Free Republic

Michael Rubin The U.S. is losing in Iraq because American politicians and the general public have not decided they want or need to win. Many congressmen look at Iraq through the lens of the 2006 election: They care neither how their words embolden the enemy nor how their grandstanding impacts Iraq. Meanwhile, many commentators have cast accuracy aside to cater to, and cash in on, public ennui. Iraqis are now as pessimistic as they have ever been. Corruption and organized crime run rampant. True, some metrics are positive: Oil production is on the rebound, shops are opening, agricultural production is...

Counterfeit news: Scenes were enacted and re-enacted; dead bodies were carried from point to point and then back again; Hezbollah spokesmen chatted on cellphones until it was time to turn on the tears for camerasDavid Frum National Post Saturday, August 26, 2006 Perhaps you saw the images in your newspaper or on television: "A Lebanese man counts U.S dollar bills received from Hizbollah members in a school in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, August 19, 2006. Hizbollah handed out bundles of cash on Friday to people whose homes were wrecked by Israeli bombing, consolidating the Iranian-backed group's support...

Aug. 15, 2006: Lebanon Thoughts I  Thanks to Stanley Kurtz for directing me to this conversation between Paul Gigot and Martin Kramer on Fox. Key line: I think Iran had given a blanket approval for operations along Israel's border in order to keep that on a simmer. Now, the precise modus vivendi in any given situation, when to attack, when to strike, was pretty much left to Hezbollah. I think that actually, in this respect, it might have been an Iranian mistake to have not corrected their standing instructions to Hezbollah because they effectively provoked Israel into launching a...

Flying blind: Airport screeners treat everyone the same. They shouldn't David Frum National Post Saturday, August 12, 2006 So now we're to ban lipsticks and hand sanitizers from airplanes? The success of British security services in stopping a terrorist plot has unleashed all the most perverse and unavailing instincts of transportation safety authorities. They already banned nail scissors after 9/11. They require passengers to remove shoes in perpetual remembrance of Richard Reid's attempt to smuggle explosives on to a plane in his trainers. Now once again they will impose a massively costly new rule on all passengers in order...

Fifty years ago this past week, on July 26, 1956, the Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Nasser's act would lead to an international crisis, a regional war and ultimately to the resignation of a British prime minister. "Suez" would become a lesson and a warning against Western meddling in the Middle East. But the lessons and warnings of Suez look very different after 9/11. In 1956, the Suez Canal was owned by the British government and a consortium of British and French private investors. Two-thirds of Europe's oil traveled through the canal, protected by British troops....

MPP calls Israel 'rogue' state Mohammed Adam and Lee Greenberg The Ottawa Citizen Thursday, July 20, 2006 Ottawa-Orleans MPP Phil McNeely yesterday called Israel a "rogue state," and said the federal government should apologize to Canadians for its support of the Jewish state's "collective punishment" of the people in Gaza and Lebanon. The Liberal MPP's comments drew immediate rebuke from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who expressed "serious dismay and disappointment" to his colleague, and distanced his government from them. Mr. McGuinty, who was in Charlottetown, phoned the Canadian Jewish Congress in Toronto to convey the same sentiments to officials...

"I respect and admire the French, who have been a far greater nation than we shall ever be, that is, if greatness means anything loftier than money and bombs." — THOMAS FLEMING, "HARD RIGHT," MARCH 13, 2003 From the very beginning of the War on Terror, there has been dissent, and as the war has proceeded to Iraq, the dissent has grown more radical and more vociferous. Perhaps that was to be expected. But here is what never could have been: Some of the leading figures in this antiwar movement call themselves "conservatives." These conservatives are relatively few in number,...

You probably know the old Hollywood joke: "Sincerity is everything. When you can fake that, you've got it made." Paul Martin's problem is that sincerity is the one thing he cannot quite fake. He displayed that failing most vividly Friday night, when he erupted into his choreographed and stage-managed outburst against Gilles Duceppe. He delivered his lines like some ham actor who's made up his mind: The audience has to see acting, and by God, they are going to see acting! One of CTV's debate commentators, Joy McPhail, a former NDP legislator from British Columbia, complained during a discussion afterward...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's bad week may yet prove the administration's great turning point. None of the reverses need be fatal; each of them contains an opportunity to move back on to a more successful path. Everything depends on the wisdom, self-discipline, and perspective of the President himself. Yesterday's indictments of Lewis Libby are one opportunity. For while Mr. Libby now stands in serious legal peril, the broader administration has been exonerated of intentional wrongdoing. From the start, there have been two competing theories of what happened in the CIA leak scandal. Call them the "big" theory and the "little"...

Blogging is not like editing a newspaper. There is a big world of important events out there--from the naming of a new Fed chairman to the passage of the Iraqi constitution, the formation of a new German government, and the fingering of the Assad family in the Hariri murder--beside the Miers nomination. But the Supreme Court is important too, a battle that must be won, and this is my place to do my part. This morning I was on The Laura Ingraham Show to unveil the new advertisements for Americans for Better Justice (betterjustice.com). They can now be seen on...

It seems that the pro-Miers forces really are bent on burning down the village in order to save it. White House and pro-Miers bloggers are trumpeting the revelation that Harriet Miers as a candidate for municipal office in Dallas checked the box on a questionnaire declaring herself in favor of a Human Life Amendment to the US Constitution. This news is supposed to reassure conservatives. But think for a minute about the wound the pro-Miers forces have just inflicted on conservatism. John Roberts at his hearing refused to answer questions about his personal views on abortion. He argued - as...

I don't know which hour this will be featured, but Medved will debate Frum on the Miers nomination. The show starts NOW (2:00 PM CST), and can be heard at KSKY, 660AM, or streamed through the link above.

David Frum said Tuesday the nomination was sinking. Opinion polls don't support the notion of a sinking nomination. A Gallup poll for CNN and USA Today released Wednesday showed 44 percent of respondents described the Miers pick as excellent or good, with 41 percent saying it was fair or poor, and 15 percent offering no opinion. Among self-described conservatives, 58 percent said the pick was excellent or good; 29 percent thought it fair or poor. In an Opinion Dynamics poll conducted for Fox News released Thursday, 37 percent of respondents (57 percent of Republicans) said they would vote for Miers,...

Frontline: In your book you describe events pre-9/11, and you say that there was serious doubt daily as to whether or not George W. Bush was the right man. Frum: George Bush began his presidency with both personal and party problems. He'd had a very narrow win. He came into office with a very weak mandate. He had a very ambitious program, but he didn't have the political clout to get the program executed, and that became clear very rapidly. Then there was this question mark over his head. He was not someone who was well-known when he came into...

In a just-completed CNN interview, former Bush speechwriter lambasted the Miers nomination. Among his most notable quotes: "other than those in the president's inner circle and others who are obliged to say so, there's not a conservative in Washington who thinks Miers is the best possible nominee." The host read him a quote in which Jay Sekulow said the President showed excellent judgement in choosing Miers. Frum pointed out that the quote praised Bush, not Miers. He added that we can and should do better, and essentially suggested that the nomination be withdrawn and she be replaced by an oustanding...

   SEP. 30, 2005: DELAY DEFENDED With due respect to the always cogent editors of NR, the pithiest defense of Tom DeLay comes - from of all unlikely people - Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. Dionne this morning puts his finger on the central and hopeless flaw in the case against DeLay: "The corporations that forked over the cash to DeLay's PAC did so not because their hearts were filled with affection for those particular Texas legislative candidates but because they recognized DeLay's power over federal legislation." Texas law forbids corporations to give money to state candidates. The case against...

National Post  (Canada) Publication Date: September 3, 2005 Hurricane Katrina began as a natural disaster, unleashed a human tragedy, and is rapidly boiling into a political brawl.The worst natural disaster in American history has become an ideological storm, with accusations and counter-accusations flying even before the flooding can be plugged and the dead counted.On the left, Katrina has become an opportunity to re-amplify a half decade's worth of accusations against the Bush administration.The storm, it's alleged, is the President's fault for not signing Kyoto. (Never mind that hurricanes have become less frequent over the past 70 years.) The flood,...

I haven't posted much on the New Orleans disaster. There are so many people on the spot, adding so much to genuine understanding, that it seemed an absurd waste of your time for me to add my distant words. Tonight though I was invited by the BBC to talk about the political fall-out from Katrina with Sidney Blumenthal. To prepare, I spent some hours immersing myself in the catalogue of left-wing attacks on the Bush administration.Now let me declare at the onset: Katrina has obviously not been the finest hour of American emergency management. There may well be fault on...

David Frum has a tough piece out today in National Review Online arguing that George W. Bush has been ineffective in persuading Americans to stay the course in Iraq. This is a direct slap not only at the president, but also at his speechwriters, and from a former colleague who served in the speechwriting office in 2001 and 2002. Frum argues that Bush makes the same case over and over again, and does not flesh it out with arresting details and enlightening narrative."The president could have made news yesterday by itemizing the reasons to regard Iraq more positively than most...

By now it should be clear that President Bush's words on the subject of Iraq have ceased connecting with the American public. His speech yesterday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars is the latest - and one of the most serious to date - manifestations of the problem. The polls tell us that the American public is losing heart. A substantial majority (56%) now say that the war is going either "very badly" or "moderately badly." More than 50% now regard the war as a mistake. One-third want an immediate and total withdrawal. Maybe most fatefully: a plurality now say...