The New Blacklist

My days as a political analyst at MSNBC have come to an end. After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous. The calls for my firing began almost ...

On to Tehran—or Is It Damascus?

Our War Party has been temporarily diverted from its clamor for war on Iran by the insurrection against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Estimates of the dead since the Syrian uprising began a year ago approach 6,000. And responsibility for the carnage is being laid at the feet of the ...

Benjamin

Who Wants War With Iran?

Appearing alongside CIA Director David Petraeus before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said of Iran: “We don’t believe they’ve actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon.” Before ...

Barack Obama

Obama Sandbags the Archbishop

At the end of Sunday mass at the church this writer attends in Washington, D.C., the pastor asked the congregation to remain for a few minutes. Then, on the instructions of Cardinal Archbishop Donald Wuerl, the pastor proceeded to read a letter. In the letter, the Church denounced the Obama ...

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney

Mitt vs. Newt: the Gloves Come Off

Newt Gingrich’s surge to success in South Carolina has surely brought joy to the Obama White House. For his 12-point victory ensures the fight for the GOP nomination will not end soon and will get nastier. Indeed, it already has. Whether Newt or Mitt Romney emerges victorious, the candidate ...

Carnegie Steel

Vulture Capitalism or Populist Demagoguery?

“They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for a company to get sick, and then they swoop in ... eat the carcass ... and ... leave the skeleton.” So Rick Perry colorfully characterized the private equity firm Bain Capital, once run by Mitt Romney. How ...

GOP War of All Against All?

There still exists a possibility that, come Jan. 20, 2013, we could have a Republican Senate and House, and a Republican president. But there is also a possibility that a Goldwater-Rockefeller-type family bloodletting could sunder the party and kick it all away. America is bored with Barack Obama. ...

Our Innocents Abroad?

Friday’s lead stories in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal dealt with what both viewed as a national affront and outrage. Egyptian soldiers, said the Post, “stormed the offices” of three U.S. “democracy-building organizations ... in a dramatic escalation of a ...

Santa Monica, California

Whose Country Is It, Anyway?

Half a century ago, American children were schooled in Aesop’s fables. Among the more famous of these were The Fox and the Grapes and The Tortoise and the Hare. Particularly appropriate this Christmas season, and every Christmas lately, is Aesop’s fable of The Dog in the Manger. The ...

Second Period of Islamic Power

For the 30 years since The McLaughlin Group began to run on network television, the Christmas and New Year’s shows have been devoted to the conferring of annual awards. The first award on the Christmas show is “Biggest Winner.” This year, clearly, one of the world’s big ...