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For a visiting North American, there was something terribly sad about London last week. Everything had been prepared for a glorious celebration of Anglo-American friendship. The flags had been massed, the backdrop was beautiful - but the stage was empty. I felt that I had wandered into Miss Havisham's bedroom: everything had been readied for an event that never quite took place. The protests themselves were not so impressive: they felt much less energetic and purposeful than the last anti-war protest I attended in London, the October 2002 march on Hyde Park. What was most disturbing was not the vehement...

LONDON -- So what did President Bush make of it all? A presidential visit is a whirl of scattered impressions seen from the back of a limousine -- and intense hours of conversation in formal rooms: a snatch of bunting on the Mall and planning sessions with Prime Minister Tony Blair; an edited collation of evening news programs and detailed briefings on the state of British public opinion. From all that, he would take home hard facts and general impressions. He would have observed the continuing strength and intimacy of the Anglo-American alliance. He would have read the polls showing...

So what did President Bush make of it all? A presidential visit is a whirl of scattered impressions seen from the back of a limousine - and intense hours of conversation in formal rooms: a snatch of bunting on The Mall and planning sessions with Prime Minister Blair; an edited collation of evening news programmes and detailed briefings on the state of British public opinion. From all that, he would take home hard facts and general impressions. He would have observed the continuing strength and intimacy of the Anglo-American alliance. He would have read the polls showing that a majority...

The Demo 1 Got to give those British protesters credit for this: They sure make their loyalties clear. First they build an effigy of George Bush that equates the leader of American democracy with Saddam Hussein. Then they parody the liberation of Baghdad by pulling their effigy down and stomping on it. Finally, to underscore the point, after the effigy-stomping, they invite to the podium to speak – George Galloway! The British MP accused of accepting some $300,000 in stipends from Saddam himself! The Demo 2 The organizers of the protest installed a mobile jumbotron at the front of the...

Why this protest is deeply shameful By David Frum (Filed: 19/11/2003) As slogans go, "Hands Off Nepal" has a lot to recommend it: it's simple, direct - and yet at the same time, touched with a certain exotic romance. "What's going on in Nepal?" I asked one of the two compact men carrying the banner on which the slogan was painted. From behind the cloth stepped a good-looking young man in a long blue coat. "A people's resistance movement is battling the Nepalese government." What's that got to do with Iraq and President Bush, I asked him. The United States,...

LONDON - Punch "Blair," "Bush" and "poodle" into your search engine, and you will retrieve more stories than you can count, let alone read. To large stretches of the British public, it is simply axiomatic: The Bush-Blair relationship is one in which President Bush issues commands, while the Prime Minister says "yap, yap." In fact, throughout the war on terror, Mr. Bush has overridden the advice of some of his highest officials -- and restrained his own instincts -- in order to follow the advice and wishes of the British government. At Britain's urging, Mr. Bush returned to the United...

As slogans go, "Hands Off Nepal" has a lot to recommend it: it's simple, direct - and yet at the same time, touched with a certain exotic romance."What's going on in Nepal?" I asked one of the two compact men carrying the banner on which the slogan was painted.From behind the cloth stepped a good-looking young man in a long blue coat. "A people's resistance movement is battling the Nepalese government." What's that got to do with Iraq and President Bush, I asked him. The United States, he replied, was backing the government.Oh, I said: "Are you from Nepal?" He...

It rained yesterday; today it is merely cold and damp, with rain expected later. It is unpromising weather for a protest march. In fact, I’m rapidly developing a theory that the secret to Britain’s long tradition of political stability may be the weather. Rain helped persuade the peasant rebels of 1381 to accept Richard II’s promises and scatter home. Rain squelched the great Chartist march of 1846. Rain stopped the Brixton riots in 1998. The British call rain “the policeman’s friend,” and thanks to rain, Britain has been well policed indeed for a very long time. Today some 14,000 police...

A number of readers offered a very astute response to my forebodings of yesterday. They said, to summarize: “The analogy you’re looking for, David, isn’t Chicago 1968 – it’s Caracas 1958. When a Venezuelan mob attacked Nixon’s car and nearly killed him, Americans saw his courage and cool. Nixon returned to receive a standing ovation from both houses of Congress.” It’s an interesting point. Although the optics of the president’s UK visit will be ugly for him, on further thought they may well turn out in the end to be more dangerous for the Democratic front-runner, Howard Dean. If next...

David Frum NOV. 6, 2003: BIRTHS AND DEATHS Partial Birth Now let me say right off: I am not pro-life. I think abortion ought to be legal for the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy and available to protect the health of the mother during the weeks thereafter. I don’t see this as a matter of fundamental human rights, so much as one of accommodating reality. I can’t defend Roe v. Wade as a legal decision, and I would be very glad to see abortion become much more rare than it now, but if the law attempts to suppress abortion...

All you people who have been assiduously saving small change, pennies, nickels, and such, in the hope of painlessly putting aside the wherewithal to buy Al Franken's book, Lies, etc., can quit now. Spend that money on a couple of beers, a hamburger, or a Snickers bar. The book is dreadful. Rest assured, I haven't read it. I scrutinized the cover for a minute or two, glanced at the dust jacket, but I've only dipped into it here and there, a random sampling, see. Quite enough for me to make an informed judgment. Lies is a mess with no discernible...

-snip- Question: Rumor has it that David Frum is taking over as editor of National Review and that Mark Steyn is replacing him as columnist. Is this a Canadian take-over? I like Canadians and would not want to blame them for Frum or Steyn. Still, it does seem peculiar. It the stories are true, it is the final nail in the NR coffin. Rich Lowry was a rather big step down from John O’Sullivan, but in the crowd of Junior Woodchucks, Lowry stood out for his comparative sobriety, decency, and, it seems to me, in his genuine desire to know...

Prodded by the news that the going in Iraq has gotten tough, the Senate has stopped flirting with the alternatives and done the right thing. Iraq will get is $87 billion outright, not as loans--and the work of reconstruction will continue and accelerate. The Senate acted as it did because of the power of two decisive facts: (1) Both political parties approved and voted for the Iraq war; and (2) having started the job, the United States cannot afford not to finish it. These are facts that everybody understands--even Howard Dean, the most antiwar of the major Democratic candidate. As...

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right By Al Franken Dutton, 368pp. $ 24.95 "Telling the truth is something I take seriously, and I try to hold myself to an impossibly high standard." This time, Al Franken may have set the bar too high. By his own account, the self-appointed scourge of right-wing lies and liars has something of a truth problem himself. But let him tell the story: April 21, 2003 Dear Attorney General Ashcroft, I am currently a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where I am working...

Continuing its long tradition of welcoming talented immigrants, National Review has just landed my brilliant compatriot, Mark Steyn. He will be replacing me as the author of the backpage column in the dead-tree edition. I wish I could say he has some big shoes to fill--the truth of the matter is that shoving his feet into my footware will require him to pinch his toes. I'm going to continue blogging in this space, but otherwise will be taking a bit of a rest, pending the publication in January of the book Richard Perle & I have co-authored, AN END TO...

<p>A week ago, the writer Andrew Sullivan issued on this very page a challenge to political conservatives: Now that the Supreme Court has declared that homosexuality can no longer be considered a crime, what do you think it is? If homosexuality is not a crime, on what grounds can conservatives justify denying homosexuals any of the rights they seek, including the right to marry a person of the same sex? In short, there is a demand that conservatives state some kind of "policy" on homosexuality.</p>

SPY GAMES Mark Steyn has the best, clearest, and of course funniest summation I’ve yet read of the Wilson/Plame affair in the current Spectator: Some choice quotes: “[A]n agency known to be opposed to war in Iraq sent an employee’s spouse also known to be opposed to war in Iraq on a perfunctory joke mission. And, after eight days sipping tea and meeting government officials in one city of one country, Ambassador Wilson gave a verbal report to the CIA and was horrified to switch on his TV and see Bush going on about what British Intelligence had learned about...

Mark Steyn has the best, clearest, and of course funniest summation I’ve yet read of the Wilson/Plame affair in the current Spectator: Some choice quotes: “[A]n agency known to be opposed to war in Iraq sent an employee’s spouse also known to be opposed to war in Iraq on a perfunctory joke mission. And, after eight days sipping tea and meeting government officials in one city of one country, Ambassador Wilson gave a verbal report to the CIA and was horrified to switch on his TV and see Bush going on about what British Intelligence had learned about Saddam and...

Though the newest generation of voters grew up in a time of liberal bias in the media and attended universities dominated by liberal ideologies, many young voters are still declaring themselves to be conservatives. Some attribute their conservative beliefs to a right-wing mentor or to a religious awakening. While this trend may have started years ago, many are just beginning to acknowledge it. Is this conservatism just common sense, or a new form of rebellion?In our September/October 1997 issue, Kenneth Lee examines the conservative phenomenon by interviewing a variety of first-generation conservatives. Not in the Family When a young Hillary...

Imagine for a moment that you are a terrorist. You have just infiltrated the United States and are hiding out in Los Angeles. What's the first thing you need now? Judging by the actual behavior of the last bunch of terrorists to pass through the United States, you might think the answer is: "a lap-dance from a Las Vegas showgirl." But before you can enjoy the Great Satan's devilish pleasures, there is something you need first: You need a new name and identity that allow you to hide from the Great Satan's alert police. And thanks to California governor Gray...