The Washington Times

Another hum-drum week for the Bush administration: a proposal to establish a permanent colony on the moon, possibly as a way station en route to a human expedition to Mars. And what was that other modest proposal again? Oh, yes, a reform of immigration laws that would liberalize and regularize the status of the 8 million or more people living in the United States illegally [to say nothing of collateral effects on employers and on those who benefit from illegals’ labors indirectly in the form of cheaper goods and services].

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The Washington Times

“Is the United States Overstreched?” That’s the subject I had to speak to before a Paris audience last month. Well, even if one was feeling a steady tug on the ankles and a gradual elongation of the spine, one might not want to draw too much attention to the discomfort, either out of a stoic commitment to live through what one must, or in order not to give aid and comfort to those wishing one ill. The French moderator of the panel, a friend of mine, offered an out, namely, that putting the question in terms of an “overstretched” United States seemed somehow characteristically French. But nevertheless, let us say at the start of 2004 in Paris or Washington precisely this: The United States is stretched.

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The Washington Times

The pre-Christmas announcement that Libya’s ruler, Moammar Gadhafi, has decided to end his development programs for and destroy his stocks of weapons of mass destruction [WMD] marks a watershed moment in the new Bush administration strategy of prevention. Make no mistake about what has happened, thanks to deft diplomacy by the administration and Tony Blair’s government in Britain: Col. Gadhafi has concluded that he is safer without such weapons.

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The Washington Times

Although I don’t imagine the comparison would please either of the two of them, the politician that Howard Dean most reminds me of is Newt Gingrich. The political projects each took on are also similar, but this is a chicken-and-egg matter: Do the times call forth the man, or does the man make the times?

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The Washington Times

Some of my fellow American panelists at a conference here, sponsored by the French Center on the United States, were expecting to get an earful from French panelists and members of the audience on the subject of the prime-contractor restrictions against France, Germany and Russia for Iraq reconstruction. I was, too. Wrong. The subject was barely touched upon.

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The Washington Times

How much difference can one person pressing an argument make? In the case of Andrew Sullivan and marriage rights for gays, the answer is a huge and perhaps decisive difference. In the eight years since he published “Virtually Normal,” which concluded with a call for gay marriage rights, he has refined his argument to force those confronting it to make a choice among three options: 1] accepting gay marriage; 2] stating a moral objection to homosexuality and homosexual life itself; and 3] incoherence.

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The Washington Times

Professional Republicans are increasingly getting the idea that they are a governing majority party, just as the Democrats under FDR became a governing majority party – and visions of 60 years or so of GOP electoral dominance, in the manner of the New Deal coalition, are dancing through their heads.

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The Washington Times

Much of the commentary following the House Democratic Caucus’s election of Nancy Pelosi as the new minority leader focused on the question of whether the proud San Francisco Democrat wasn’t too far to the left to be an asset in Democrats’ quest to regain the House. I think this focus is misplaced, along with the performance standard for Mrs. Pelosi it implies. Mrs. Pelosi’s real constituency is not the national electorate; it’s House Democrats. What matters is how and where she leads them.

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The Washington Times

The scene: A bright but modest kitchen, through the back door of which, right, the noontime sun is streaming. At kitchen counter stands Louise, a fit senior citizen of indeterminate age wearing an apron over a warm-up suit. She is chopping healthy salad ingredients.

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The Washington Times

A while back, a well-placed acquaintance of mine asked me about my thoughts on how President Bush should run for re-election and specifically, could I draft and send him a memo offering a campaign theme for Mr. Bush in 2004. I was flattered, of course. But I never wrote the memo.

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