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Puerto Rico stands up for freedom of expression
Tweet Share on Facebook March 13, 2006 CommentHere's a heartwarming story from the World Baseball Classic. At a game in San Juan between Puerto Rico and Cuba, a fan held up a sign that said, "Abajo Fidel"—down with Castro. It was visible on the TV feed to Cuba. The response:
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Looking back on 1994
Tweet Share on Facebook March 11, 2006 CommentLooking back on 1994
In the lead on my U.S. News column on the House elections, I noted that I was the first writer in the national press to write, in July 1994, that the Republicans had a serious chance of winning a majority in the House elections that November. I noted in that article that three incumbent U.S. House Democrats, competent members who had won at least one election and who had no scandal problems, were trailing Republican challengers in polls. It's highly unusual for an incumbent House member to trail a challenger in any poll; usually the incumbent's higher party identification insures a higher percentage, since the lesser-known challenger is not likely to have corralled even all of his own party's supporters. I noted also that there were a lot of serious Republican challengers out there and that President Bill Clinton's job approval rating was not very good.
But there were other factors that guided my analysis.
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Sirius comes to terms with Fox News
Tweet Share on Facebook March 10, 2006 CommentSirius satellite radio has evidently come to terms with Fox News Channel and will start carrying Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio on March 14. I wrote before lamenting Sirius's refusal to pay Fox's standard price to carry the Fox News audio. Maybe Sirius got the message: There are some of us out there who aren't going to reup and pay for a satellite radio service that doesn't include the No. 1 cable news network.
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Blogging off my column
Tweet Share on Facebook March 10, 2006 CommentMy column in next week's U.S. News is about the 2006 House elections, with a look back at the 1994 elections when Republicans captured control of the House. The column form has certain limits: You have only 750 words, you can't reference statistical materials, and you can't link to other writings. In the blogosphere, those limits don't apply. So what I intend to do is write an extended posting on "Baroneblog" to explain the thinking behind my column, and U.S. News will provide a link to the posting from the column both on usnews.com and in the print magazine. Maybe we'll start a trend: That's the good news. The bad news is that if I do this on a regular basis, I'll have to do a lot more writing. Stay tuned.
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What to do about Iran?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 10, 2006 CommentHere's Michael Ledeen's testimony before the House International Affairs Committee. Read the whole thing. Michael draws from his extraordinary knowledge of Iran, accumulated over the years, and provides the kind of clarity that only a deep thinker with great knowledge can do. The first clarification is that the regime of the mullahs is our enemy and always has been. "The Iranian war against us is now 27 years old, and we have yet to fight back." There can be no compromise with such a regime.
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Negative impression of Islam increasing
Tweet Share on Facebook March 9, 2006 CommentThat's the headline in today's Washington Post on a story reporting some results from a Post/ABC News poll. The story, by Claudia Deane and Darryl Fears, takes a tut-tutting sort of tone. Some 46 percent of Americans have a negative impression of Islam, the story says, 7 percentage points more than in the days after September 11. Why should that be? The Post blames the media—no, really.
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Reflections on late-evening reading
Tweet Share on Facebook March 8, 2006 CommentI have been writing a book on the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 and so have been tilting my late-evening reading to books that are not quite on point but have some relevance to the events of 1688-89 and put them into a longer perspective. Which led me last night to The Makings of an Historian: The Collected Essays of J. H. Plumb. Plumb was a graceful and prolific writer, and, as best as I can tell, some of his works have stood the test of time very well, notably his The Growth of Political Stability in England, 1675-1725. There Plumb explains how the fractious and often violent politics of 17th- century England was transformed into the more consensus-minded and peaceful politics of the 18th century. The book was first published in 1967, but I gather from my readings of the more recently published historians that Plumb's view has held up very well.
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Parochialism at General Motors
Tweet Share on Facebook March 8, 2006 CommentAn interesting article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning (subscribers only) on the parochialism of the giant, sclerotic bureaucracy of General Motors. The lead paragraphs encapsulate the problem.
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The Supreme Court on military recruiters
Tweet Share on Facebook March 7, 2006 CommentThe Supreme Court in a unanimous 8-to-0 opinion (Justice Samuel Alito not participating) reversed a Third Circuit 2-to-1 ruling overturning on First Amendment grounds the Solomon Amendment, requiring law schools to give the same access to military recruiters that they give to other recruiters. Chief Justice John Roberts's decision is relatively brief, elegant, occasionally witty, and enormously persuasive. The claim that law schools' First Amendment rights to self-expression are infringed by requiring that military recruiters have access to students was always risible. The plaintiffs, an organization of law school teachers and the like, tried to hitch a ride on the Supreme Court case allowing the Boy Scouts to bar homosexuals. Nice try, but absolutely no cigar.
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The Washington Post on advancing democracy
Tweet Share on Facebook March 6, 2006 CommentIf you haven't read the Washington Post's Sunday editorial "The Case for Democracy," by all means do.
