It took less than a decade, a mere blink of an eye in historical terms, for America‟s fiscal fortunes to plunge from surging budget surpluses to soaring debt, from fiscal responsibility to fiscal recklessness. In 1998, President Clinton and Congress balanced the federal budget for the first time in nearly 30 years. Their achievement reflected …
The philosopher George Santayana famously cautioned: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Here’s a corollary: Those who do not read history are doomed to ask the same question again and again. And so it is that in our books, magazines and journals, we are again debating the question, “Is America …
I had to smile! I came into the office this morning and my assistant had put this week’s issue of Newsweek right in the middle of my desk. And what’s the cover story? “After Iran Gets The Bomb.” Yes, after. I guess America’s media is accepting reality, even if its new president isn’t there yet. …
Welcome to the first “International Free Press Day,” commemorating the start of a cartoon controversy in Denmark that showcased the conflict between freedom of the press and efforts to protect religion from insult. It was September 30, 2005 when a gutsy Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 cartoons of Islam’s prophet, Mohammed. It sought to demonstrate …
“Mr. Obama appears to have crossed a psychological threshold on Iran, and in recent days he appears to have made a leap toward viewing tough new sanctions against Iran as an inevitability, after months of talking about the need for engagement.” – New York Times, September 25, 2009 President Obama’s tough remarks about the discovery …
Some 40 of us had gathered around a long rectangular dinner table in Britain’s House of Commons, exchanging ideas from a day-long conference on Iran that had just ended down the street, when columnist Melanie Phillips bemoaned the West’s failure to forcefully confront Tehran over its nuclear program. The West will keep dithering, she predicted, …
With Washington focused on health care, and political activists of the right and left doing their best to tear the nation apart, the chickens of what was once called the “War on Terror” are coming home to roost. The administration and Congress face important decisions about Afghanistan, not the least of which is whether to …