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The Bailaholics

Tombstone, Ariz., has nothing on Washington, D.C. Friday's financial OK Corral took place when federal politicians had a standoff over the mother of all bailout bills. Bullets called ballots were fired from both congressional houses and the White House. And when the smoke cleared, the bad guys appeared: Bush, Paulson, Barney Frank, Pelosi, Dodd and most of the other members of the House and the Se ...

Thomas Sowell

The Real Obama

Barack Obama's supporters often try to sidestep questions about his character and judgment by saying that we should stick to what they arbitrarily define as "the real issues." But Senator Obama's record on specific issues is as bad as his record of repeatedly allying himself over the years with people who make no attempt to hide their hatred of America. Among the so-called "real iss ...

Connie Schultz

How To Talk to Someone Who Sounds Racist

What should we do when racism catches us off-guard? I don't mean those anonymous comments on blogs or strangers who shout racial epithets from speeding cars. That's horrifying behavior, but we don't feel empowered to do much about it. It's a different story, though, when someone we know, maybe even love, says something that makes our neck hairs stand up and our mouths drop open like codfish. Wh ...

Pat Buchanan

Of Generals and Victories

"(O)nce war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. "War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. "In war there is no substitute for victory." Familiar to every graduate of West Point, the words are from the farewell address of Gen. MacArthur, to Congress on April 19, 1951, after he was relieved ...

Paul Craig Roberts

The End of American Hegemony

America has become a pretty discouraging place. If Ronald Reagan were still with us, I wonder if he would again refer to the United States as a city on a hill, a light unto the world. I think not. Reagan brought America back from discouragement, but it didn't stick. Subsequent administrations erased Reagan's accomplishments. Reagan defeated stagflation and ended the Cold War, producing a peace div ...

David Harsanyi

Kill Bill

Last week, Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner referred to the bailout — excuse me, financial rescue package — as a "crap sandwich." Now the Senate has provided Americans with a 6-foot crap hero (with fancy toppings!). In a pitiably self-congratulatory news conference after the bailout vote, Senate leaders stood in wonderment of their own awe-inspiring character. ...

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman

Shock and Aw, Shucks

Ward Cleaver turns to his wife and says, "Gosh, June, how are we goin' to explain to Wally and the Beave that I just got laid off from my job of 25 years, our 401(k) tanked in the '08 market crash, and we can't get loans to send them to community college, much less Harvard, Yale or Princeton?" To which June turns off the Hoover, knocks back a gin shot and replies, "Betcha didn't se ...

David Sirota

Saying "No Deal" to this New Deal

The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair — stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout this week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror. As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vagu ...

Oliver North

And in Other News …

WASHINGTON — The potentates on the Potomac have been so busy ranting about an imminent financial "catastrophe," dissecting Sarah Palin's debate debut and prognosticating John McCain's political demise that other news — particularly about the war being waged against radical Islam — has been hard to find. Here are some facts about the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan tha ...

Michelle Malkin

Dear Congress: Put the Gun Down Now

Will 2008 be the year of the Chicken Little Congress? Or can the House of Representatives show the panic-driven Senate what it really means to be a deliberative body? On Sept. 19, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson put a gun to America's head: Pass his $700 billion bailout of the banking industry and give him unfettered new powers to buy up an ocean of privately held toxic assets, or all hell would b ...

Larry Elder

Memo to McCain: Take the Gloves Off

McCain loses — the first debate, that is. Blown opportunities? Let us count the ways: Obama says, without rebuttal, that his plan lowers taxes on "95 percent of working families." This is flatly impossible because 32 percent of income tax returns filed (some 43 million Americans) pay absolutely nothing in federal income taxes. Obama makes his claim by offering a $500 "Making W ...