In her new book, "Going Rogue," Palin complains about her running mate's handlers, whom she says kept her from being herself. I have similar complaints. Those handlers also kept me from interviewing her. The handlers are long gone, of course, but still I cannot get close to her.

I could either play the victim, or move on. I choose to move on....]]> Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 After pledging during last year's presidential campaign, and as recently as the spring, not to revisit the past, the Obama administration, in the person of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., has named a special prosecutor to go after CIA interrogators who pried information from terrorist suspects, preventing more deadly assaults on the country.

Before the hard left assumed power, anyone engaged in protecting America by interrupting terrorist plans might have expected a commendation. Now that person could face jail time. Somewhere in a cave in Pakistan, Obama bin Laden rejoices. By any objective standard, releasing terrorists from prison and prosecuting their interrogators is...]]> Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote an Op-Ed column for The Washington Post on Tuesday in defense of the Obama administration's efforts to "reform" health care. She wrote: "President Obama and I are working closely with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate and health care experts to make sure we get the details of health reform right. But we can't let the details distract us from the huge benefits that reform will bring."

So, the objective is all that matters, not the process by which we get there? The most important words in a contract may be in the...]]> Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 ROME -- What did President Obama achieve for himself and for America during last week's summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations in L'Aquila, Italy? Not much.

Despite what presumably was his best effort at using the charm, personality and teleprompter that catapulted him into office, he was unsuccessful in persuading either wealthy or developing nations to sign off on a plan to combat global warming. It's not that he lacks support from the European media. CNN International and the BBC, among others, continue to blanket their networks with "green" propaganda in a disinformation blitz that would have made Joseph Goebbels proud.

If Mr. Obama can't persuade 17 of...]]> Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Help me out here. President Obama immediately "meddles" in the affairs of Honduras, denouncing a military coup, the intent of which is to preserve the country's constitution, but when it comes to Iran's fraudulent election and the violent repression of demonstrators who wanted their votes counted, the president initially vacillates and equivocates.

Are we expected to accept this as a consistent foreign policy? Even Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was reluctant to call the removal of President Manuel Zelaya a coup, if for no other reason than it would stop U.S. aid flowing to the impoverished Central American nation.

The fingerprints (or in this case the boot...]]> Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0500 A statue of Ronald Reagan was unveiled last week in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda at a time when many Republicans, and even some conservatives, think Reagan's ideas are passé. Before moving on, Republicans, and those conservatives who don't want to ''live in the past,'' should be asked what better ideas they have to offer.

As the Obama administration and congressional Democrats move quickly with their new power to grab even more power and to build larger, more intrusive and costlier government, they -- and we -- should consider Reagan's thoughts on the ''power of the individual, rather than government power, and peace through strength to keep us free.'' And, ''man is not free...]]> Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Whatever Judge Sotomayor’s “qualifications,” this is clearly a political pick and a “three-fer” for Obama.

She is a woman, a Hispanic and a liberal.

One can be sure that had things gone badly and Capt. Phillips had been killed, or if the president had gone to the United Nations for a resolution condemning the kidnapping, or if the ransom was paid and the terrorists escaped, conservatives would have been all over the president,...]]> Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500 April 15 might become the biggest tax-and-spend protest since the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Politicians fear spontaneous citizen outrage. That's because when the public realizes they have been scammed, bamboozled, defrauded and hustled by politicians who take and then misspend their money -- mostly to enhance their own power -- they'll run like scalded dogs.

Unlike in the 1958 cult movie "The Blob," which featured a creature from outer space that consumed everything to which it attached itself, government is a homegrown monster, consuming ever-increasing amounts of capital. And this government blob doesn't discriminate. It grows no matter which party is in charge. While the...]]> Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 The Obama "stimulus" plan is a $1 trillion gamble more suited to Las Vegas than Washington. It bets the economic vitality of future generations on the belief that money from Washington would jumpstart the economy. Generally, one jumpstarts a car when the battery is dead, but America's "batteries" (its people) are not dead. The vehicle has stalled because too much government meddling and loss of personal responsibility has flooded the engine. More meddling will not revive the U.S. economy anymore than holding down the accelerator on a flooded engine will start a car.

Republicans might enjoy more credibility when calling for individual responsibility had they behaved differently...]]> Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 President Bush compares the fighting between Hamas and Israel in Gaza to what occurred in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein: "As this young democracy [Iraq] was taking hold, terrorists, suiciders, killers did what they thought was necessary to shake the will of the people ... to stop the advance of a free society. And yet, over time the Iraqi situation has gotten better and democracy is beginning to take hold."

The president remains optimistic that a Palestinian state can be created that will live in peace with Israel: "The definition of a state was being negotiated by [Israeli] Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert and [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas."

I ask him if...]]> Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600 McCaffrey, now an adjunct professor of International Affairs at the United States Military Academy at West Point, wrote a memorandum for his academic colleagues. It concludes, "The United States is now clearly in the end game in Iraq to successfully achieve what should be our principle objectives: the withdrawal of the majority of U.S. ground combat forces ... in the coming 36 months; leaving behind an operative civil state and effective Iraqi security forces; an Iraqi state which is not in open civil war among the Shia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds; and an Iraqi nation which is not at war with its six neighboring states."

While adding that the security situation is "still subject to...]]> Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Stossel visited New Orleans to see how government reconstruction is progressing three years after Hurricane Katrina. What he found should not surprise anyone. Huge numbers of houses remain un-repaired thanks to a bureaucracy that could serve as a plot for a horror movie called "Nightmare on Bourbon Street." The forms necessary to apply for permits to conduct any repairs or construct new buildings take 10 minutes to explain. As for the houses themselves, "Of the 314 public projects (New Orleans Mayor Ray) Nagin promoted in his 'One New Orleans' rebuilding campaign announced in January 2006, only six are complete."

Contrast that with what the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity has done:...]]> Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 "Bush was so afraid of a snafu and of upsetting Israel that he gave the whole thing a miss," Jackson told Taheri. "Barack will change that, because, as long as the Palestinians haven't seen justice, the Middle East will remain a source of danger to us all. Barack is determined to repair our relations with the world of Islam and Muslims," Jackson said. "Thanks to his background and ecumenical approach, he knows how Muslims feel while remaining committed to his own faith."

What could this mean? Jackson, who is in denial about the enormous progress in Iraq (he still maintains the war is lost and that toppling the monster Saddam Hussein was an "illegal act"), is sending a message of...]]> Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 The court majority bought the legal pabulum served up by attorneys for the plaintiffs that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is akin to once prevalent laws prohibiting interracial marriage, as well as laws that discriminated against women for certain jobs and relegated blacks to "separate but equal" schools and other public venues.

Writing for the majority, Justice Richard N. Palmer revealed his acceptance of the liberal doctrine of a "living Constitution" constantly in need of updating in keeping with the times: "...our understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection." Using such a standard, if...]]> Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Listening to the questions (and the answers) was like watching TV poker. A questioner made a bid on, say, the mortgage crisis or health care. What will the candidates do for me? Obama would make a bet that his proposal was best and McCain would raise him. Inexplicably, McCain called for a reduction in federal spending as one way to begin fixing the spiraling economy, while he simultaneously proposed $300 billion in new spending to bail people out of mortgages they cannot afford. Do we need "real estate agent" added to the growing list of things government does not do well?

In none of the questions from the "undecideds" (or answers from the candidates) was there a suggestion that...]]> Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 A group calling itself Faithful Catholic Citizens" (FCC) has produced two powerful television commercials, which are running in Iowa and soon, it hopes, in heavily Catholic Pennsylvania. Both spots begin with a confrontational question: "Are you truly Catholic" and follow with a sound bite from "Meet the Press" in which Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserts that Catholic teaching on abortion has been inconsistent. "Utterly incredible," Cardinal Edward Egan is then quoted as saying about Pelosi's statement, which is followed by one from the late Pope John Paul II, who called abortion "(the) deliberate killing of an innocent human being." And then comes a reference to Sen. Barack Obama on the...]]> Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 The release might have added, "and just as many in some African-American churches do today, but without the pressure by the IRS, which many white conservative churches and institutions feel." Clearly a double standard exists as to how the law is applied (see the political pronouncements of Reverends Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, as three of many examples).

The law restricting political language from the pulpit is of rather recent vintage. Until 1954, election sermons could be heard on the first Sunday in November, or virtually any other time, without invoking the wrath of government. That changed when then-senator Lyndon Baines Johnson offered an amendment to...]]> Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Some history is important. It was pressure from the Carter and Clinton administrations that forced Fannie and Freddie to grant more high-risk loans to people who otherwise would never qualify. They mostly wanted to promote not only new home ownership numbers, but also more home ownership in the minority community. That was a noble goal, but the cost turned out to be too high.

Democrats would love to blame the Bush administration for a disaster they mostly helped to create. But, according to the White House, as early as April 2001, the administration warned that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was "a potential problem," because "financial trouble of a large...]]> Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 McCain's challenge is to expose Obama as naive in his approach to the evils that confront us without appearing condescending. America very much likes the idea of a person of color becoming president, if for no other reason than to serve as partial propitiation for our individual and collective sins against blacks. McCain's job is to project a view that he, too, favors the idea of a black president, just not Obama.

Obama negotiators persuaded the debate commission to choose foreign policy as the first debate topic; apparently thinking it could hang the unpopular President Bush and the Iraq War around McCain's neck. McCain negotiators agreed to the topic switch.

McCain must...]]> Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 While the media and politicians blame the usual suspects, greed, like illicit sex, is not held in copyright by either party or political persuasion.

Barack Obama partially and predictably blamed the Bush administration, but it was the policies of the Clinton administration (as detailed in the Sept. 15 issue of Investors Business Daily) that sowed the seeds for the subprime mortgage collapse.

John McCain wants more regulations. What McCain should be demanding is an investigation, especially of those members of Congress who failed to provide oversight. It also wouldn't hurt to recommend more self-control and an embrace of the Puritan ethic of living within one's...]]> Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Given that McCain has plucked her from relative obscurity, will she feel confident enough to tell a President McCain things he may not want to hear? There are already some issues on which Palin disagrees with McCain, such as global warming, drilling in ANWR and stem cell research. How hard would she push her own beliefs?

The last vice president to experience a large age gap between himself and the president was Dan Quayle, who was two weeks shy of his 42nd birthday when he was sworn in in 1989. President George H.W. Bush was 64. Their 22-year gap is close to the 28-year difference between McCain and Palin, but unlike the McCain-Palin relationship, Quayle had known his running mate...]]> Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 "I think the Republican Party needs to stand for reform," he says, "within the context of our ideology, which is limited government." Bush thinks too many institutions are stuck in "the '50s, '60s, or maybe '70s. They're not relevant in 2008." He mentions job training. "We have billions of dollars of job training programs, but world and corporate structures have been radically altered. ... If you walked into a job training center now, it may not have Formica, or a '70s look, but it would have a '70s feel in terms of the services being provided ... same thing with education and health care, entitlement programs, common sense environmental policy. There should be a zeal for reform. And I'd...]]> Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Where are principles in this? Why aren't conservatives arguing in favor of the superiority of their ideas rather than attempting to win "Miss Congeniality" awards from liberals?

Republicans who practice politics of conciliation too often get their heads handed to them. Recall President George H.W. Bush who reached out to then-Speaker of the House Jim Wright at Bush's Inauguration in 1989, promising unity, harmony and compromise. Wright's smile revealed he knew that Bush could be had and that Mr. "Read My Lips, No New Taxes" seemed more intent on keeping his promise to be a nice guy than he was in keeping his promise not to increase taxes. When Bush compromised with Democrats and...]]> Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children. No one has asked her such questions.

One female journalist said to me it makes a mockery out of the Republican Party's family values platform. No it doesn't.

Speaking with some personal experience on these matters -- our daughter experienced a premarital pregnancy and I have a brother with Down syndrome -- I am astounded at the rush to judgment by so many in the media, a media that promotes what it then quickly decries. So who are the real hypocrites?

One can't turn on the TV in primetime without being exposed to all sorts of sex (except the marital variety). There is very little "safe sex" on TV. Actresses speak of their sexual...]]> Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 There is good and there is bad experience. More importantly, there is worldview. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, see America as a nation in which government plays a primary role in individual lives. John McCain and Sarah Palin see the individual as primary and government as a protector of freedom that can help the less fortunate become self-sustaining.

One can already sense the lines of attack against Palin. Why did she have a child she knew would be born with Down syndrome? We used to call such children "mentally retarded," before the word "retarded" became an epithet commonly hurled by teenagers. She practices what she preaches about her pro-life views. She had this...]]> Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 In 2004, the Archbishop of Boston, Sean O'Malley stood by a statement he had made the previous year that pro-choice Catholics are in a state of grave sin and cannot take Communion properly. Around the same time, then-Cardinal (now Pope Benedict XVI) Joseph Ratzinger, in a private memorandum, told American bishops that Communion must be denied to Catholic politicians who support legal abortion. The memo and the statement by O'Malley were thought at the time to be directed at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who is Catholic. Kerry and many other Democratic and Republican Catholic politicians have mostly ignored such directives and taken Communion anyway.

Appearing last...]]> Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Last August on "The Diane Rehm Show," Biden said, "If the Democrats think we're going to be able to nominate someone who can win without that person being able to table unimpeachable credentials on national security and foreign policy, I think we're making a tragic mistake." If Democrats buy the line that Biden's foreign policy credentials as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee make up for Obama's foreign policy deficiencies (Obama has said his opposition to the Iraq War "came from a set of experiences that come from a life of living overseas, having family overseas, being able to see the world through the eyes of people outside our borders"), aren't they making the Republicans'...]]> Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 How did this happen when the public consistently says it is sick of it and hates the tearing down of the other candidate rather than the building up of the country?

In this campaign, part of the answer has to do with the massive media buildup of Obama, which has led the McCain campaign to do commercials mocking his "deity." It has been the only way McCain thought he could bring Obama down to earth. But a part of the reason also has to do with the veteran handlers, special-interest groups, fund-raisers and other unworthies who have made a lot of money and gained considerable power over the years with their slash-and-burn tactics. Candidates fear losing more than anything else and...]]> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 McCain also gave the strongest answer on the theological concept of evil. He said his approach to evil would be to "defeat it." Speaking of Osama bin Laden, to get him he said, "I would follow him to the gates of hell," which might be easier than following him to the mountains of Pakistan.

Asked to define "rich," McCain offered a mini-sermon, noting that "some of the rich" are "the most unhappy," adding that he doesn't want to take from the rich; rather he wants "everybody to get rich." He opposes "redistribution" -- a code word for higher taxes -- proposes a $7,000 tax credit for every child and health care choice. In contrast to Obama, McCain said that spending is the reason for...]]> Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 On Tuesday, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's last head of state, wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post in which he blamed Georgia for Russia's invasion. Blaming the victim has long been a strategy of dictatorial leaders who seek a moral high ground for immoral actions.

The horrors visited on the Georgian people, including thousands of deaths, thousands more wounded and massive property destruction, provides a look into how the two American presidential candidates would handle such a crisis. On vacation in Hawaii, Barack Obama offered a somewhat tepid initial statement through a spokesperson, until confronted by John McCain's much more forceful one.

Obama then...]]> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 We stopped repenting some time ago. Our preferred response after being caught in a transgression in the modern era is to explain. Our "confessional" is television and our audience is not God, but the public. After repeatedly lying about it, Edwards finally admitted to sharing another woman's bed, but he wants us to know it was while his wife was in remission for her cancer, though he told Bob Woodward on "Nightline" that is no excuse. So then why mention it?

Edwards said he told Elizabeth about the affair in 2006. If true, that means she was campaigning for and with him, testifying to his character and concern for "women's issues" even while she was a co-conspirator in the...]]> Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 For the doubtful, which are those of us who have observed politics for a few decades, it all seemed too good to be true. And now politics as usual has proved too true to be good. The pettiness, the tearing down and the irrelevance of the political dialogue resembles so many other distasteful presidential campaigns. Obama was the first to use the "race card," claims McCain. No, he wasn't, says Obama. McCain was. One wishes some adult would step in and say, "children, go to your rooms."

This is what passes for modern political discourse. Conservative says to liberal: "You're ruining America." Liberal responds, "No, you're ruining America." Conservative: "You're a communist." Liberal:...]]> Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law allows taxpayers to pay for someone to kill Stroup, because it's cheaper than trying to heal him. How twisted is this? Some have called this a "chilling" corruption of medical ethics, but medical ethics have been in the deep freeze for some time. The American Medical Association, which once strongly opposed abortion, now buys into the "choice" argument despite Hippocrates' admonition that physicians make a habit of two things -- "to help, or at least to do no harm."

How much is a human life worth? Body parts and bone marrow can fetch some pretty high prices, but a human life is more than the sum of its body parts. The reason this is important...]]> Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 It is a truism in politics that you are supposed to lower expectations in order to boost your political stock should you exceed them. Sen. Obama has done precisely the opposite. He has raised expectations so high there is only one way he can exceed them following his nomination in Denver. That is to climb to the top of a mountain peak, there to be transfigured and ascend into Heaven. No wonder Jon Stewart lampooned his messianic personae on "The Daily Show," saying that while in Israel, Obama made a short visit to the manger in Bethlehem where he was born.

In his Berlin speech, Obama promised to tear down more walls than Joshua did at Jericho. He's going to destroy walls separating...]]> Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Now to the song lyric, which characterizes Obama's decision-making process:

"You say yes, then it's no;

You say you'll stay, then you go

You're undecided now, so what are you gonna do?

Yes, it's about a fickle lover, but doesn't it apply to Obama and his "leadership" by focus group and political expediency?

First you say you do, and then you don't,

And then you say you will, and then you won't,

You're undecided now, so what are you gonna do?

Democrats have been critical of President Bush for what they regard as his stubborn refusal to admit mistakes in the war. They are less interested in confession than they are in using such...]]> Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 A view of the world means you might like London and I might prefer Paris, but each preference can be equally valid because it is a matter of individual taste. A correct worldview is a way of not just looking at other countries and people, but having an intellectual and moral center that allows one to distinguish between good and evil; right and wrong; sound economic, social and political policies and bad ones.

There is a reason America is what it is. The economic power and military might are effects, not causes of America's greatness. It is because we offer the lives of our young and much of our fortune to defend liberty for ourselves and promote it for others that we are blessed...]]> Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 There are at least two questions that should be asked. One: are they telling us the truth this time? Probably not. Two: why do we allow such schools in our country when nothing close to a Christian, Jewish or even secular school would be permitted in Saudi Arabia, whose government specifically treats as contraband any religious text other than the Koran and prohibits even private worship of any God but Allah?

Unfortunately, such schools and hate material are not limited to the United States. According to Andrew Cochran, writing on the blog counterrorism.org, "it appears to be more of a systemic effort by numerous Muslim educators worldwide to brainwash their children. Textbooks...]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 My second friend, Tony Snow, succumbed to colon cancer at age 53. His mother died of the same disease when Tony was 17. I spent more time with Tony in recent years due to our proximity in Washington.

In a different way, Tony was also a rebuilder of hearts. No one could be depressed in his presence. Though battling his own cancer, he encouraged many others with the same disease. His smile lit up any room in which he appeared. His optimism was infectious. His situation didn't matter; he always wanted to know how someone else was doing.

President Bush could have described Tony in many ways. He chose to call him "a man of character." There are plenty of characters in Washington,...]]> Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Given these astounding figures, why do polls show that as of now a majority of voters intend to vote for the Democratic candidate in House and Senate races? In a recent McLaughlin and Associates poll, 43 percent said they would vote for the Democrat and just 34 percent would vote for the Republican. Twenty-three percent were unsure.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll taken in mid-June found that 52 percent favored Democratic candidates and 42 percent favored Republicans. That's down from 55 percent for Democrats and slightly up from 41 percent for Republicans in a February poll.

Polls taken by ABC News/Washington Post and NBC News/Wall Street Journal reflect similar numbers.

How...]]>