I was pleasanly surprised to see that Rabbi Eric Yoffie will be one of the keynote speakers at the J Street convention later this month. Rabbi Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, describes himself as a dove who welcomed the founding of J Street as an alternative to AIPAC. Yet when J Street equated the actions of Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Yoffie lashed out, writing, [J Street's] words are deeply distressing because they are morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish...

He is the demented comedian who gave us Uncle Sugar. He also analyzes public policy in his role as associate director of the Regulatory Studies Program at George Mason University. Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Rob Raffety: Incidentally, the editors of the Wall Street Journal acidly note that car sales began to plunge as soon as Cash For Clunkers expired. Cross-posted at Conventional Folly

Everyone wants to know what he’s thinking. If Gates says no more troops for Afghanistan, Obama can say “Why send more troops if George Bush’s secretary of defense says they’re not necessary?” If Gates says send the troops, it will be extremely hard for Obama to reject the advice of a secretary so highly-regarded that he was the only Bush cabinet member reappointed by Obama. So what is Gates thinking? Yesterday, he did a rare joint interview with Hillary Clinton, filmed...

Mike O’Hanlon says no. Eugene Robinson says, The men with the stars on their shoulders — and I say this with enormous respect for their patriotism and service — need to shut up and salute. Robinson adds that he applies the same standard to military officers whose opinions he agrees with. Clearly, Robinson shares the suspicion of many, including myself, that opinions about civil-military relations constantly flip as a result of partisan realignments. When George Bush went against...

Last month, I gave the President a hard time for denouncing GOP scare tactics, while relying on his scary stories to build support for his healthcare plan. On Monday, ABC’s Jake Tapper pointed out that the President’s scary stories were “not quite accurate” or, in plain English, completely misleading. First up, there’s the man who died when his insurance company cut off his chemotherapy because he allegedly failed to report he once had gallstones. Actually, the man...

Goldfarb has the goods. Four-and-a-half months ago, Chairman Carl Levin and eight other Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee signed a letter to President Obama that began We agree that the United States has a vital national interest in ensuring that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven from which al Qaeda can plot attacks against our homeland, and that achieving this objective requires that we put in place a well-resourced, comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. Of...

By my count, there are a half-dozen posts about Roman Polanski on TMV’s front page right now. There are zero posts about Iran. May I suggest some reading about this obscure issue? For opposing views on sanctions and regime change, I recommend a pair of columns by Robert Kagan and Andrew Albertson that ran together in Wednesday’s Washington Post. Bottom line: The Swiss won’t rescue us again.

David Brooks’ column this morning is a guns-blazing assault on Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the rest of the conservative talk radio-sphere. As Pete noted earlier, Brooks also has harsh words for those Republicans who ignorantly overestimate the influence of Limbaugh & Co. Let the record also show that Brooks is no more fond of “cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P.” Those cynics include White House spokesman Robert Gibbs,...

I’ve been off the network for almost two weeks now, while my wife and I were in the process of moving into our new home in Northwest DC. This move will mark the end of an era. I’ve packed up and moved almost every 12 months since graduating from college ten years ago. Now, I’ve found a place where I hope to live for ten or twenty years or longer. For the moment, it still feels like we’re just playing house and pretending to be grown-ups. Maybe if a couple of kids show...

Kevin asks: Did the Washington Post fulfill its duty to inform the public last night by running a mere eight separate pieces about Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s healthcare speech on Wednesday? Or is anything less than a dozen a sign that they aren’t really trying anymore? After all, Politico had at least 15 Wilson-related pieces, including a big front pager by Andie Coller headlined “A Party of Cranks?” I suppose I shouldn’t complain, but unlike...

I didn’t see the outburst that cost Serena her semi-final match, but I saw (as in, television saw) her smash her racket after losing the first set. Even that was pretty jarring. Strange. A sport where the crowd watches in respectful silence, while a champion smashes expensive equipment that most fans would be grateful to own. Cross-posted at Conventional Folly

WILL PELOSI FLIP ON AFGHANISTAN? The editors of the Wall Street Journal remind Madame Speaker that she was a singing a different tune on Afghanistan not long ago: It is well known that Mr. Obama has called Afghanistan a “war of necessity.” Less publicized is that in 2007 Speaker Pelosi was also saying that our real interests were in Afghanistan. “The war on terror is in Afghanistan,” Ms. Pelosi said just two years ago. “The fact that we weakened our commitment to Afghanistan...

Joe G. noted earlier that Joe Wilson scored very poorly on Politifact’s Truth-o-meter. Since that post, there have been five more targeting Rep. Wilson, including Kathy’s moderately titled, Is there a politician lower than Joe Wilson? I’m guessing Kathy has heard of Charlie Rangel. Anyhow, I’m not here to defend Joe Wilson, who most people never heard of until yesterday. I’m here to look at how President Obama scores on the Truth-o-Meter. After last night’s...

Those talk show hosts are awful. They say the most awful things. But it’s the President who runs the country, so I’m much more concerned with his disingenuity. From last night: Instead of honest debate, we’ve seen scare tactics. Also last night: Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it the most. And...

The editors of the New Republic have some harsh words[subscription only] for House Democrats, who toppled a GOP majority in 2006 by promising to clean up Washington. Charlie Rangel and John Murtha, two of the most senior and powerful Democrats in the House, are an embarrassment. Late August brought the stunning revelation that Rangel failed to note two bank accounts, each containing somewhere in the range of $250,000 and $500,000, on past financial disclosure forms. Add to this the unreported $75,000...

The situation in Afghanistan is bad and getting worse. Young Americans are losing their lives in a war that may soon lose the support of the American people. Fellow Americans, will we give in to despair, or will we find a new HOPE? Will we accept a painful defeat, or will we have the AUDACITY to seek a brighter future? Will we surrender to the partisanship of the old way of politics, or seek innovative BIPARTISAN solutions? You get my drift. Several months ago, it didn’t seem very interesting...

Just watched the first episode of (the new) Battlestar Galactica. I wanted to try it, but assumed it would keep my interest for only a few episodes. My wife only agreed to watch because she is a gracious and generous woman. For the first thirty minutes, she made snide remarks. At the sixty minute mark she asked me if an hour had really gone by. At the eighty minute mark, I told her we had to go to sleep because we’re going to California tomorrow. She begged for just ten more minutes....

Sonny already plugged Matt Labash’s great article about America’s most notorious mayor. I second that. The strangest thing I learned about Barry was that he came within one year of finishing a PhD in chemistry. He was an Eagle Scout. He recited poems in church. He went to college, and stopped one year short of getting his doctorate in chemistry, quitting to join the civil rights movement. “In chemistry, there’s order,” he says wistfully. “In politics, there’s...

George Will called for an end to counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, provoking a flood of responses from conservatives. The Wall Street Journal has given their opinions top billing. Fred Kagan writes that the future of Pakistan depends on Afghanistan. Max Boot reminds us that we already tried to win on the cheap — that’s why it’s such a mess today. Dan Senor and Peter Wehner call on Republicans to support Obama even when the going gets tough. Finally, Michael O’Hanlon and...

In so many words, Andrew Exum (aka Abu Muqawama) describes himself as a hesitant, hedging, uncertain and humble supporter of the war in Afghanistan. What mystifies him is why Washington is turning so rapidly against the war and why the Obama White House is so afraid of criticism from the left regarding Afghanistan. Andrew also prescribes a measure of humility and uncertaintly for arch-liberal opponents of the war, who have forgotten all too soon how they denounced the surge as a failure and denounced...

I felt some serious deja vu while reading Robert’s post about the hopelessness of our “endless bloody occupation” of Afghanistan. Just two years ago, the conventional wisdom was that there was nothing we could do to salvage our bloody and endless occupation of Iraq. Harry Reid told us “the war is lost” and Barack Obama insisted that sending more troops would accomplish nothing. In his post, Robert links to George Will’s recent column, in which he calls for a...

Why did so many Republican senators have such strong feelings for Ted Kennedy? John Barrasso of Wyoming describes the personal touch that Kennedy had: The day I got sworn into the Senate, June 25, 2007, to my knowledge he [Kennedy] was the only Democrat — well, somebody would have been in the chair presiding — who was there in the chamber for my swearing-in… Later they had a little reception for me and he came to that, and he was the only Democrat there. And he spent a long time...

No, not that ‘C’ word. I’m talking about Chappaquiddick. This weekend, Meet the Press, Face the Nation and This Week all devoted their full broadcasts to fond remembrances of Sen. Kennedy. I was curious whether they would mention the most controversial episode in his long career. On the one hand, a special measure of deference is appropriate for the recently departed. On the other, how can a serious news organization devote an entire broadcast to one man and ignore his flaws? ABC...

KENNEDY NEPHEW: SENATE CONTENDER AND PROUD CHAVISTA. Not only does Jamie Kirchick have a new essay up on Doublethink Online; he also has a new article up at TNR about the warm feelings of Joe Kennedy II for Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. With his uncle’s passing, Joe II is now a leading contender for the open Senate perch in Massachusetts. Here’s the kind of wisdom Joe II might bring to US foreign policy: Kennedy has gone out of his way to defend and even praise Chavez, telling The...

That is the title of Norman Podhoretz’s new book. It won’t be out until September 8th, but the current issue of Commentary presents a symposium on the book, with contributions from prominent Jewish authors, mostly conservatives. Best I can tell from the symposium, the main thrust of Podhoretz’s argument is that American Jews have confused the Torah of Judaism with “the Torah of liberalism”. Authentic Jewish values have been displaced by liberal ideology, masquerading...