Taking Hillary Seriously

Peggy Noonan reminds us not to
underestimate
Hillary Clinton. She’s running for president, and
she’ll probably win. That’s the baseline that we should start from.

Mixing Religion and Politics

In this long article, Edward Feser
takes apart
the liberal demand to separate religion and politics.
The simple response is: You Can’t. Religion, broadly understood, means the attempt to understand the
reality of human existence and purpose. Politics must reflect some attempt to understand the world
and its meaning, otherwise it is simply aimless. What liberals are doing, of course, is a power play.
They want their religion to drive politics, not yours.

Democrats Worry About Catholics

Democrat consultants Stan Greenberg and Matt Hogan look at
erosion
in the Catholic vote for Democrats.
What they must do is “reach across to more traditional Catholics,” define themselves
as “the middle class party,” and “reassure broadly on values.” This sounds great,
but tell it to MoveOn.org. The Democratic base defines itself in opposition to all these themes, because
they are the defining themes of the Republican Party.

Cab Drivers are Giving Real-Estate Tips

Old Joe Kennedy knew that something was wrong when his shoe-shine boy started giving him stock tips in 1929. Cab drivers were giving stock tips in 1999. Now John Makin reports that cab drivers are giving real-estate tips in Florida. Alan Greenspan, can you spell “bubble?”

Steyn: It's Still Wrong

As usual, the incomparable Mark Steyn gets to the
heart
of the matter of the culture of life
vs. the culture of convenience. On Schiavo, he intones:
“it may be legal under Florida law for the state to order her to be starved to death. But it is still wrong.”

Clueless Old Europe

Enjoy these
delicious caricatures
of Americans from Stern, the German magazine: noble liberals
put up against wacko conservative nutters. Those crazy Europeans. One of these days their
mean-spirited ignorance is going to cost them.

Here Comes Polyamory

After mainstreaming the idea of gay marriage, the radical left is limbering up for the next stage: the mainstreaming
of polyamory. You girls will remember that: it used to be called polygamy. And the polyamorists
have found a bright,
intelligent Brit academic to do it for them, according to Stanley Kurtz. Her name is Elizabeth F. Emens.

“A whiz kid with a Ph.D. in English from Cambridge University and a J.D. from Yale Law School, Emens, who teaches the University of Chicago Law School, has published a major legal and cultural defense of polyamory (group marriage).”

In “Monogamy’s Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence,” she raises the idea of a
“disposition” towards polyamory similar to the disposition people have towards homosexuality, and
can thus call “a whole raft of laws into question — from marriage laws to partnership laws,
to zoning laws, to custody laws. All these laws, says Emens,
place unfair burdens on those with a ‘poly’ disposition.”

Now that we are beginning to read the
stories
of the real children of the Sixties, the children born
to the Sixties “kids,” we are beginning to see the other side of the counterculture: the
blighted lives, the neglect, the exposure to sexual predation that occurs in what we might call a
“diverse” sexual context, we are beginning to learn the hard way the reason the west has
developed the idea of monogamous marriage between an man and a woman. It’s about the children.
It’s startling to realize that there are brilliant whiz kid academics out there that
haven’t read the news yet, and that in consequence don’t seem to have a clue.

Steyn Won't Let Up on Old Europe

Gloater Mark Steyn is at it again, needling aging Europe about its population crash and advising
it to
get it on
before it’s too late. Forget about finishing those
“Anger Management, Systemic Racism and Gay Studies degrees,” he advises. Get to work
and make some babies!

Tory Party Sees a Glint of Hope

Ever since the mid Nineties, the British Conservative Party has been on the mat, the old Tory dog
befuddled by the prancings and sincerities of Tony Blair’s New Labour. But now the old Tory dog is
starting to growl.
And this breathless columnist is reporting that her dyed in the wool Labour friend
is
complaining about Tony Blair:
“Every single time I see him on the telly, I think: why are you lying to me?”
That is the kind of talk that gives rabid right wingnuts heart palpitations.

Republicans are Cracking Up. No They are Not.

Which is it? Andrew Sullivan says the Republicans are
cracking up
as their various sub-groups
start to fight. Robert D. Kaplan says that the Democrats
need a guy
like Dick Cheney who can
keep all the Democratic constituencies in line.

Competitive Sports? For Children? Whatever Next?

In Britland the progressives are just as firmly opposed to competitive childrens’ sports as
their pals here in the United States. But here is a story that the progressives are losing
and children are winning. The
No Winning Allowed philosophy is being replaced with a school sports program and young teachers that never
experienced competitive sports in their lives (!) are learning how to coach.

Britain's Flourishing Slave Trade

So you thought the slave trade went out in the early 19th century? And slavery itself in the American Civil War. Don’t worry; it’s alive and flourishing in Britain, aided and abetted by East European illegal immigrants. Of course, this new slave trade is not supplying strapping field hands for the cotton fields. It is supplying girls for the sex trade. Is that what liberals mean by “sexual activity”?

Krauthammer "Tells It Like It Is"

Back in the Seventies when liberals ruled the world, a sports-mad liberal Jewish kid from
New York like
Howard Cosell could “tell it like it is,” knowing that liberals claimed an understanding
on reality far beyond the world of sports. Lately, liberals have not been so confident about
their grip on reality. And so now it is evil Jewish neo-cons who have been getting a reputation
for unvarnished truth telling. President Bush can’t say I told you so, but
Charles Krauthammer can.
And does. About freedom, liberation, human rights, and how the Arabs yearned for
freedom just like everyone else, and how President Bush was right when all the
Euro-snobs and NIONist-whackos were wrong.

The Witness of Ashley Smith

The enormity of the Brian Nichols affair in Atlanta speaks for itself. Conservative bad girl
Ann Coulter can twit liberals at full strength about the folly of women guarding
dangerous criminals
(here).
But the real story has been captured by conservative good girl Peggy Noonan
(here).
For the question that bellows out across the noisy public square is: after decades of
the counter-culture,after two generations of children of the welfare state, after the feminist
revolution that attempted to deracinate women and wrench them away from their union with life
and generation, how is a Christian witness by
a young American woman like Ashley Smith possible?

And Now This...

First Wali Jumblatt said it: “[W]hen I saw the Iraqi people voting [on January 30th], 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world”
And now here’s another
Arab voice
saying that the worm has turned and that Bush was right.
“From Casablanca to Kuwait City, what Bush says mirrors, reinforces and, in fact, reflects what has long been in the heart: A yearning for human rights, justice, freedom, rule of law, transparency, limits on power and women’s rights. ”

What Went Wrong? No Fairness Doctrine

Political philosopher John Kerry has
stumbled
on the reason for his defeat, according
to political humorist P.J. O’Rourke. The abolition of the
FCC Fairness Doctrine back in the 1980s. “A lot of the mainstream media were very responsible during the campaign.
They tried to put out a balanced view, and they did show what they thought to be the truth
in certain situations of attack... But it never penetrated.”
If only we could bring back the Fairness Doctrine, then the MSM could retain control of the political
dialogue, wouldn’t they? No chance for out-of-control Swifties, eh Senator?

Democrats in the Desert

Michael Barone surveys the
plight
of the “bookless” Democrats. Nobody is coming up with
good ideas, and it doesn’t look like things are going to change.
Some day, perhaps, a Democrat will come up with a progressive idea that doesn’t involve
expanding the powers of government. When that day dawns, Republicans should look to their powder.

Steyn: Yeah, Terrorism in Ireland

Never mind Al Qaeda. Let’s talk about the
terrorist warlords
in Northern Ireland and the
sisters of the slain Robert McCartney.
For years British governments have been appeasing the IRA and now, suddenly, its power
has come up on the radar with the brutal killing of McCartney in a Belfast pub.
“There were 70 witnesses in the bar but none of them saw a thing.” Needless to
say, Mark Steyn has something to say about all this.

Ronnie We Hardly Knew Ye!

As democracy starts to bud in the Middle East, this commentator remembers the “surprising” day the Berlin Wall fell and Ronald Reagan’s commentary on ABC. Why, he asked, should we be surprised at all this? Why was it “that anyone should be surprised that a people enslaved for over four decades should want to agitate for their freedom. The surprising thing was not that people wanted to be free. Rather, it was that they were enslaved in the first place.” Yes. Why is that?

Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie, you “amiable dunce.” How little we knew you when you ran for office, and even as you presided for eight years as president. It seems that only now are we fully coming to understand you, the world-historical genius that came from humble beginnings in Dixon, Illinois, to lead this nation to honor and glory.

Slip in the Shiv

Let’s stick it to
Dan Rather
one more time! There is so much to tell, so little time to tell it.

Cuddly Pessimist Admits Error

America’s most cheerful pessimist, Ex-Brit John Derbyshire, cheerfully
admits
that the pessimists were wrong, he being one of them, of course. But
still, there is plenty to be pessimistic about. Things could still go horribly wrong.
And anyway, what is the point of being pessimistic unless
your pessimism turns out to be too pessimistic. Or something like that.

Steyn: Assad Checks the Eye Chart

Finally, the “arab street” is being heard from, and it is holding up an eye chart not for
Uncle Sam but for Boy Assad in Syria. Mark Steyn is
gloating again.

Spengler: 20th Century Losers are Dying Out

Look at the UN population projections,
advises
Spengler, and think about what it means. The nations
that are losing population are the ones that lost the wars of the twentieth century. Ukraine, Russia, Germany.
There is no substitute for collective identity, he warns, of the kind that showed its ugliest side
with Hitler and Stalin. Depopulation begins with the Ibsen woman: “Instead of children, she has soul-conflicts.”
We know all about that, these days, don’t we?

Your Bias is Showing!

David Frum takes The Washington Post to task for its instinctive liberal bias. Side-by-side
stories make the point. The first is an
article about evangelicals by the “acid-tongued” Hanna
Rosin. Her piece “drips with disdain.” Right alongside is a cheerleading report
on a public showing
of PBS’s recent lesbian episode of “Postcards from Buster” the
cartoon rabbit. But we should remember that things are now different. Back in the old days, conservatives
could only fume about liberal bias to each other. Now there’s Blogger Nation every day
“speaking truth to power,” as the saying goes. And that makes a difference.

Idiotarianism, A Brief Survey

Said Nelson Mandela: “Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” Actually, old chum, the opposite is true, writes Tim Worstall. Poverty is the natural state of mankind, has been for millennia. “What is unnatural and what is man made is wealth.” And as for slavery and apartheid, it was only a little over 200 years ago that a few crazy British thought up the idea of abolishing slavery. Before that it was universal and natural. In The Year 1000 author Danny Danziger tells how you could submit yourself to slavery in Britain a thousand years ago, and get yourself three squares a day. In those days, if you wanted to do a little slave-trading you’d head for Dublin, Ireland, the chief slave market of western Europe.

Business as a Learning Process

Arnold Kling wants to bury the equations of the mathematical economists and proposes instead a
“Learning Economics.” Economic activity is not just a question of production and exchange. It
is a learning process.
Mathematics is good for building equations to describe economic activity when we know
all the variables and when nothing changes. But when people are
learning, then it is not so good. “One might say that economic growth involves the transition from
the unknown to the known. We go from an inferior set of production techniques
to a superior one as the economy learns and adopts the better methods.”

"This does not mean that George Bush has been right all along."

Oh no. Perish the thought. But Britain’s lefty Guardian is doing a
modified limited hangout
on the astonishing facts on the ground in the Middle East. You can understand why journalism needs
good writers. It takes real talent to cover your tracks or convince everyone that black is white.
The harmless lovable fuzzballs at The New York Times are in the middle of a similar
Ali Shuffle, as reported by a gloating
New York Post.

Finding Jews for GOP

When the left is becoming more and more anti-Semitic by the day, the world wonders why Jews
still vote Democratic. But someone is doing something about it, talking to Jews and showing
them how far the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt has gone to join the gathering forces arrayed
against the Jews. It’s the
Republican Jewish Coalition,
and it’s working to create a new Jewish Republican
majority.

Steyn: Gloater-in-chief Hails 7,000 Year March to Democracy in Egypt

Like, what kept you guys so long? Mark Steyn is pulling out old columns and
shamelessly gloating
that he told you so. And that goes for British Tories that went all snooty last year.
Mubarak puts an opposition leader in jail? Condi cancels her visit. Ooooh, Ms Matrix
with the spike heels is jabbing them in the you-know-where. Apparently Egypt’s annual check from
Uncle Sam is a month late. Could that have anything to do with Mubarak’s sudden enthusiasm for
democracy?

Meet The Iranian Resistance

Here’s an in depth interview with two
Iranian activists
working for “regime change” in Iran.
There’s a lot of interesting material, including talk of a turn back to Zoroastrianism, the monotheistic religion
that obtained in Persia before the conquest by Islam.