Category: Politics

A respondent to my previous post on American Empire said “For non-Americans, the concern is not necessarily “does America behave like an empire?”, but “can we trust it not to act like one when the chips are down?” (e.g. if oil supplies dwindle to the point where the US economy is at real risk). The answer… Continue reading American Empire Redux

The American Left, and some of the Buchananite/isolationist elements of the American Right, have spent a lot of time and rhetorical energy fretting about the “American Empire”, and/or the “global system of American hegemony”. Lee Harris has written a very informative essay on Hegemony vs. Empire in which he points out that these two words… Continue reading American Empire

Because I’m both both a libertarian and famous for conducting a successful propaganda campaign, libertarian activists sometimes come to me for tactical advice. During a recent email exchange, one of these criticized me for wishing (as he thought) to “punish” the Islamist enemies of the U.S. and Western civilization. I explained that I have no… Continue reading Punishment, Coercion, and Revenge

Eason Jordan has resigned as CNN’s chief news executive following rumors that he said at a conference in Davos that the U.S. military had deliberately targeted journalists for death. Jordan denied making this allegation, but two U.S. legislators who were present agree that he did, and the Davos organizers have denied repeated requests to release… Continue reading Lies and Consequences

In September 2004, well before the elections, I wrote an essay on the collapse of mainstream media influence. I predicted that the Rathergate scandal and the Swift Boat Vets would lock up the election for George W. Bush, despite the MSM’s most determined efforts to get Kerry into the White House. I related this to… Continue reading The Journalist as Herd Creature

I’ve been reading a new blog called Left2Right, founded in mid-November 2004 as an attempt by a group of left-wing intellectuals to reach out to intelligent people on the right of the American political spectrum. It is indeed a thought-provoking read, but the thoughts they are provoking are not necessarily of the sort they intend.… Continue reading Left2Right – a critical appraisal

I’ve written several blog essays recently [1] [2] [3] [4] pondering the deep trouble the Democratic party is in. I believe, on current demographic and political trends, that their problems are going to get worse and might actually prove terminal — especially if the Republicans have the strategic sense to run Condi Rice for President… Continue reading What happens if the Democrats collapse?

So Condi Rice is going to replace Colin Powell as Secretary of State. I have to think this means she’s being groomed for the Republican ticket in 2008. Well, I hope so anyway. I know very little about her, but I’ve discovered that I really want to have a ringside seat on the farcical hijinks… Continue reading Condoleeza Rice in 2008!

Yesterday a Democratic friend of mine emailed me in part: “There is a big constituency of poor people who are just not making it at all.” This is one of the American Left’s conventional dogmas — that there is some vast ocean of descamisados out there waiting to be mobilized into a political force that… Continue reading Mobilizing the Poor and Other Delusions

The 2004 elections are over. Bush won, of course, but I want to focus on an interesting question raised by the red-state/blue-state map of the outcome. It looks suspiciously as though the Democrats are on their way to becoming a regional party. Specifically, a regional party of the urban Northeast and the West Coast metroplexes.… Continue reading Are the Democrats becoming a regional party?

Read this: John Kerry and the VVAW: Hanoi’s American Puppets?. They don’t mention that while John Kerry was operating as an agent of influence for the Vietnamese Communists, he was still an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve. There is a word for what a serving military officer does when he acts as an agent… Continue reading John Kerry — Communist agent of influence

For the first time in my life, I find that I am seriously considering voting Republican in a presidential election. What has pushed me to it is this report of shots being fired into a Bush-Cheney campaign HQ in Knoxville. TN. It’s not the first shot fired at the Republicans. And it comes on top… Continue reading The Terror War Comes Home

Dan Rather’s just-released statement just begs to be fisked: Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would… Continue reading What Did Dan Rather Know, And When Did He Know It?

One of the most notorious lines of the 2004 campaign season came to us in Mid-July when Evan Thomas, the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, said: “Let’s talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards – I’m talking about… Continue reading MSM Loses its Power to Swing Elections

I’m reposting this screed from 2002 because it’s no longer visible on the Web, and in the near future I expect to post some things that will get me accused of right-wing bias. Top Ten Reasons I’m Not A (Left-)Liberal: Gun control. Liberals are completely wrong about this. A fair number of them know better,… Continue reading Top Ten Reasons I’m Neither a Liberal Nor a Conservative: