Indonesia
has had an extraordinarily good run. The Islamist terrorist attack that struck
two international hotels in the heart of Jakarta
won't change that. This was the first successful attack in the country since
2005. That attack followed the spectacular 2002 Bali bombing that killed or
maimed hundreds of tourists, thus bringing what had been America's war on terrorism to Southeast
Asia. The consensus is that Friday's attack was perpetrated by
some of the bedraggled remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah, the local answer to al
Qaeda.
Barack Obama's success was built in no small part on his
ability to connect with the large and growing share of American voters who are college-educated,
affluent, and have a fondness for arugula. Though Obama campaigned on raising
taxes for families making more than $250,000 and cutting taxes for everyone
else, he won a majority of voters in households earning $200,000 or more a
year. To tax-loathing Republicans, this was a bit like plump chickens
enthusiastically voting for Frank Perdue. So when House Democrats called for… more
Barack Obama promised to transform health care and energy
and America's
role in the world. But what made tens of millions of Americans loopy with joy
is the implicit promise that the young biracial senator would, through the
power of his biography and charisma, heal racial divides. Throughout the
presidential campaign and the brief but blissful post-inaugural delirium,
countless trend pieces vividly described how blacks and whites were--gasp!--chatting
amiably. They were giving each other Obama-inspired fist-bumps. Though there
The worst thing about Sarah Palin's decision to resign the governorship of Alaska is the conclusion
she appears to have reached about the political calendar: Even three years
before the 2012 elections, the job of potential presidential candidate doesn't
leave any time for governing, even a lightly populated state.
As strange as her announcement sounded, Palin's view of the electoral world
is clear-eyed. These days, politics trumps governing all the time.
After watching President Obama's latest press briefing, I've reached a
troubling conclusion: For the good of America and the world, the man
badly needs a regular supply of nicotine.
Though smoking will undoubtedly put the president at grave risk of
developing a serious illness, it also will keep him from lashing out at
innocent reporters and, behind closed doors, any number of worshipful
subordinates.
Glenn Beck is an American hero. Considered a buffoon at best by his liberal detractors, Beck is in fact a showman par excellence who draws on the passions of a small and alienated minority to create a television program that has done more to keep Americans safe than 10,000 public-service announcements. And for that, he deserves a medal from the Department of Homeland Security.
After a day of nonviolent protests in Iran, seven Iranians died after anger boiled over and a gaggle of anti-Ahmadinejad activists threatened to set fire to the headquarters of the Basij, a notorious loyalist paramilitary that does the domestic dirty work of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The teenage Basijis are the acne-ridden thugs who savagely beat women who dare to violate the dress code imposed by Iran's supposedly Islamic regime, and they've long been a pillar of the country's quasi-fascist… more
It is a tragedy when a perfectly good political sex scandal goes to waste. It’s especially tragic in Los Angeles, which famously lacks the kind of public narratives that dominate news cycles and force citizens to pay attention to their elected leaders.
Los Angeles’ latest missed opportunity arrived last week with the glorious news that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose marriage broke up a few years back after an affair with a political reporter for a Spanish-language TV station, had been caught… more
Now you can add same-sex marriage to the long list of things that Californians have turned into an incoherent mess.
With Tuesday’s California Supreme Court decision upholding Proposition 8’s gay-marriage ban--and the marriages of those couples who tied the knot last year while gay marriage was legal--California finds itself in a very strange place, matrimonially speaking.
