "Warriors of Love"? Ahmad Dhani, Indonesia's counterpart to Justin Timberlake, has called his song a "musical fatwa against religious extremism and violence." The lyrics are derived from the Koran and Hadith. (Sample: "If hatred has already poisoned you/Against those . . . who worship differently/ Then evil has already gripped your soul/ Then evil's got you in its damning embrace.") Dhani is a soldier in...

Within the past several weeks, presidential aspirant Barack Obama has announced that he would meet with America's enemies and attack America's friends. Those interested in a dramatic departure from Bush/Cheney need look no further. Asked whether he would — without preconditions — meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, Obama declared that he would and added, "I think it's a disgrace that we have not spoken to them." (Actually, the U.S. has had diplomatic contact with all of those nations, just not at the presidential level.) A week later, in a major foreign policy address,...

Is the Republican Party standing on the edge of a cliff? It's possible. Let's consider the bad news. 1) Fund-raising. Republicans are still portrayed as the little Monopoly man capitalists by the media, but the truth is that Democrats are now (alas) the party of the rich. As Peter Schweizer reported in National Review Online last year, "In 2004, Democrats made up 15 of the 25 individuals who gave more than $2 million to 527 groups. Of the Senate and House candidates who received 'bundled' contributions that year, 9 out of the top 10 in the Senate and 8 out...

Oregon Gov. Theodore Kulongoski called a gaggle of his closest friends to a photo op Tuesday that few could pass up. As part of his "Food Stamp Challenge" week, the governor is attempting to live on a food budget of $21 per week, which is about the average benefit for an Oregon food stamp recipient, according to the governor's press release. Associated Press photos showed the governor pushing a shopping cart and ostentatiously relinquishing a noodle cup and two bananas at the checkout counter when his total topped $21. "Could you feed yourself for $3 a day?" demanded headline in...

The current Republican field is like a smorgasbord at Denny's -- lots of OK choices, but nothing to get the heart racing. That's why the potential candidacy of former Sen. Fred Thompson is creating a palpable stir. Rudy Giuliani ... really is quite liberal on cultural questions that matter deeply to conservatives -- life, gun control, and gay rights. Even if conservatives could live with such heterodoxy, say, by accepting the reassurance that Giuliani would appoint conservative judges, there is still the matter of his psychedelic personal life. To be divorced once is now, sadly, common. To be divorced twice...

Speaking on the Senate floor in favor of the supplemental funding bill for the war in Iraq (and salmon fishers, timber counties, woodland firefighting efforts and other projects), Sen. Barbara Boxer implored the president to sign the legislation. The bill would have required the start of American withdrawal from Iraq by July 1 if the Iraqis failed to make progress toward certain legislated "benchmarks," and by Oct. 1 even if they did make such progress. Her rationale was as follows: The war is lost. We've tried everything and failed. Therefore , it is time for diplomacy. Sen. Boxer speaks for...

Al Sharpton is apparently subdued by news that his ancestors were owned by ancestors of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert described him as "quiet" and "reflective" — states of mind that Herbert acknowledges are "unusual" for the reverend. That qualifies as the understatement of the decade. Sharpton indicates that the news of his ancestry brought the "complete dehumanization" of slavery home to him, and Herbert takes the opportunity to preach that "Slavery, like the past . . . is not dead. It's not even past. It's not something you can wish away." No, you...

State of the Union: DemoralizedBy Mona CharenFriday, January 26, 2007 The key paragraph in President Bush's State of the Union speech was this: This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we're in. Every one of us wishes this war were over and won. Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned, and our own security at risk. Ladies and gentlemen: On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. Let us find our resolve, and turn...

The Future of a Movement The "State of Conservatism" is the topic of a panel discussion at the National Review Institute's Conservative Summit. Syndicated Columnist Mona Charen and Talk Show Host Laura Ingraham join a panel that includes the National Review's Kate O'Beirne & Kathryn Lopez, and Syndicated Columnist Michelle Malkin.

Meet the liberated college woman. You may pity her. "Unprotected" is a hard slap at the sexual free-for-all that prevails on American campuses and throughout American life. The author, revealed since publication as Dr. Miriam Grossman, a psychiatrist at the student health service at UCLA, was hesitant to put her name on this book. The orthodoxy within the academic world is a strict one, and those who transgress often pay with their jobs. Let's hope for her sake, but particularly for her patients' well being, that she is not punished for her heterodox views. What does Dr. Grossman believe that...

These are realists?By Mona CharenFriday, December 8, 2006 Recommendation 16 of the Iraq Study Group's report calls upon Syria to agree to a peace deal with Israel in return for the Golan Heights. It further suggests that Syria be persuaded to end its interference in Lebanon, cease aiding Hezbollah, convince Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist, and intervene to obtain the release of two captured Israeli soldiers. Elsewhere the report declares that "Iran should stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq, respect Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and use its influence over Iraqi Shia groups to encourage...

DefeatBy Mona CharenThursday, November 16, 2006 America is the world's hyperpower. No other nation or group of nations can challenge us militarily or economically. Unlike sickly Europe, we are growing, not contracting. But we are about to be defeated in Iraq by a few thousand cutthroats. How did this happen? It's simple: The only thing powerful enough to defeat us is ourselves, and we've done it. In my last column I argued that the 2006 election was lost by Republicans through a combination of corruption and complacency. Dissatisfaction with the progress of the war in Iraq didn't help (though I...

The interpretation battleBy Mona CharenFriday, November 10, 2006 There are two battles every election year. The first is for votes; the second -- almost as crucial -- is over the interpretation of those votes. Many a past election has been misinterpreted in the days following -- recall the "angry white male" election and the "swift boat" election. Today, we are invited to conclude that the 2006 election was a referendum on the Iraq War and the Bush presidency. Maybe. But for the sake of argument, let's consider the possibility that Iraq did not determine this election at all. The war...

I can understand why Democrats are jazzed about November's election. The polls combined with the fawning media ("Oh, please, Sen. Obama, let us kiss the hem of your garment!") are giving them goose bumps such as they have not experienced since "An Inconvenient Truth" debuted in theaters. What I don't understand is the seeming tepidness of so many Republicans. Yes, the war in Iraq is a long, hard slog. The world is not Topeka, Kansas (would that it were). A journalist pointed out to President Bush at his most recent press conference that the Iraq war has now been going...

Letting the PC slip showBy Mona CharenFriday, October 13, 2006 You've probably never heard of Teachers College, but it has profoundly affected your life and is now affecting your children's lives. TC is the graduate school of education at Columbia University and laboratory of most of the "reforms" that have corroded K-12 education over the past 50 years. New math, whole language, open classrooms, outcome-based education -- you name the fad and it probably originated in Morningside Heights in New York. Teachers College is the most influential graduate education program in the country, and like so many leading schools, it...

Alert: Severe shortage of grown-upsBy Mona CharenFriday, September 29, 2006 Do you allow your pre-teen daughters to wear T-shirts with suggestive messages? Well, plenty of parents do. Just stroll through any clothing store catering to the younger set, and you will find "Hottie" and "Sexy" on shirts too small to fit anyone older than 12. Bare midriffs are marketed to girls as young as 7 and 8. I don't have daughters; I have sons. But I hate for them to be living in such a coarse society. The Washington Post recently ran a story about how schools are handling the...

If there is one thing about President Bush that is different in private from his public persona, it is probably intensity. Before big crowds he is folksy and self-deprecating. Before the hostile press, he is a bit wary. But in our setting -- a meeting with half a dozen conservative columnists in the Oval Office on Sept. 12 -- he was intense. The president called the meeting to let us know directly how he views the war on terror. Some of what he said was a reprise of his televised speech of the evening before -- that our struggle against...

In a speech on Sept. 6, the president came out swinging at those who have misrepresented the Guantanamo Bay detainees. "These aren't common criminals," the president declared, "or bystanders accidentally swept up on the battlefield. . . . Those held . . . include suspected bomb makers, terrorist trainers . . . and potential suicide bombers. One detainee held at Guantanamo told a questioner questioning him -- he said this: 'I'll never forget your face. I will kill you, your brothers, your mother and sisters.'"

Someone suggested to me the morning after Mel Gibson's thunderclap that his career was over. Ha! Far from it. This is the start of a whole new gig. If Gibson had used the N word, or defamed feminists, or praised George W. Bush, he might be in serious trouble. Those are the reigning taboos in Hollywood. But anti-Semitism barely ruffles a feather.

"Israel believes this threat is existential," explained a clearly dubious former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Richard Murphy. Well, how could they think that? (And by the way, all former ambassadors, especially those who served in Saudi Arabia and now serve as advisers to Saudi banks, should be taken with a large grain of salt.) Could it be because the nation of Iran has announced its intention to wipe Israel off the map and is hurtling toward building nuclear weapons? Could it be because Iran's agent, Hizbollah, welcomes "World War III"; is pledged to the destruction of Israel; and is...

A parent from Plymouth, N.Y., has sent along another example of liberals gone wild. Fishing through her son's backpack (he's a ninth-grader), she found a crumpled up handout from the health teacher. The title caught her attention: "Dysfunctional 'Family Rules.' " The handout is excerpted here with original punctuation, grammar and capitalization: "Here is a list of some of the unworkable rules found in dysfunctional families: "Boys shouldn't cry. (they should be like diminutive adult males, independent, self contained, and tough. they should bear pain and hurt with a kind of stoicism and emotional flatness exemplified by rugged males in...

Russ Feingold and the Democrats’ Incoherence 06/26 02:39 PM Russ Feingold is everything George W. Bush is not. He is facile, articulate, quick on his feet, and deeply foolish. Appearing on Meet the Press yesterday, he said: "Our number one moral responsibility is to protect the American people, to focus on those who attacked us on 9/11, to not be distracted into a situation where even the administration did not have Iraq as one of the 45 countries that was connected with al-Qaeda. Our number one responsibility is to protect the American people from being killed by terrorists. Iraq has...

It was not so long ago -- only four years -- that a significant number of Democrats in the U.S. Congress evaluated the available evidence and voted to authorize war with Iraq. Eighty-one Democrats in the House, including a fair number of liberals like Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., endorsed a "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq." It's instructive to glance at that document now -- particularly since so many Democrats are adopting the pose of Poor Misled Legislators. Here is some of what those Democrats signed on...

The story was everywhere and was everywhere the same. On June 9, Israel had fired a rocket onto a Gaza beach killing seven picnicking Palestinian civilians. The New York Times carried a huge, front-page picture of a 12-year-old girl weeping as she searched for her father's body in the sand (the photo was excerpted from video that has been broadcast around the world). CBS News reported, "The ruling Hamas group fired a barrage of homemade rockets at Israel on Saturday, hours after calling off a truce with Israel in anger over an artillery attack that killed seven civilians in Gaza."...

The contrast between the morning paper and the news on radio and television could not have been more dramatic Thursday morning. The papers, printed before news of Zarqawi's death, might as well have been draped in black. The Washington Post editorialized about terrorist gains in Somalia, scolding Republicans for rejecting nation-building a dozen years ago. -snip- But what a difference a successful military mission makes. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (it is pleasant to reflect that we will no longer have to hear this repellent name) is dead, along with a few of his lieutenants. In the hours after the "safe house"...

No one yet knows what happened in Haditha, Iraq, last November. There are accounts -- unconfirmed -- of a massacre perpetrated by a unit of enraged Marines against unarmed civilians. Unless I miss my guess, this is about to become the biggest story in the world. Consider that Abu Ghraib, which did not involve killing or torture (though it did include extreme humiliation) became the American and world press's favorite topic for weeks on end, though far more grotesque acts were being perpetrated daily by the jihadists in Iraq and elsewhere. In the period since then, the American press has...

America should reconsider its habit of granting citizenship to any baby born here. In 1970, 6 percent of all births in the United States were to illegal aliens. In 2002, that figure was 23 percent. In 1994, 36 percent of the births paid for by Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid, were to illegals. Any child born in the United States automatically becomes a U.S. citizen. He or she is instantly eligible for panoply of social services, food stamps and other forms of aid. When the child reaches the age of 21, he can petition to have his parents and siblings declared permanent...

. Ross Perot famously predicted that if Congress passed the North American Free Trade Agreement, we'd hear a "giant sucking sound" as American jobs were exported to our southern neighbor. Not only did that not happen, but American exports to Mexico have jumped. According to an analysis by Howard J. Wall of the Federal Reserve, real U.S. manufactured exports to Mexico rose by 54 percent in the decade after NAFTA passed. All but four states in the U.S. benefited from this export boom. But those who had hoped the NAFTA would prod Mexicans to modernize their economy were disappointed. Mexico...

The flag, the schools, the immigrants, and us By Mona CharenApr 7, 2006 Concerned that the raging immigration debate would spark violence, officials in at least two schools in Colorado have banned students from bringing flags to school, the AP reports. Predictably, this news and associated rumors have lit up the phone lines at call-in shows around the nation.Conservatives are right to bristle at the idea that the American flag is being treated as a "fighting word." But a few clarifications seem to be in order. 1) It wasn't just the American flag that was banned, but all flags. 2)...

The Rotary Club and other Zionists plots By Mona Charen Mar 31, 2006 In Israel and the Palestinian territories, two new governments are taking shape. The Kadima Party, which will (just barely) head Israel's new coalition government, seeks simply to separate and insulate Israel from the homicidal intentions of its Palestinian neighbors. On the other side of the fence, Hamas is settling into its duties as government of the Palestinian Authority. Let's consider what Israel is dealing with. The Hamas Charter (available in full at www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm) reads like a combination of Mein Kampf and the Unabomber's manifesto. Here is Hamas...

President Bush has made errors, as all humans do, but one thing he has not been guilty of is bad faith. The same cannot be said of his critics. One thinks of those liberals and Democrats who accused President Bush of "lying" about weapons of mass destruction and about ties between al Qaeda and Iraq particularly now, because last week, after an unaccountable delay of three years, the administration declassified and released thousands of documents captured from Saddam's regime. They offer more proof of what we've already learned from other sources: that Hussein was in collusion with al Qaeda; that...

President Bush has made errors, as all humans do, but one thing he has not been guilty of is bad faith. The same cannot be said of his critics. One thinks of those liberals and Democrats who accused President Bush of "lying" about weapons of mass destruction and about ties between al Qaeda and Iraq particularly now, because last week, after an unaccountable delay of three years, the administration declassified and released thousands of documents captured from Saddam's regime. They offer more proof of what we've already learned from other sources: that Hussein was in collusion with al Qaeda; that...

Stand up: Wafa Sultan is passing By Mona CharenMar 17, 2006 Among the most moving scenes in film history occurs in "To Kill a Mockingbird," in which the little girl, Scout, who has been watching her lawyer/father plead for the life of a falsely accused black man in the old South, is exhorted by an elderly black spectator in the gallery to rise to her feet. "Your father is passing," he explains.  I thought of that after viewing video of a woman who must be one of the bravest souls on earth. A Syrian-born psychologist who now lives and works...

This is one of those moments when you want to grab liberals by the lapels and demand, "Well, what did you expect?" A group called the National Center for Men has filed a lawsuit they are calling "Roe v. Wade for Men." Here are the facts: A 25-year-old computer programmer named Matt Dubay of Saginaw, Mich., was ordered by a judge to pay $500 per month in child support for a daughter he fathered with his ex-girlfriend. His contention -- and that of the National Center for Men -- is that this requirement is unconstitutional because it violates the equal...

There are few less edifying sights than Terry McAuliffe in full battle cry. But alas there was no avoiding him after the Cheney hunting accident. There he was demanding to know why the vice president waited 22 hours before informing the press and shouting that if Al Gore had done something like this he'd be in Leavenworth by nightfall (a dubious if pleasing supposition). The White House press corps was even more insufferable. One reporter asked, "Is it proper for the vice president to offer his resignation or has he offered his resignation?" Another demanded, "Scott (McClellan), would this be...

"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." -- Arnold Toynbee As Danish embassies and European Union offices smolder in Beirut, Damascus, Gaza and Tehran -- the result of a junior varsity jihad -- the time could not be more apt for Bruce Bawer's "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within," due out at the end of this month. Bawer is a gay American with a flair for languages who moved to Europe in 1999 to escape what he perceived to be the narrow-mindedness of the Christian right in America. The move changed him. It also...

President Bush is assailed from the left as a rights-violating, murderous warmonger. (Cindy Sheehan: "George Bush still continues his evil rhetoric that he is waging a war on terrorism, and he is really waging a war of terrorism against the world.") And from the right, the president stands accused of pathetic naivete for promoting democracy. Why would anyone want that job? Is it naive to promote democracy in the Third World? Certainly it can be -- if you treat elections as ends in themselves or imagine that the process of democratization is either easy or inevitable. On the other hand,...

Republican skirts of fire By Mona CharenJan 27, 2006 Republicans should not sleep well at night. The party has achieved comfortable majority status just when it seems to have lost its animating vision. And when parties exist merely to maintain themselves in power, corruption soon follows. There may well be less than meets the eye in the Jack Abramoff scandal -- time will tell. But the perception of corruption can be devastating. Newt Gingrich's 1994 triumph was propelled in no small measure by the perception of Democratic corruption -- the House bank scandal, the Rostenkowski indictment, Speaker Jim Wright's forced resignation,...

It is remarkable how quickly discussions about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons turn to Israel. "Well," worriers are reassured, "Israel will never permit Iran to go nuclear. Remember Osirak?" Very well. In 1981, Israeli planes streaked across the desert at low altitude and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, a facility built by the French and partially manned by Italians. The world's response was volcanic. "An unprovoked attack" and a "grave breach of international law" declared the British Foreign Office. The French called it "unacceptable" and pointed out that Iraq had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Then U.N. Secretary-General...

Some women protest, "I'm a feminist, just not a radical feminist." Kate O'Beirne is impatient with such qualifications. She is not any kind of feminist, and when you finish her sparkling new book "Women Who Make the World Worse," you won't be one either. Feminism, far from promoting the happiness and well-being of women and society, has instead left great swaths of melancholy in its wake. Mrs. O'Beirne cites "One large study of well-being data on 100,000 Americans and Britons from the early 1970s to the late 1990s found that while American men had grown happier, women's well-being had dramatically...

Some women protest, "I'm a feminist, just not a radical feminist." Kate O'Beirne is impatient with such qualifications. She is not any kind of feminist, and when you finish her sparkling new book "Women Who Make the World Worse," you won't be one either. Feminism, far from promoting the happiness and well-being of women and society, has instead left great swaths of melancholy in its wake. O'Beirne cites "One large study of well-being data on one hundred thousand Americans and Britons from the early 1970s to the late 1990s found that while American men had grown happier, women's well-being had...

            Munich is deeply and disturbingly dishonest  Around the globe — but particularly in the Arab world — anti-Semites whine that the Jews “control” Hollywood. It’s true that there are many prominent Jews in the movie business, but as Steven Spielberg’s Munich amply demonstrates, it little profits the Jewish people. Munich is a well-crafted movie, but it is a deeply and disturbingly dishonest one. Many moviegoers were not even born in 1972, and many who were alive will scarcely remember the details. Do moviemakers owe nothing to them? Do they owe nothing to the truth? This is not Oliver...

Reviewing the falsehoods, myths and misrepresentations spun by the press, politicians and pundits following Hurricane Katrina, one is reminded of Nora Ephron's bon mot: "No matter how cynical I get, I can't seem to keep up." Most recently, we have word from the National Hurricane Center that Katrina was not a category 4 storm at all, but rather, a category 3 when it slammed into the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. So much for the notion that the levees were built to withstand anything less than a category 4. But this news is only the latest in a string of...

Destroy the Union for Reform Judaism (legally and nonviolently) by Bill Levinson Mona Charen's Jewish Useful Idiots describes how Eric Yoffie's Union for Reform Judaism, formerly the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, is sympathizing with the enemies of the United States as well as the enemies of Israel. I recall reporting Yoffie's organization to the Internal Revenue Service in 2000, when Yoffie joined forces with the anti-Second Amendment Million Mom March (which I succeeded in destroying) and campaigned for Al Gore with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt money. The 501(c)(3) tax-exempt UAHC used the now-disgraced Million Mom March's 2000 Mother's Day event to...

Apparently eager to disprove the Jewish reputation for intelligence, the Union for Reform Judaism recently adopted a resolution condemning the Iraq War and demanding that President Bush provide "a clear exit strategy," including a plan for troop withdrawals. In a letter to President Bush alerting him to the URJ's action, Robert Heller and Rabbi Eric Yoffe lost no opportunity to flaunt their supposed moral sensitivity. Calling the war a "major tragedy" that has "discredited … America in the international community" and "contributed to the growth of terrorism," the two Reform leaders informed the president: "We also call on Congress to...

The Dec. 1 edition of The New York Times carried a story about the damage done to U.S. interests by the revelation that the CIA maintains a number of secret interrogation prisons for terrorists in Europe and elsewhere. (“Reports of Secret U.S. Prisons in Europe Draw Ire and Otherwise Red Faces.”) Governments throughout the continent are now demanding explanations from the U.S. Department of State and otherwise strutting their outrage that the U.S. might be kidnapping suspected terrorists from European soil and transferring them to other nations. How did this bit of classified information become public? It was a leak...

The Dec. 1 edition of The New York Times carried a story about the damage done to U.S. interests by the revelation that the CIA maintains a number of secret interrogation prisons for terrorists in Europe and elsewhere. ("Reports of Secret U.S. Prisons in Europe Draw Ire and Otherwise Red Faces.") Governments throughout the continent are now demanding explanations from the U.S. Department of State and otherwise strutting their outrage that the U.S. might be kidnapping suspected terrorists from European soil and transferring them to other nations.

The Dec. 1 edition of The New York Times carried a story about the damage done to U.S. interests by the revelation that the CIA maintains a number of secret interrogation prisons for terrorists in Europe and elsewhere. ("Reports of Secret U.S. Prisons in Europe Draw Ire and Otherwise Red Faces.") Governments throughout the continent are now demanding explanations from the U.S. Department of State and otherwise strutting their outrage that the U.S. might be kidnapping suspected terrorists from European soil and transferring them to other nations. How did this bit of classified information become public? It was a leak...

don't know if the war in Iraq is ultimately unwinnable, but what I do know makes me skeptical of those who say so. I do know that since Vietnam, liberals have viewed every exercise of American military power (with the exception of those undertaken by President Bill Clinton) as preludes to disaster. The very first question President Ronald Reagan was asked at his first presidential press conference concerned El Salvador. The question: Did he think it was going to turn into another Vietnam? Democrats invoked Vietnam with every other sentence during the long and nasty controversy about aiding the resistance...