Tony Blankley from Creators Syndicate

End the Coarsening of Civic Discourse for 09/23/2009

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As the town hall meetings on health care started in early August, the Democratic Party's talking points accused the attending citizens of being "demonstrators hired by K Street lobbyists." Then they started calling them a "mob." Getting into the spirit of his party, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called those who oppose Obamacare "evil." Then House De ...

Updated: Wed Sep 23, 2009

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Cut and Walk From Afghanistan? for 09/30/2009

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The gist of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's analysis that presumably will be presented to President Barack Obama is: If 1) you and Congress fully resource the effort (troops, materiel and civilian aid) and 2) if we get much better at coordinating all our assets — Defense and State departments, the U.S. Agency for International Development, intelligence, contractors, NATO and others — then ...

Updated: Wed Sep 30, 2009

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Cherry-picking Intelligence ... Again for 10/07/2009

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Al-Qaida is becoming the weapons of mass destruction of the Obama administration's war in Afghanistan. Or, to be more precise, it is a reverse WMD. For the George W. Bush administration, the likely presence of WMD in Iraq was a major justification for going to war. For Vice President Joe Biden and some senior Obama White House staff members (we do not know the position of the president yet), th ...

Updated: Wed Oct 07, 2009

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Washington Is Nuts for 10/14/2009

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Want to hear a real laugher? Despite the current disharmony in politics, there's one policy on which all of Washington agrees. Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, president and Congress all agree that after last fall's financial crisis, the federal government has to regulate the financial industry more closely to protect our economy from risk of systemic financial collapse.

Here ...

Updated: Wed Oct 14, 2009

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The World Won't Wait On Washington Indecision for 10/21/2009

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

On three fronts — South Korean trade, Ukrainian/Russian diplomacy and Afghan war fighting — the Obama administration is being increasingly pressured by unfolding events to shed ideology and rationalizations and come quickly to a realistic analysis of world events and their consequences. In each of these cases, in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, ...

Updated: Wed Oct 21, 2009

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GOP Must Not Vote 'Present' on Our Future for 10/28/2009

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

A growing percentage of those Americans who oppose President Barack Obama believe the president is testing the envelope of acceptable domestic, constitutional and foreign policies. Staggering deficits measured in the trillions, unemployment measured almost in double digits and a weakening dollar measured in ever fewer ounces of gold are creating an economic crisis that is testing America's hist ...

Updated: Wed Oct 28, 2009

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A Curious Lack of Curiosity Over Intelligence Outrage for 11/04/2009

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Not so long ago, there was a furious fight among different tribes in the White House, CIA and State and Defense departments over the correct war-fighting strategy. The coin of the realm back then was intelligence. Intelligence that pointed in the right policy direction was cherry-picked and shown to the public; covert players connected to undesirable conclusions were outed or disparaged. This f ...

Updated: Wed Nov 04, 2009

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Hillary in 2012? for 11/11/2009

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

I write this week from New Orleans, where I am participating in the Bipartisan Policy Center's Inaugural Political Summit, organized by Tom Daschle, Howard Baker and Bob Dole and hosted by Mary Matalin and James Carville.

The conference has assembled about 20 top Democratic and Republican political strategists and operatives and has asked us to assess how we might take the poison out of ...

Updated: Wed Nov 11, 2009

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An Exit Strategy To Die For for 11/18/2009

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

In the past few days, the White House has made it clear that the president wants specific exit strategies for all his Afghan war options. That brought to mind the advice — from almost a century ago — of an American geopolitician describing the only exit strategy worth considering:

"Over there, over there,

Send the word, send the word over there,

That the Ya ...

Updated: Wed Nov 18, 2009

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Afghan Rebuttal and Surrebuttal on the Right for 11/25/2009

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Two noteworthy responses to my column last week ("An Exit Strategy To Die For") deserve my reply. In the online magazine Commentary, Max Boot, one of the most respected foreign-policy voices on the right, explicitly dissented from the central premise of my column. In The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan, though politely not mentioning my column, dedicated their lead editor ...

Updated: Wed Nov 25, 2009

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Nothing Is Inevitable, but Anything Is Possible for 12/02/2009

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Regularly reading the Financial Times (Britain's leading financial daily) can put an American in a fighting spirit. At least, it puts this American (transplanted former Englishman and naturalized American citizen that I am) in such a disposition.

I have in mind, this time, an article in Monday's edition by Jeffrey Garten, titled "We must get ready for a weak-dollar world." The ...

Updated: Wed Dec 02, 2009

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Too Few Troops, Too Much Spin for 12/09/2009

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

A sense of unreality overshadows our debate on Afghan war policy across the spectrum of opinions. The unreality derives from the simple fact that we do not have enough troops to rationally implement an adequate defense of our national interests. So every argument for Afghanistan policy tends to seem unserious, perhaps pointless.

For example, Gen. Stanley McChrystal's proposal calls for a ...

Updated: Wed Dec 09, 2009

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Three Undemocratic Temptations for 12/16/2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

As the Democrats in Congress approach the end of a frustrating first year's legislative effort, their leaders and the White House are being tempted by three possible shortcuts around the regular lawmaking process. Though the Democrats have a majority of 20 seats in the Senate and 79 seats in the House, now, just a week before Christmas, the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader and t ...

Updated: Wed Dec 16, 2009

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'Yet, Freedom!' for 12/23/2009

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Taking stock this second Christmas after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency — as a conservative Republican (with growing "tea party" tendencies) — I'm filled with a thrilling, unexpected hopefulness that the president may be well on his way to losing his battle for the hearts and minds of the American people — tempered by a shocked disbelief that so much ...

Updated: Wed Dec 23, 2009

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Afghan War Policy Fractured for 12/30/2009

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Franklin Roosevelt was famous for being able to give people on all sides of a policy dispute the impression that he supported each person's position. Such artfulness helped him manage domestic politics for 12 years in the presidency. Similarly, President Obama wrote in his book "The Audacity of Hope" that "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political st ...

Updated: Wed Dec 30, 2009

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Winston Churchill Still Instructs for 01/06/2010

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Over the Christmas holiday, I read a couple of books that, at least for me, may provide some guidance in the upcoming tumultuous and probably consequential year. The first book was "Munich, 1938" by David Faber (grandson of former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan), by far the most authoritative book on that world-changing event.

Beyond the obvious policy point that appea ...

Updated: Wed Jan 06, 2010

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Reject Politically Correct "Educated Class" for 01/13/2010

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Anti-anti-Islamic radicalism is growing amongst Western elites. In the aftermath of the Fort Hood Islamist terror attack on our troops by United States Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and the Christmas day airline Islamist terror attack attempt, it is becoming ever more obvious that there is a widening gap between public common sense and governing class idiocy when it comes to spotting Islamist dan ...

Updated: Wed Jan 13, 2010

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Kangaroo Court for the Banks for 01/20/2010

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

As a general rule, diagnosis should precede treatment. But last week, we saw in both the legislative and executive branches examples of the "treatment before diagnosis" mentality. In Congress, the first hearings of the congressionally created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was held under the chairmanship of Phil Angelides, former California treasurer and former chairman of the Ca ...

Updated: Wed Jan 20, 2010

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Repeal the 17th Amendment for 01/27/2010

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

As I was preparing to write a column on the ludicrous maligning of the Tea Party movement by liberals, Democrats and the mainstream media (which I hope to write next week, instead), I started thinking about one of the key objectives of the Tea Party people — the strict enforcement of the 10th Amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibite ...

Updated: Wed Jan 27, 2010

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Obama's Quagmire of Ambiguity for 02/03/2010

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Last week, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote: "Who is Barack Obama? Americans are still looking for the answer, and if they don't get it soon — or if they don't like the answer — the president's current political problems will look like a walk in the park. ... Mr. Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose rhetoric, however skillful, cannot always be truste ...

Updated: Wed Feb 03, 2010

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