The other day I was at the house of some friends who have a mixed marriage.
It’s not the type of mix you might think. This is a case of a woman who’s a diehard Obama supporter married to a McCain guy. This sort of split isn’t unusual for them; they nearly always disagree on politics.
One way they deal with the situation is that they hardly ever discuss the topic. Continue reading →
It’s an odd fact that in recent decades a startling proportion of Presidents have been left-handed, and no one really has a clue why, although guesses abound. The list includes Truman, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II—as well as our next President, whomever he might be, because both McCain and Obama are southpaws. Even more surprising, in 1992 all three major candidates—Bush I, Clinton, and Ross Perot—were left-handed. Continue reading →
The NY Times has a dismissive article about the new Corsi book on Obama entitled Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, which to the chagrin of the Times editors, “is to make its first appearance on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction hardcovers this Sunday—at No. 1.”
A bit difficult to ignore, I guess. Continue reading →
For those of us old enough to remember the most frigid days of the long Cold War, the recent Russian military action in Georgia has a familiar ring.
Not exactly, of course; history never repeats itself, it merely rhymes—and sometimes the rhyme is only near-rhyme. But I agree with pundits who write that this latest action of Russia (I keep wanting to write “the Soviet Union,” an urge I haven’t had in many years) is a naked power play to reassert its dominance over nearby countries that used to be its territories and/or satellites. Continue reading →
You may recall my disastrous efforts to learn to tango, chronicled here. But I still enjoy the dance as spectator, and the other evening I had the good fortune to attend a thrilling tango performance.
Which made me think of one of my favorite movie scenes (for those of you unfamiliar with “Scent of a Woman,” in this clip Al Pacino is supposed to be blind, and to have managed to persuade a lovely young woman to allow him to teach her to tango):
From my previous tango experiences, I will say that either the Pacino character is the best leader on earth or else this is not this lady’s first tango. Perhaps both. Continue reading →
Richard Landes continues on the topic of the Enderlin/France2 case, and expands into a discussion of media intimidation and complicity.
Do you? I don’t.
Care, that is.
Lest you misunderstand, I will say that I think what Edwards did was wrong and I condemn it. But, as with the infidelities of myriad other politicians, I can’t get very worked up about it.
Nor do I think—and this is where I’ll probably get into hot water with some people—that his behavior necessarily reflects on the kind of leader and statesman he would have been had he gotten elected. I think he would have been a lousy one with or without this particular item on his resume, hidden or overt. Continue reading →
The violence in Georgia has most pundits stating that Russia is using heavy-handed tactics to keep Georgia and any other possible breakaway former territories firmly in its field of orbit and out of NATO (see this and this). In this calculation it is counting on the weakness and reluctance of the West to defend its would-be ally.
Another point of view was expressed by Russian commenter “sergey” on this blog (see dialogue beginning here), who sees Russia as intervening to protect the Ossetins. Continue reading →
Peggy Noonan writes in today’s WSJ:
Two weeks ago a journalist, a moderate liberal, spoke to me of what he called Mr. Obama’s arrogance. I said I didn’t think it was arrogance but high self-regard. He said there’s no difference. I said no, arrogance has an air about it of pushing people around, insisting on your way. Mr. Obama doesn’t seem like that. He took down a machine without raising his voice. Extremely high self-regard, though, can itself be a problem.
“What’s wrong with that?” my friend said. “You want a self-confident president.”
Yes, we all want a self-confident President rather than an arrogant one. Continue reading →
It seems that Barack Obama neglected to drive a stake into Hillary’s heart on the way to his triumphal world tour.
Does it matter? Can Hillary manage to wrest away the superdelegates so vital to Obama’s nomination? Those who consider her a combination of Machiavelli, Lucrezia Borgia, and Lady Macbeth consider it a distinct possibility.
I beg to differ. Continue reading →
I don’t drink.
Oh, I can take a sip or two of almost any alcoholic beverage—sometimes even three or four sips on an especially wild night. And I enjoy them, as many of my friends and dinner companions have discovered. But then something mysterious happens and I simply cannot drink any more. Continue reading →
[NOTE: For some reason this is loading very slowly on my computer. Hope it works better on yours.]