Taki's Daily Blog
The Washington Times reports a visit by Bob Novak to the Heritage Foundation, where he regaled conservative bloggers with his take on current events and gave a little spiel about his new book, Prince of Darkness: “When asked to rate the current field of Republican presidential candidates, Novak didn’t have any kind words for the current top-tier field of Rudy Giuliani, … [Read More]
On Friday, July 20, President Bush issued an executive order that seems designed mainly to protect members of his administration from prosecution once he leaves office. At least, that’s the most charitable interpretation I can put on it. The order interprets Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions in such a way that torture by the CIA during interrogation of suspected … [Read More]
Blogging on Reason’s “Hit and Run,” Brian ”Radicals for Capitalism” Doherty chronicles the objections of “some libertarians” to Ron Paul and his presidential campaign. Ostensibly a “defense” of Paul against the very few authentic libertarians who oppose him, Doherty’s piece winds up reiterating every kvetch and cavil against the Good Doctor while neatly distancing the author from Paul’s critics: “Paul’s concern … [Read More]
Bob Novak spills the beans this morning: “The morass in Iraq and deepening difficulties in Afghanistan have not deterred the Bush administration from taking on a dangerous and questionable new secret operation. High-level U.S. officials are working with their Turkish counterparts on a joint military operation to suppress Kurdish guerrillas and capture their leaders. Through covert activity, their goal is to … [Read More]
Reading Paul Weyrich’s article today on Hugo Chavez’s crackdown on the Venezuelan media, and our “free” media’s reaction to it, brought to mind an event from my first term at Michigan State. Our campus parish, like most Catholic parishes around colleges and universities, was unabashedly leftist; still, I was going there for the Eucharist, not the politics, so I tried to … [Read More]
I have a piece in the (British) Guardian on Ron Paul, which I dashed off a bit too quickly, but it reads pretty well in spite of that. What’s interesting is the comments section, which—due to a notice in the noted hate-site ”Little Green Footballs,” world headquarters of the more-Likudist-than-thou’ers—is infested with the craziest remarks. Speaking of infested, not to mention … [Read More]
Pat Tillman was shamelessly used by this administration in order to shore up support for a futile, increasingly unpopular war. When he enlisted, disdaining a multi-million dollar contract with the Cardinals, he was touted by none other than the President and Donald Rumsfeld as a patriot and a model for America’s youth: when he was killed, they said he was felled … [Read More]
About two weeks ago Justin Raimondo mentioned on a blog that Ron Paul’s enemies had begun to smear him as an anti-Semite and racist. From the references I assumed that the sources of the attack were the neoconservatives, an assumption that made perfectly good sense given the diametrically opposed views of the two camps. While the neocons favor an extended welfare … [Read More]
Will George W. Bush beat out Harry Truman and Richard Nixon as the President with the lowest poll ratings ever? 65 percent currently disapprove of Dubya’s job performance, whereas Truman reached 67 percent during the Korean War and Nixon hit 66 percent four days before resigning. Place your bets here ... [Read More]
Why pick up the latest John LeCarre novel, when the Litvinenko murder mystery is making headlines? A rare radioactive substance poisons a self-styled Russian “dissident”—was it murder? A smuggling operation gone wrong? And why would someone kill with such an exotic isotope—which could be used as a nuclear trigger for a “dirty" bomb? The “mainstream” media is going for the “Putin-did-it” … [Read More]