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Jonah Goldberg |
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While Republican National Convention planners obsessed about the course of Hurricane Gustav, the only subject delegates and conservatives in general could discuss during the weekend's pre-convention activities (i.e. drinking) was the potential beam of sunshine, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
With Sen. Joe Biden slated to give Wednesday's keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama's vice presidential pick will stay in the national limelight awhile longer. Who among us can contain their excitement?
In the wake of the fascinating forum hosted by Pastor Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church in Orange County, everyone is focusing on the contrasts between presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. More interesting are the contrasts between the intellectual-theologian Obama and the political Obama.
The Obama campaign has for months pursued the odd strategy of having the junior senator from Illinois act as if he were already kinda-sorta president of the United States. In June, it tried sticking a quasi-presidential seal on his lectern. Then in July, he conducted what seemed like official state visits with foreign leaders and delivered something like a "prenaugural" address in Berlin, inviting comparisons to JFK and Reagan.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is dead. Peter Rodman is dead. And memory is dying with them.
Last week, ESPN awarded Tommie Smith and John Carlos the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs -- the sports network's equivalent of the Oscars -- for their once infamous, and now famous, black power salutes from the winner's podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
'Sen. Obama didn't support the surge, wanted to pull out, said that it would fail. I supported it when it was the toughest thing to do. I believe that my record on national security and keeping this country safe is there. And the American people will examine our records, and I will win."
Contrary to nearly all received wisdom in Washington, not to mention the rhetoric of the presumptive nominees of both major parties, the scariest moments in American politics are often its most bipartisan. Some would say that this was demonstrated in the wake of 9/11, when all those allegedly terrible national security laws were enacted by both parties, or in the run-up to war, when Democrats and Republicans alike united to topple Saddam Hussein. But I find it is most true when Washington takes a populist turn, which it is doing now with pugnacious stupidity, attacking that classic populist boogeyman: the "oil speculator."
There's a weird irony at work when Sen. Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of racism from the nation, vows to run afoul of the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.
Breaking news! The ultimate White House insider plans a tell-all book about the Bush years. Boasting unprecedented access to the president's thinking, it will run counter to almost everything we've been told about Bush's radical presidency.