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Max Boot says we can’t call the French “cheese eating surrender monkeys” anymore.
Reuel Marc Gerecht and Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute have published a fascinating new paper based on their recent talks with counterterrorism officials in Europe. Their findings contrast with the crude stereotype that so many American conservatives have of the French as “surrender monkeys.†Gerecht and Schmitt write: “France has become the most accomplished counterterrorism practitioner in Europe.â€
France, they note, has been facing the threat of Middle Eastern terrorism since the 1980’s and has done an impressive job of marshaling its resources to defend itself. What’s the secret of French success? Gerecht and Schmitt point to the fact that the French “grant highly intrusive powers to their internal security service, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), and to their counterterrorist investigative magistrates (judges d’instruction).†…
Peter Wehner continues with good news from Iraq.
… The fact that AQI no longer operates in large numbers in any neighborhood in Baghdad is accepted in many quarters as almost commonplace (the story appeared on page A17 of the Washington Post). Yet this development is in reality staggering, especially if you consider where we were in December 2006, an awful month that was the capstone of an awful year. That this achievement occurred in only ten months ranks among the more impressive military operations we have ever seen. Even those who strongly supported the surge could not have imagined that it would do so much, so fast.
General Petraeus’ qualifications on the progress we’ve made are wise. We need to be vigilant and purposeful, since the task before us is still enormously difficult. Iraq remains a fragile, traumatized land, with between 1,000 and 2,000 Iraqis still fleeing their homes each day. The lives of Iraqis are still filled with daily hardships. The ethnic divisions remain real and deep. And the Iraqis must take greater responsibility for rebuilding and uniting their society. But we can now say, with some certainty, that the surge, rather than a failure (as Majority Leader Harry Reid recklessly declared months ago), has been hugely successful, and other good things (including efforts at ethnic reconciliation) are coming to pass. …
John Fund says of course Hillary likes Spitzer’s policy of licenses for illegal aliens.
… Despite her muddled comments this week, there’s no doubt where Mrs. Clinton stands on ballot integrity. She opposes photo ID laws, even though they enjoy over 80% support in the polls. She has also introduced a bill to force every state to offer no-excuse absentee voting as well as Election Day registration — easy avenues for election chicanery. The bill requires that every state restore voting rights to all criminals who have completed their prison terms, parole or probation.
Pollster Scott Rasmussen notes that Mrs. Clinton is such a polarizing figure that she attracts between 46% and 49% support no matter which Republican candidate she’s pitted against — even libertarian Ron Paul. She knows she may have trouble winning next year. Maybe that’s why she’s thrown herself in with those who will look the other way as a new electoral majority is formed — even if that includes non-citizens, felons and those who suddenly cross a state line on Election Day and decide they want to vote someplace new.
A German, Gabor Steingart, with a pretty good analysis of the dilemma of a Dem running for the White House.
Both John Edwards and Barack Obama want to move the Democrats to the left. But that’s a sure way to lose the election. Many voters may live their lives on the left, but their hopes and dreams are well to the right.
News Flash. IBD Editorial reports on Harvard study that says the media is biased.
The debate is over. A consensus has been reached. On global warming? No, on how Democrats are favored on television, radio and in the newspapers.
Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans. …
The Captain posts on that study too.
Instapundit calls this a dog-bites-man story, but it does have a twist. Instead of the Media Research Center issuing a report on media bias, today’s study comes from another bastion of conservative thought: Harvard University. Not only did the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy find that the media treats Democrats better than Republicans, it also finds that the media gives more air time to the Democrats as well: …
John Fund embarrasses State by telling the truth about the Dept.
It’s a cliché that our State Department is often deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to analyzing what’s really happening in other countries. Evidence keeps cropping up demonstrating just how depressingly true the cliché can be.
Take the recently declassified briefing papers from the 1970s dismissing Margaret Thatcher as a potential British leader while extolling the pro-American virtues of future French President Jacques Chirac, who wound up heading the worldwide “coalition of the unwilling” that opposed U.S. foreign policy in Iraq.
The London Times recently dove into the declassified files now available at the National Archives in Washington and came up with an instructive document entitled “Margaret Thatcher: first impressions,” in which a U.S. Embassy analyst identified only as “Spiers” wrote that the future prime minister, after becoming Conservative Party leader in 1975, possessed “the genuine voice of a beleaguered bourgeoisie” but not the stuff to make the political big time. …
Ron Rosenbaum’s blog post deals in some gossip. Pickings normally passes on stuff like this, but the post and then attached comments are interesting.
Tech Central Station tells what the Erie Canal might look like today.