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Regarding the hundreds of Bush lies, Gabriel Schoenfeld found others of similar quality.
Last week we noted that the Center for Public Integrity, a public-interest group in Washington DC, had created an online database of the 935 “false statements†uttered by ranking officials of the Bush administration to push the United States into war with Iraq. The New York Times, reporting on the new research resource, compared the scandal the center had documented to Watergate.
But if the Bush lies were bad, how about the lies told by Bill Clinton on the same score, or for that matter, the lies told in the editorials of the New York Times? Connecting the Dots has uncovered a couple of whoppers, which the Times, in its story on the matter did not — or affected not to – notice. …
Mr. Schoenfeld also comments on spiffy new office building at the CIA.
Mark Steyn looks at the field and the eventual McCain/Clinton contest and says, “It’s a shame one of them has to win.”
President McCain? Or Queen Hillary? Henry Kissinger said about the Iran/Iraq war in the ’80s that it’s a shame they both can’t lose. Conservatives have a slightly different problem: It’s a shame that neither of them will lose – that, regardless of who takes the oath come next January, the harmonious McCain-Clinton consensus policies on illegal immigration and Big Government solutions to global warming will prevail. Where’s Neither-of-the-Above when you need him? …
VDH Corner post with a different perspective.
Three unexpected developments have given Republicans a shot this year at winning — once thought impossible, given the normal desire of the electorate for a fresh party after eight years, and worries about Iraq and the economy. All can change, but for now they have a real shot.
The first, of course, is the radical turnabout in Iraq. Had we been seeing over 100 dead a month, the loss of Baghdad, and a failure of the surge, McCain would be finished and his Republican rivals would have carved out a third position between Bush and the Democrats that would have been still rejected by the voters.
Second, no one anticipated the surge of Obama, and the Clintons’ overt and clumsy efforts at personal destruction that turned off even liberals — a development that explains why a McCain in theory could be palatable to disaffected Democrats and Independents. …
Froma Harrop has a good Kennedy question.
Are we done worshipping the Kennedys yet? And what do you mean by “we”?
That was quite a spectacle — the commentariat gushing superlatives over the alleged power of Ted and Caroline to deliver liberals to Barack Obama. Half the electorate wasn’t even born when the sainted John F. Kennedy was assassinated — and few have any idea who Ethel is. Though the Kennedy brand is in steep decline, the wave of conformist opinion still thinks this endorsement is very big.
Americans fought a revolution to free themselves from ruling families. Thomas Paine wrote that “we cannot conceive a more ridiculous figure of government than hereditary succession, in all its cases, presents.”
Nonetheless, the Kennedys fancy themselves liberal kingmakers, and the media swallow their presumption whole. “The torch is passed,” the chroniclers scribble, as candidates beg Kennedys for their “prized endorsements.”
JFK was indeed a charismatic figure, but the more we learn about his Camelot in Washington, the less perfect it sounds. (One might start at the 1960 election, which was stolen with an assist by the mob.) …
Charles Krauthammer gets inside the head of the Narcissist.
… Clinton is a narcissist but also smart and analytic enough to distinguish adulation from achievement. Among Democrats, he is popular for twice giving them the White House, something no Democrat had done since FDR. And the bouquets he receives abroad are simply signs of the respect routinely given ex-presidents, though Clinton earns an extra dollop of fawning, with the accompanying fringe benefits, because he is (a) charming and (b) not George W. Bush.
But Clinton knows this is all written on sand. It is the stuff of celebrity. What gnaws at him is the verdict of history. What clearly enraged him more than anything this primary season was Barack Obama‘s statement that “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that . . . Bill Clinton did not.”
The Clintons tried to use this against Obama by charging him with harboring secret Republican sympathies. It was a stupid charge that elicited only scorn. And not just because Obama is no Reaganite, but because Obama’s assessment is so obviously true: Reagan was consequential. Clinton was not. …
Jennifer Rubin in Amer. Spectator says we shouldn’t gloat while watching the Clinton crack-up.
David Brooks considers the changes McCain must make soon.
John McCain is exhausted. He hasn’t had a full-night’s sleep in forever. It took him 10 hours to get to California because of flight trouble. He underperformed in the debate Wednesday night, as his staff understands. He took some shots at Mitt Romney that were gratuitous considering the circumstances, as he privately acknowledges.
But somehow in the midst of all this frenzy, McCain has to transition from being an underdog to being a front-runner. He has to transition from being an insurgent to being the leader of a broad center-right coalition. He has to transition from being a primary season scrambler to offering a broader vision of how to unify the country.
By the end of next week, McCain could be the de facto leader of the Republican Party. The McCain staff is acutely aware of the responsibility this entails, and what it will take to operate at the next level. …
Just in case you think Pickerhead has gone native, here’s the McCain opinions of one of our favorites, Thomas Sowell.
We have been hearing for years that Senator John McCain gives “straight talk†and his bus has been endlessly referred to as the “Straight Talk Express.†But endless repetition does not make something true.
The fact that McCain makes short, blunt statements does not make him a straight-talker.
There are short, blunt lies — and he told a big one on the eve of the Florida primary, when he claimed that Mitt Romney had advocated a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
Even the Washington Post, which supports McCain, said that the senator “has distorted the meaning†of what Governor Romney said, that Romney “has never proposed setting ‘a date for withdrawal.’ †…
Chicago Sun-Times columnist makes the case for vouchers.
Chicago is gearing up for another round of tumult from the closing of possibly more than a half dozen failing schools. Whatever the Chicago Public Schools administration does to solve this problem, the parents of students have no choice but to cope.
Middle-class families exercise school choice by loading up a moving van and relocating to a suburb with good schools. The rich can afford private schools. Only the poor — often minorities in inner cities with under-performing schools — are stuck with little or no choice.
President Bush tossed out an idea Monday to open up choice for poor kids but, as usual, it was rejected out of hand by Democrats and teacher unions. The $300 million Pell Grants for Kids proposed by the president in his State of the Union message is modeled on the popular Pell Grant program that helps poor kids go to college. Basically, the Bush plan would turn over tax dollars to parents to send their children to private schools.
In other words, vouchers. …
According to Contentions, the winter storms continue to rage in China.