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It's a cliché this is becoming the meanest year in politics yet. But it's true. Last week, Mike Lavigne, the spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party, admitted calling a state Supreme Court justice "a Nazi." When his boss, Democratic Party chairman Charles Soecthting, was asked if an apology was due, he said, "I don't have a problem that Mike said it." Then there's Sen. Ted Kennedy, who told a startled Senate last week that "Saddam's torture chambers have been reopened under new management, United States management." Some conservative talk show hosts, such as Michael Savage, have railed against gays and...

As gas prices rise at home, scream that the war abroad was fought to steal Iraqi oil and get American hands on cheap petroleum. Talk about American imperialism and hegemony while the United States spends billions of dollars to implant democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. Claim that the United States has destabilized the Middle East as its troops leave Saudi Arabia, Libya gives up its WMD arsenal, Iran suddenly worries about UN inspections, and Pakistan begins to reveal its former Islamic felonies. Watch columnists and pundits who advocated war, who applauded the three-week toppling of Saddam Hussein, and were convinced...

What do Yasser Arafat, PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah all have in common? At one time or another the West has insisted all are Muslim "moderates." But according to one Pakistani Islamic author, that term was contrived by the West in order to create divisions in the Muslim world. All Muslims are moderates by virtue of being Muslims, and not according to how their political positions correspond to Washington's interpretation of the Quran, wrote Abidullah Jan in Pakistan Today. Christian Zionist leader Jan Willem van der Hoeven further clarified that not...

Radical Islam's edge lies in its willingness to horrify the West, I have contended since October 2001. Now this sword is unsheathed, and America is reeling. In the unlikely personage of Private First Class Lynndie England, America has confronted its grand strategic weakness. What has horrified the West during the past week or so is not so much the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, but rather England's clueless expression while holding a naked Iraqi by a dog lead. "We are turning our children into monsters," whisper the mothers of America. Abu Ghraib is only one battle in a long war, but...

Today we have Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his staff being grilled by members of congress over the supposed atrocities in Iraq. While members of the Democratic party make absolute fools of themselves, Maine's own Republican Susan Collins must feel sorry for them, for she is making statements every bit as arsine, ignorant and foolish as the best of the democrats. Today we are going to look at some pictures, and we are going to look at what Democrat Senator John Kerry confessed to having had done in Viet Nam. Then you need to ask yourself what is so...

Q. – Given Europe’s poor record of ethnic violence and their fear of waging even defensive war, is it not likely that we will soon see the spectacle of anti-Muslim pogroms, as a proxy for military action? A. – Hanson: I hope not. But they have a history of wild swings from left to right, and I wouldn’t… Q. – It looks like Europeans hate Israel more than they love themselves, and encourage terrorists everywhere, including in Europe, by supporting the Palestinian 'struggle'. Is there any hope that they would wake up to that fact? A. – Hanson: No. Add...

A decade ago, Elizabeth Taylor was going from one celebrity AIDS rally to another urging us to make sure we "use a condom every time you have sex, every time." Every time, Liz? Apparently so, until one day mankind is extinct and giant condoms roam the earth, bouncing across the ruins of our civilization like playful prophylactics in animated Scandinavian health-ministry announcements. The spirit of Liz lurked just below the surface at Washington's Million Abortionist March, or whatever it was called. For people who talked endlessly about "reproductive rights," they seemed remarkably indifferent, if not downright hostile, to exercising them....

Nearly all 8,080 prisoners being held by U.S. authorities in Iraq are considered security threats: insurgents linked to attacks on coalition forces, and terrorists and former officials of Saddam Hussein's regime suspected of having useful intelligence, military officials say. "The goal is to gain intelligence," said a coalition spokesman in Iraq. "Under the rules of the Geneva Convention, those in detention can be exploited for intelligence." Additionally, the U.S. Army has a small number of Iraqi criminals in custody, a couple hundred arrested for breaking local laws. Up to 7,000 criminals, who until March were kept with security detainees, already...

Q. – Is the ban on pictures of coffins by the press a new policy? Does it compare with any past wartime policy? A. – Xerxes tried to hide his dead after Thermopylae, and war losses historically have been used for and against continuing the struggle. I think that the policy really is supported by the families and not simply a Pentagon conspiracy. When Ted Koppel omitted reading the Afghan theater dead… Q. – Europeans seem to hate America more ever and would in fact like to see us hurt badly, which is in line with what Islamic radicals want. Could you...

Following the victory-but-fiasco that the British eked out in the Boer War of 1899-1902, Rudyard Kipling wrote: Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should, We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good. Now, I am not going to present an argument that Iraq is America's Boer War. I don't believe it is, even in potential. Not that there aren't some resemblances, mainly centered around the verb "to underestimate"; but we are not, except in the fevered imaginations of some of the more extreme Bush-haters, in the empire-building business. The...

Making John Kerry commander in chief would be like making Louis Farrakhan the ambassador to Israel. At least that's the opinion of several scores of military commanders and other soldiers, all of whom have signed a damning letter critical of Kerry's approach to national defense. Cue the predictable howls: You can't question his patriotism! Well, no one did. They just questioned his judgment. Ralph Nader would be a bad CinC; he'd make the Army redesign the tanks to run on solar power and demand that unmanned Predators be piloted to create jobs. Dennis Kucinich would be a wretched CinC; he'd...

Selma, Calif. – Pictures of American military police humiliating and, in some cases, allegedly torturing Iraqi prisoners in Saddam's old Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad now flash across the world. "The Shame!," Egyptian papers blare out at the sight of a pyramid of contorted naked males amid a smiling female GI. Various human-rights organizations in the Arab World, we are told, are about to condemn formally such barbarism. Good. These seemingly inhuman acts are indeed serious stuff. They also raise a host of dilemmas for the U.S. — from the pragmatic to the idealistic. We must insist on a higher...

May 2, 2004 -- Political adviser DICK MORRIS was a first-hand witness to the two faces of Hillary Rodham Clinton during his tenure as Bill Clinton's confidante. In his new book, "Rewriting History," he offers a rebuttal to the New York senator's best-selling autobiography, showing the Hillary he knows - warts and all. LIKE the moon, she shows us the same face each time we see her. Sometimes, she displays more, sometimes less of her visage, but always it is the same carefully presented persona: friendly, open, giggly, practical, family-oriented, caring, thoughtful, unflappable, serious, balanced and moderate.

And that's a guy [Egypt's Hosni Mubarak] American taxpayers give $2 billion a year to. In return for which, they get Mohammed Atta flying through the office window and vile state-funded Egyptian media that license anti-Americanism as a safety valve for disaffection that might otherwise be targeted more locally. Thanks a bunch, Hosni....

"Go back and get the file footage," said John Kerry. He was on "Good Morning America," sorting out whether he threw over the White House fence his medals, his ribbons, someone else's medals, someone else's ribbons, or a combination of the above mixed with some Cracker Jack prizes. How to clear things up? In a peeved and hectoring voice, Kerry told the interviewer to "go back and get the file footage." Hmm. This would be the film of a grim, long-faced young man with ultra-'70s hair hurling some symbols of military honor at the White House. That's the sort of...

Bring 'Em On! No, Call 'Em Off! "If George Bush wants to make national security an issue in this campaign, I have three words for him that I know he'll understand. Bring it on!"--John Kerry, quoted in the New York Times, Feb. 1 "Call off the Republican attack dogs."--Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, responding to Dick Cheney's speech on John Kerry's defense record, quoted by the Associated Press, April 26

<p>The fate of the American mission in Iraq depends on the answer to a simple question: Who is our enemy there?</p> <p>If our enemy is made up of die-hard followers of Saddam Hussein, a handful of Brown Shirt Shi'ites, and/or imported cliques of terrorists, then it may be possible for the Bush administration to eliminate these highly specific toxic elements from the body politic of Iraq; and to eliminate them without evoking general outrage among the ordinary Iraqis whose future we are determined to make brighter.</p>

Peter Robinson: Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Europe's proposed constitution — could anyone have thought of a less perfect union? Announcer: Funding for this program is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation. Peter Robinson: Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson. Our show today: a brand new constitution for the united states of Europe. In June of this year a European convention produced a document that was the result of more than 18 months of labor, a draft Constitution for the European Union that runs to more than 200 pages. The Constitution of the United States by contrast, runs to...

I wrote something last week that I thought might be fairly controversial, but found to my surprise it wasn't. The remark was a buttressing aside, a judgement about what is and isn't possible in what is sometimes called "the real world" (to distinguish it from the numerous fantasy worlds in which we actually live). In this "real world", not everything that seems desirable can happen, and "wishing doesn't make it true". There are big and consequential facts of life, and any attempt to deny or to ignore them will be repaid in grief. My supposedly controversial thesis was, "Islam and...