The Washington Times

Today in New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District, moderate Republican Rep. Marge Roukema faces a primary challenge from conservative state Assemblyman Scott Garrett. Mrs. Roukema narrowly defeated the underfinanced Mr. Garrett in a primary two years ago. This time around, the race is drawing attention nationally because of the involvement on Mr. Garrett’s side of the Club for Growth, a group of Republican activists dedicated to funding conservative Republican candidates, even against Republican incumbents.

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The Washington Times

One day in May, the American electorate woke up to find itself worried that the nation is on the wrong track.

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The Washington Times

In an abrupt reversal last week, the Senate decisively rejected an amendment to a defense construction bill that would have forced withdrawal July 1, 2001, of the 5,900 U.S. troops from the 39,000-man peacekeeping force in Kosovo – unless the administration got congressional authorization to keep the troops there. The vote was a test of the seriousness of the ongoing U.S. commitment to European security through NATO. In a way, it opened the next phase of the debate on that commitment.

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The Washington Times

Kosovo, more or less from the moment the issues there became critical in the fall of 1998, has not exactly been Congress’ finest hour. The nadir, perhaps, came a year ago during NATO’s air campaign itself, when the House of Representatives voted within a short span not to support the campaign and to double funding for it. The main casualty here was the House’s credibility. A year later, the Senate may be getting set to damage its own credibility, once again over Kosovo.

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The Washington Times

The post-primary polling has at least brought a certain clarity to the task the Gore campaign faces in the months ahead. The vice president had pulled about even, perhaps slightly ahead, in head-to-head matchups with George W. Bush as the dust settled from Sen. John McCain’s robust challenge to the Texas governor. This stood in sharp contrast to the double-digit leads Mr. Bush enjoyed during the preprimary season.

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The Washington Times

Just what the Republican congressional leadership wanted: the wrong side of another 62 percent approval rating. In this case, it’s the approval Americans express in polls for the raid by federal agents on the home of Elian Gonzalez’ Miami relatives in order to reunite the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor with his father.

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The Washington Times

Conservatives (myself included) were slow on the uptake with regard to Elian Gonzalez. For the first several months after his arrival in the United States, his case was for most conservatives more a curiosity than a cause celebre. It’s worth spending a little time on why that was so.

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The Washington Times

My Cold War, it seems, is not over. Such is the somewhat dispiriting conclusion to draw from the two sets of demonstrations of the week, one in Washington and one in Little Havana, Miami.

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