It seems that American president George W. Bush made another gaffe: US President George W Bush drew gasps at the Vatican on Saturday by referring to Pope Benedict XVI as “sir” instead of the expected “His Holiness”, pool reporters said. They could clearly hear the US leader say “Yes, sir” when the pope asked him if he was going to meet with officials of the lay Catholic Sant’Egidio community at the US embassy later during his visit. James Joyner defends Bush...

The New York Times has an editorial up, blasting Republicans for bad leadership on the immigration bill. While reading it, the reader gets the impression that those who oppose the bill, and worked actively against it, are all racists, xenophobes, people who simply hate immigrants: The anti-immigrant hard-core — no amnesty today, no amnesty tomorrow, no amnesty ever — must not be allowed to hold the nation hostage. Like nativists of generations past, they think the country is being Latinized,...

Alabama Senator Lowell Barron (D.) learned a lesson yesterday: never talk trash about Senator Charles Bishop’s (R.) mother. The two state Senators had a minor disagreement, which ran completely out of hand. The Democratic Senator called Bishop a “son of a [explicit].” Bishop exlpained that “where I grew up, that’s somebody talking bad about your mother and when he did, I responded with my right hand.” That’s right: the distinguished gentleman punched the...

Jules Crittenden has a good post up about Paris Hilton. Jules writes: I feel bad for her. How can you look at anyone piteously sobbing on her way to jail and not feel bad for her, when her crime is not sticking a knife in someone, raping someone’s grandmother, holding anyone up at gunpoint or stealing their life’s savings, but essentially failing to figure out that the rules apply to her. That is exactly how I feel about it as well. I actually feel bad for Paris, I’ve got to...

Bridget Magnus writes: Inspired by yesterday’s post by Chuck about the importance of taking action and Dennis’s subsequent post about using your anger for more than vitriolic rhetoric, I give you some simple things you can do today. No, I’m not asking you to attend a rally or give money or anything tough like that. I’m asking you to let your elected officials know where you stand on issues that are important to you, and you don’t even have to get out of your chair to...

Gates has decided to replace General Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when his term ends in September. Gates further said that he’d recommend Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chief of naval operations, for the job. If you’re wondering who Admiral Mike Mullen is, I suggest going here. There are speeches, messages, etc. His message: Everyone in the Navy has the potential to lead. We have to pull that potential out of our Sailors. My emphasis is on our people, leadership and accountability....

Our sitemanager informed me that he improved the comment options: he has added comment preview and quick HTML tag buttons to comments. There is a new area on TMV called Commenting Features. The Commenting Features page explains the features and why they should be utilized. These features will stop comments from changing the site’s look if someone adds a weird HTML code to their comment. Please look at the “Areas of Interest” section, and read the “Commenting Features”...

Ah, lawsuits America is famous for: Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus...

Many people believe that conservatives killed the immigration bill yesterday. The conservative base certainly has made a lot of noise in the last couple of days, and the far majority of those who oppose the bill are Republicans, but… it’s not that simple. Simon explains that “this bill didn’t fail (as the WaPo contends) because the center couldn’t persuade the fringe; I suggest that it failed because the center didn’t support it. Partisanship didn’t kill...

Children have become victims of the war on terror, according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and four other human rights organizations. They describe, among other examples, the fate of Yusuf al-Khalid and Abed al-Khalid, sons of Al-Akadiabrein Sheikh Mohammed al-Khalid. They were arrested in Pakistan, in 2002, together with their mother, where they were interrogated: the interrogators asked questions about their father (who they couldn’t find). According to a fellow inmate, the...

Something to consider: I find it a bit odd that a man like Mayor Giuliani who used to be in such lockstep with law enforcement has taken an international approach when America’s crimes rates have been rising drastically in the last several years. Guess what kind of jobs our troops have? A good number of them proportionally are in law enforcement. So when we take more troops and put them on the streets of Iraq to police that country and protect their borders we are weakening the force in our...

An Unreasonable Man is a documentary about one of the most criticized, and hated, men in America today: warrior for justice Ralph Nader. It brings us the highlights and lowlights of one of the most remarkable men – whether you agree with his views or not – of the last 40 years. The directors, Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan, did a wonderful job telling Nader’s story: from the start of his career (fighting for seatbelts) to the elections of 2000 and 2004. They interviewed, among...

An interesting video: H/t Kathryn Jean Lopez. Mitt Romney will rise significantly in the polls. He’s a great debater – quite possibly the best among Republican contenders.

An interesting article at the Washington Post about Ron Paul: “Two days was not enough,” Jared Chicoine says, standing in the lobby of a Holiday Inn Express on the eve of Tuesday’s third Republican presidential debate. Unshaven and dressed in a blue Ralph Lauren oxford shirt and khakis, Chicoine could easily pass for a hung-over fraternity brother. Instead, the 25-year-old is the non-drinking, nonsmoking New Hampshire campaign coordinator for Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.). That makes him...

Dr. e already published quite some posts about the Republican debate yesterday evening, so I decided to post my thoughts on the debate at my own blog. You can read that post here. On the immigration bill, both Romney and Giuliani made, it has to be said, some good points. Giuliani explained what’s missing from the bill, what should have been in the bill; Romney explained that he opposes the Z-Visas and why… All in all, McCain was isolated. McCain Alone. One of the most interesting developments...

Libby Spencer argues that Jeri Thompson is, quite simply, too young and too beautiful for a First Lady. In a post yesterday, Libby called Jeri a “trophy wife.” Strangely, people considered that to be some kind of insult. After all: it merely implies that Fred married her because she’s young and beautiful, not because of her character or intelligence. What’s insulting about that? Please click here to read more.

Unbelievable: Brit Hume called former Senator John Glenn a “partisan—spearchucker” to describe his role in a Fred Thompson investigation back in his old Senate days on FOX News Sunday. Video and transcript, of course, at Crooks and Liars. John Amato looked “spearchucker” up in the urban dictionary: “A derogatory phrase for a black male used in reference to his primitive abilities to hunt animals with a long sharpened object.” Earlier today, I defended a...

PatHMV writes at Stubborn Facts that “Rich Horton has done some excellent original reporting by securing an interview with documentary filmmaker Philip Klein, about his new film on eminent domain abuse.” Because he was so impressed, Pat decided to do what Rich asked (to crosspost the original post at The Iconic Midwest at Stubborn Facts). I share Pat’s view that this post deserves a lot of exposure and encourage all of you to go to either Stubborn Facts or The Iconic Midwest to...

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article up about Fred Thompson. Christopher Cooper writes: As a late entry into the crowded, expensive, presidential campaign, Fred Thompson’s first big test of viability will be his ability to raise money quickly. A major part of the former Tennessee senator’s strategy is a heavy reliance on the Internet to get his message out and to raise funds. He is also trying to tap into the large number of well-heeled Republican financiers who have yet...

Yesterday, I published a post about American Liberalism (and linked to it here). A little while later, three great bloggers – Pamela Leavey, Libby Spencer and Ron Chusid, answered some of my questions and shared their thoughts on what American liberalism stands for. Because it was already quite late in the Netherlands, I decided to respond to them today. I just published a second post on American Liberalism and would like to give you all the opportunity to read it and weigh in. It is a difficult...

Yesterday, the Democratic candidates debated each other on various issues. Dr. e. published several posts about the debate, therefore I have decided to only publish a post about the debate at my own blog. If you all are interested in my thoughts on the debate, I encourage you all to read my post (including videos). Sadly, I was not able to watch the debate live (time difference and all that), so I have to rely on coverage on CNN, English newspapers, the BBC, and Dutch newssources (and YouTube of...

Engram has an interesting post up at Back Talk about whether or not Iraqis believe that “life is better today than it was under Saddam Hussein.” Back Talk links to this poll and says yes, the majority of Iraqis believe that life has gotten better (slightly, but still). Head on over there and take a look at the graph. Engram is making one mistake: if you want to know what the majority of Iraqis think, you have to combine the numbers. In this case, the absolute majority (almost 60%) believe...

I do not know why Ahmadinejad tries to hide it, it is quite clear that he loves Israel. Or not: Iranian president says Israel’s disappearance imminent, ‘Zionist regime’ will have to bow down to Palestinians… “The arrogant superpowers and the Zionist regime invested all their efforts during the 33-day war, but after 60 years, their pride has been trampled and the countdown to the destruction of this regime has been started by Hizbullah fighters,” the president...

Former US Vice President Al Gore believes that he is too reasonable for politics. For months, Gore has said repeatedly that he probably won’t run for office again, but wouldn’t say that he would never run for office again. He reiterated that stance on Friday, but downplayed the possibility of another campaign… “It may be easier to fix it from the outside,” he said. “Again, I haven’t ruled out for all time thinking about politics again. It’s just that...

For an interesting discussion about American Liberalism, I suggest going here. The post is based on this article at the New York Times, by Patricia Cohen. She writes that there is a discussion going on in American Liberal circles, about the essence of Liberalism, what policies Liberals favor. Should Liberals talk about morality in society? What about foreign policy? Should the US adopt an interventionist foreign policy, or more of an isolationist one?