A miniflap recently broke out over a Politico item about a July 9 memo to “Interested Parties” from Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist. Penn’s memo was definitely designed to foster an impression of growing Clinton strength. Politico’s Ben Smith went a step farther in his characterization of the memo, however, saying it implied a Clinton victory was “inevitable.” Penn and Co. disavowed that characterization, and Smith subsequently took out the quotation marks he’d put around “inevitable” in his original post. Thus did the Clinton campaign find itself in the enviable position of having established its humility while pressing the immodest line that the candidate’s “electoral strength has grown in the last quarter and she is better positioned today than ever before to become the next President of the United States.” Continue reading →

The following essay is excerpted from the book, The Political Teachings of Jesus

The sermon on the mount has long been rightly understood as both a starting-point and a summation of Jesus ’s teaching. It begins with the Beatitudes (Mt. 5:3-12), in which Jesus delineates the categories of people he says enjoy special favor. The Beatitudes are all familiar to us as sayings, the best known beingblessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. But what, really, are they? Is Jesus merely pronouncing a blessing, offering good wishes to those whom he chooses to single out? In fact, there ’s more to the story than that. Continue reading →

Washington Times

When I came to Washington in 1985, it was with the expectation that I would be spending my life fighting the Cold War. At the time, there were, oh, a couple of visionaries out there who looked forward to a world in which the Soviet Union lay on the ash heap of history, such as the man in the Oval Office then. But I figured we had two choices: We could acquiesce in the spread of Soviet influence and communist tyranny. Or we could play for a tie, to preserve the freedom of the Free World (yes, capital letters and without irony) while acknowledging that the Soviet Union and its global influence were permanent features of the political landscape. Continue reading →

Washington Times

If, as Karl Marx’s adage holds, history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, what happens when the repetition repeats itself?

Well, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s foray into shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Damascus seems firmly stuck on farce, much in line with a certain former House speaker’s foray into China policy at a comparable point in his tenure. Continue reading →

Washington Times

At what level of giving, if any, would the people who contribute money to political candidates begin to feel overstretched? That’s the question that comes to mind as 2008 presidential aspirants release their fund-raising reports for the first quarter of 2007, the first serious test for candidate viability of the presidential cycle.

The Clinton money machine racked up a stunning $26 million, John Edwards came in at $14 million, with other Democratic candidates well down in single digits and Barack Obama unheard from at this writing. The Clinton number is breathtaking. It wasn’t that long ago that Al Gore set a first-quarter record with a measly $8.9 million. It seemed like a lot at the time, evidence not only of Mr. Gore’s front-runner status but of the extent to which he was a beneficiary of the Clinton apparatus as the then-president’s preferred successor.

Now, the same amount would merit status along with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who raised $6 million the first quarter and is pretty clearly running not for the top spot on the ticket but for vice president. Even adjusted for inflation, Mr. Gore’s 1999 total would put him about in line with John Edwards as a viable candidate but nobody’s idea of a frontrunner. Continue reading →

Hoover Digest

A literary agent once told me that when you are trying to sell a book to a publisher, you should always keep in mind that it’s not really the book you’re selling, it’s the idea of the book. Your objective is to get people excited about what’s to come. The finished book, even if it’s a very good book, ought to be almost anticlimactic. Otherwise, you haven’t managed to get people as excited as you should have in the first place.

In this respect, indeed only in this respect, the report the Iraq Study Group released at the year’s end was exemplary. The idea that a bipartisan council of eminent persons would take an unvarnished look at Iraq and offer their collective wisdom on a fresh approach to extricate ourselves from our troubles was one whose time had come. Continue reading →

Washington Times

Opposition to the Iraq war has understandably led to an anti-interventionist climate in Washington. There has long been such a strain in American public opinion: Walter Russell Mead identified it as the Jeffersonian strain, more interested in cultivating the American garden than in going abroad to slay dragons.

A bumper sticker I saw recently captures the spirit: “I’m already against the next war.” Of course, it’s unlikely that the experience in Iraq is what led the car’s owner to that conclusion. It was almost certainly a preexisting conviction. The opposition to the Iraq war has, however, inflated this sentiment. Continue reading →