Previously, I contrasted two official U.S. responses to news that the Saudi ambassador’s wife possibly funded the 9/11 hijackers: The Bush administration pooh-poohed it, while leading U.S. senators expressed outrage. I argued that this difference results from a...
POLITICS
World on Fire: Dangerous Democracy?
One of the cornerstones of the war on terrorism is the premise that promoting democracy is a long-run goal for creating a better world, one which will not breed so many terrorists. But a new book, “World on Fire” by Professor Amy Chua of the Yale law...
Growth, Yes. Stimulus Package, no.
Now that President Bush has named his new economic team, he’s expected to turn his attention to a stimulus package. I hope not. Growth, yes. Stimulus, no. “Stimulus” implies a goose to the economy – or, more politely, the quick boost you get...
Time’s “Person” of the Year: American Values, or Media Values?
I remember as a child eagerly awaiting Time magazine’s choice of its Man of the Year each year. I believed that there were great men and great events in the world that I needed to know about, and that there was a great arbiter of them — Time — that...
The UN Human Rights Agenda: A Strategy of Diversion
[Originally this article was supposed to be published in The New York Times. Read what the author went through once the Times “accepted” it.–CM] Every year over 100,000 people write letters about human rights violations which begin “Dear Mr. UN...
The New York Times: “All the News that’s Fit to Print”–Not
Ever wondered what goes on inside the editorial department of the New York Times? Here is what professor Anne Bayefsky faced when the New York Times accepted her piece “The UN Human Rights Agenda: A Strategy of Diversion.”– CM Author’s Note:...
NY Times Snow Job on Recently Nominated Treasury Secretary
Newspapers are supposed to report the news — facts — so that people can use those facts when they form their opinions. But where do newspapers get facts? How do reporters know that what they are reporting is true? How do readers know? These questions are...
NY Times Snow Job on Recently Nominated Treasury Secretary
Newspapers are supposed to report the news — facts — so that people can use those facts when they form their opinions. But where do newspapers get facts? How do reporters know that what they are reporting is true? How do readers know? These questions are...
Peace on Earth — and Its Price
This year, more than most, many people are choosing to spend their Christmas by searching for a haven of peace and tranquility in their homes and families. But we have not been able to do so without a few reminders of the value and the cost of that peace. I have been...
Tis the Season…to Understand Individual Rights
Most Americans think slavery ended with the 13th Amendment in 1865. It did, in the United States. But it is alive and well today in the Sudan and Mauritania. In these African countries, blacks suffer at the hands of Arabs, who ransack villages, kill the men and sell...
Piss off the Terrorists and their Allies: Privatize the World Trade Center
Jack Smith of Monticello, Minnesota, wrote in the following to a Wall Street Journal columnist regarding the site of the World Trade Center, expressing his disagreement with the idea of rebuilding it: This is Gettysburg, the Alamo, the Arizona Memorial. Sorry,...
The Conservative Cult of Human Sacrifice
In a column earlier this month in TownHall by Ross Mackenzie, Mackenzie issues a call for mandatory universal service for America’s youth. “Compulsory universal service–one year with an eight-week military component, men and women, no exceptions...
Random Thoughts for December 2002
Random thoughts on the passing scene: It is a little much when people come to this country preaching hatred against others and demanding tolerance for themselves. Thanksgiving may be our most old-fashioned holiday. Gratitude itself seems out of date at a time when so...
Racism in Congress: The Black Caucus
In expressing “outrage” over Senator Trent Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond and his segregationist vision, the Congressional Black Caucus was calling the kettle black. Every member of the “Black Caucus” should follow Lott’s lead and...
A No-Account Debate
“Grandma Doesn’t Scare Anymore,” reads the headline of a post-election Wall Street Journal editorial noting the success of candidates who back Social Security reform. Seniors are “willing to listen to politicians who tell them the truth about...
Snow Job in the Iraqi Desert
That’s it. The dog ate Saddam Hussein’s homework. Just as no self-respecting teacher would accept this lamest of excuses, so the U.N. Security Council surely will not accept the pathetic explanations that are being served up by Iraq’s representatives...
Invest in the Market for the Long Run
My favorite curmudgeon, the Scrooge of Stocks, is a former National Geographic photographer named Charles Allmon. He lives in Potomac, manages about $100 million for clients, and is the founder and editor of Growth Stock Outlook, now in its 38th year. When I first met...
Faith is Not Enough
Senator Santorum last Sunday assured us that Senator Lott could not be a racist, as he is a man of deep faith and has had many prayer breakfasts with Senator Santorum. Again and again, we are told that someone who is deeply religious cannot be a bad person, and that a...
PBS, Recruiting for Islam
What would be the best way to convert lots of Americans to Islam? Forget print, go to film. Put together a handsome documentary with an original musical score that presents Islam’s prophet Muhammad in the most glowing manner, indeed, as a model of perfection....
Lott’s Resignation: Now the Real Work Begins
According to the Associated Press, “A beleaguered Trent Lott stepped aside Friday as Senate Republican leader two weeks after igniting a political firestorm with racially charged remarks, and Tennessee’s Bill Frist prepared to inherit the job when the GOP...
Ten Stock-ing Stuffers
In January 1995, I started offering readers a list of 10 stocks to consider for the year ahead, making my selections from the choices of market pros whose opinions I value. In five years of this exercise, my lists returned an annual average of 24 percent, compared...
William F. Buckley is all Liberal Inside
William F. Buckley Jr., in the 12/12/02 “Wall Street Journal” writes: “Conservatives (unlike anarchists, or Objectivists) know that sacrifices are necessary, even as diet is necessary for organic health.” Specifically, he refers to the example...
“Hate Crime” Legislation is an Assault on Free Speech
If images of people being persecuted for “thought crimes” strike you as the stuff of science fiction — or, at worst, something that happened when communism was at its height and jackboots were storming Europe — get ready for a wake-up call. It...
The New Segregation: Racism in America, Then and Now
Trent Lott has changed from a nostalgist for segregation to an open advocate of neo-segregation. Lott’s old doctrine was called “separate but equal,” and kept black people out of white establishments by law, maintaining two separate sets of...
Trent Lott, Race, and Hypocrisy, Part 2
Behind the endless apologies of Senator Trent Lott is the implied threat, expressed obliquely by his ally Senator Mitch McConnell, that Lott might resign from the Senate if stripped of his role as majority leader. This is denied by Senator Lott, but Washington denials...
The Democrats’ Sorry Lot
The Republicans always find a way to do this: just when they have scored a sweeping victory, they find a way to turn it into defeat. And so it was that Trent Lott celebrated his party’s mid-term election win with a bizarre endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s...
Good Riddance, IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti
When Charles Rossotti became commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service five years ago, taxpayers hoped this marked a new beginning. Unlike all the tax lawyers who preceded him, Rossotti came from a business background. Presumably, he understood the need to end some...
Unlimited Liability
Americans believe strongly in the principle that an individual is innocent until proven guilty–and thus consider it a moral outrage to hold someone responsible for an evil he did not commit. In response to reports of a handful of innocent Arab-Americans being...
Trent Lott, Race, and Hypocrisy
Too many people have asked the wrong question about Trent Lott and have come up with the wrong answer. The real question is not so much about Senator Lott’s past statements but about the Republican Party’s future. What will Trent Lott’s continuance...
Destroy the WorldCom Zombie Already
With phony profits now expected to top $9 billion, WorldCom, Inc, the Mississippi-based telecommunications company, has earned the distinction of committing the worst accounting fraud in American history. As a result, investors have marked down WorldCom’s stock...
Thanks a Lott
Of course it was an idiotic thing to say. And of course Senator Lott’s remarks have been taken out of context. Neither of these opposing viewpoints refer to the real issue. The real issue is power. Democrats who now condemn Senator Lott for his apparent racism...
Fatwa: Coming to a Country Near You
“There is no room for play in Islam… It is deadly serious about everything.” So declared Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1980. Nine years later, Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie discovered the grim consequences of free...
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