National Politics
Bill Ayers tries to rewrite his personal life history in this New York Times editorial. J. G. Thayer doesn’t let him get away with airbrushing history: …The facts are simple: Ayers — by his own admission; he described himself after his trial as “guilty as hell; free as a bird” — should have been sent…
As the master of malaprops, Yogi Berra, once said: This is like deja vu all over again. I guess it isn’t enough to pull out all the old books which tackled the realities around the Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal versus the commonly held myths. It now looks like the time to also pull…
Melanie Phillips: Trevor Loudon has got hold of a fascinating analysis of Prez-elect Obama’s administrative appointments by Mark Rudd and Jeff Jones, two former Weather Underground terrorists (chums of Obama’s old ally [chance acquaintance], the unrepentant former WU terrorist William Ayers). The two of them are now on the board of Movement for a Democratic…
Continuing the earlier discussion about the Detroit bailouts, there is a broader debate taking shape: Obama Chief of Staff Hopes to Exploit the Economic Crisis to Expand the Growth of Government: In earlier posts I have emphasized the risk that the combination of economic crisis and unified Democratic control of Congress and the White House…
Glenn Reynolds: Though people still speak of a decision to go to war as something done to enhance the political position of incumbent presidents, history doesn’t support that. Truman fought in Korea and lost the next election. LBJ had to give up the White House over Vietnam. George H.W. Bush won in Iraq and enjoyed…
Those all-powerful radio hosts are to blame for the Republicans’ misfortunes, according to Steven Stark. If that’s the case, perhaps liberals’ difficulty succeeding in the medium was a function of strategy. More seriously, I’d point out that Stark has picked two moments in history and asserted a trend, even though Republicans’ fortunes have been more…
With a H/T to Rossputin, here is Father Sirico of the Acton Institute offering his assessment of the current state of economic thinking: …That when one divorces freedom from faith both freedom and faith suffer. Freedom becomes rudderless (because truth gives freedom its direction). It is left up for grabs to the most adept political…
Larry Kudlow: …Stocks were off big today — before, during, and after Paulson — closing down over 400. Tough to pin it on the Treasury man, however, since the plunge started in the early-morning well before he spoke. Some folks think the stock market is stalking Obama, whose defining moment may be a GM bailout.…
Shall we all stop paying our mortgages for the next 2 months so we also can qualify for a bailout?
It took historians a full term of George W. Bush’s presidency before they declared he was “the worst president ever.” Now, only days after the election, at least one prominent historian is declaring that the presidency of Barack Obama will be “unforgettable” (h/t). Like Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D.Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F.Kennedy, and…