Tony Blankley from Creators Syndicate

Obama's Governing Style for 02/18/2009

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

In the Middle Ages, when a young prince suddenly and prematurely became king, the royal court, the church leadership and other senior aristocrats would scrutinize his every word and habit for signs of what kind of mind would be deciding their country's fate and their personal prosperity and safety. Today, around the world, President Barack Obama's every word, every action, every inaction is bei ...

Updated: Wed Feb 18, 2009

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Always Look on the Bright Side of Life for 02/25/2009

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

I hate to admit it, but I miss Bill Clinton. At least that lecherous old charmer was more amusing than his successor as a Democratic president, our new mortician in chief, Barack "End of the World" Obama.

Although, our new president's spokesman did deliver the funniest line of this so-far-not-too-funny millennium. Last week, Robert Gibbs called the president — who, in the ...

Updated: Wed Feb 25, 2009

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Obama Lied; The Economy Died for 03/04/2009

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

I am trying to capture the spirit of bipartisanship as practiced by the Democratic Party over the past eight years. Thus, I have chosen as my lead this proposition: Obama lied; the economy died. Obviously, I am borrowing this from the Democratic theme of 2003-08: "Bush lied, people died." There are, of course, two differences between the slogans.

Most importantly, I chose to se ...

Updated: Wed Mar 04, 2009

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Obama Leverages His Political Risk in First 50 Days for 03/11/2009

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Many of the media are following the convention of assessing President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office. The term first was applied to new American presidents during Franklin Roosevelt's spring of 1933, when, between March and June, he proposed and Congress passed unprecedented federal programs: the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Securities Act, the ...

Updated: Wed Mar 11, 2009

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Getting Too Ugly Too Soon for 03/18/2009

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In the past few weeks, the language of national political debate has turned too ugly too soon. The temperature is rising, and I have felt it in the rising of my own political blood. A few weeks ago, I wrote a column on President Barack Obama's budget that I opened with a disparaging characterization of the president. The response was powerful. I received fivefold the normal number of e-mail res ...

Updated: Wed Mar 18, 2009

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The Most Dangerous City in the World for 03/25/2009

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In a world growing more dangerous by the week in this dark spring of 2009, Washington may be the most dangerous city in the world. The city is safe enough for its residents; it is the rest of the country and world that is endangered by what Washington is capable of doing. On a bipartisan, bicameral and bi-governmental (executive and legislative branches) basis, rarely has so much policymaking a ...

Updated: Wed Mar 25, 2009

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'Liberty and Tyranny' Reviewed for 04/01/2009

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Last Sunday's New York Times reported: "Mr. Obama will confront resentment over American-style capitalism and resistance to his economic prescriptions when he lands in London. … He will be tested in face-to-face meetings by the leaders of China and Russia, who have been pondering the degree to which the power of the United States to dominate global affairs may be ebbing. … Th ...

Updated: Wed Apr 01, 2009

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Health Care in the Offing for 04/08/2009

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Of all President Barack Obama's transformative domestic policy proposals, none is more far-reaching and less transparent than health care. What most Washington policy people mean when they talk about his health care proposal was described in the first two paragraphs of Robert Pear's meticulous article in The New York Times on April 1:

"Efforts to overhaul the health care system have ...

Updated: Wed Apr 08, 2009

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A Nuclear Talibanistan? for 04/15/2009

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Our view of Pakistan's role in the war in Afghanistan has undergone an ominous but necessary series of shifts. At the outset of the war, in October 2001, Pakistan correctly was seen as a necessary ally — both politically and geographically — as it was the primary conduit for our entry and lines of communication into Afghanistan.

Over the years, we came to understand that Paki ...

Updated: Wed Apr 15, 2009

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Honest Talk About Chinese Currency Manipulation for 04/22/2009

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Last week, the Obama administration declined to cite China for currency manipulation despite the fact that most experts — including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during his confirmation testimony — do not deny the obvious currency-rate fixing by China. Almost certainly, this decision reflected merely a tactical judgment not to offend China, given China's vital role in the inte ...

Updated: Wed Apr 22, 2009

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Public's Right To Know? for 04/29/2009

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Several events in recent months bring back to the forefront the perennial assertion that, on grounds of both efficacy and ethics, the public's "right to know" is the best guide to good government and good institutions. Indeed, the Obama administration prominently displays on the White House's Web site a presidential memorandum: "MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS A ...

Updated: Wed Apr 29, 2009

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Without Preparation, Explanation or Response for 05/06/2009

Wed, 06 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Does anyone take serious words seriously anymore here in Washington?

News item No. 1 concerns the testimony of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on April 22. She said deteriorating security in nuclear-armed Pakistan "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world."

News item No. 2 is this headline ...

Updated: Wed May 06, 2009

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Arabs Pressure Obama for Quick Peace Accord for 05/13/2009

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Last Sunday, the British newspaper The Times published an interview with Jordan's King Abdullah II, in which the maturing king demonstrated a deft touch in putting pressure both on the new prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and on President Barack Obama.

The king's comments — coming about two weeks after his Washington visit with our president, one day after his visit wi ...

Updated: Wed May 13, 2009

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How About Reality-Based Diplomacy? for 05/20/2009

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Upon hearing of the death of a Turkish ambassador, the serpentine French diplomat Talleyrand was reputed to have responded, "I wonder what he meant by that." With that level of skepticism in mind, all shrewd diplomats and observers of diplomacy look beneath the surface language and actions of diplomacy to the underlying realities that will shape negotiations, because, as professor Ang ...

Updated: Wed May 20, 2009

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Economic Reality of 5 Million Green Jobs for 05/27/2009

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In 1845, the French economist Frederic Bastiat published a satirical petition from the "Manufacturers of Candles" to the French Chamber of Deputies, which ridiculed the arguments made on behalf of inefficient industries to protect them from more efficient producers:

"We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far super ...

Updated: Wed May 27, 2009

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Death by Deficit for 06/03/2009

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Roman historian Livy famously described the terminal plight of the late Roman Republic: "Nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus" ("We can bear neither our shortcomings nor the remedies for them"). As I reread this phrase in Christian Meier's biography of Julius Caesar this past weekend, I couldn't help thinking of America's current fiscal profligacy — which has ...

Updated: Wed Jun 03, 2009

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Europe Asks, Does Tomorrow Belong to Us? for 06/10/2009

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Last weekend's European Parliament and British local county council elections were not only a victory for the center-right over the center-left but also, more significantly, an indication of the growing rejection of the past 60 years of denationalized and consolidating European history. They were, particularly, a sharp assertion by many indigenous Europeans that they will not put up with losing ...

Updated: Wed Jun 10, 2009

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A Fine Madness in the Washington Air for 06/17/2009

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

To borrow Niall Ferguson's metaphor, if finance is an evolutionary process, then regulation is its intelligent design — which, I would add, is a cognate of faith, not science.

Or, to take the observation of former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin, if "the financial system (is) the brain of the economy," then, I would suggest, heavy regulation is its lobotomy; whi ...

Updated: Wed Jun 17, 2009

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The Presidency at 5 Months for 06/24/2009

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Last week, both David Broder, The Washington Post's venerable and authoritative political voice, and Chuck Todd, NBC's new important political voice, declared President Barack Obama's honeymoon over.

Although almost every new American presidency is launched with renewed hope and optimism for both the president and the nation (Abraham Lincoln's being a conspicuous exception in 1861), a ti ...

Updated: Wed Jun 24, 2009

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From Kabul to Baghdad -- and Back for 07/01/2009

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

This week, American troops start leaving Iraqi cities in compliance with both former President George W. Bush's negotiated start date for withdrawal and President Barack Obama's campaign pledge. Given Bush's profound commitment to succeed in Iraq, if he were still in office and if he judged such a scheduled removal of troops to be dangerous, he doubtlessly would have postponed the action &mdash ...

Updated: Wed Jul 01, 2009

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