Priceless Mansfield

Harvey Mansfield has just published a new book on Manliness in age of feminism. New York Times interviews him. It is just too funny.

Andre Glucksmann

Andre Glucksmann -- an interesting find during my Dostoevsky studies. Here is a site dedicated to the French philosopher. It contains a lot of his writings, 1/4 of it is in English.

From America and Democracy:

Human rights measure our ability to resist the inhuman, the evil that faces us like a devil and that each of us carries within him.

Also these interviews:
Gehlen, Liss and Jens Heisterkamp, Bin Laden, Dostoevsky, and the Reality Principle: an Interview with Andre Glucksmann, Info 3 (March 2003) (5 pages, pdf)

Restan, Jose Luis and David Blazquez, "Terrorist Nihilism and the Crisis of the West: Interview with Andre Glucksmann" Traces (June 2004

Western Weapon of Terrorism

According to the AP caption: "An unidentified Kenyan woman demonstrates in Nairobi, Kenya Friday Feb. 10, 2006." (AP Photo/Sayyid Azim)

(Hat Tip: Volokh Conspiracy)

Michael Barone on Elites' Spurning of America

Check out this very good article by Michael Barone on the supposed superiority of the elite liberals.

Zawahiri's Letter

This should be the biggest news of the week, a glimpse inside out enemies: the release of al Qaeda's second man's, Zawahiri, letter to Zarqawi, al Qaeda's man in Iraq. It should educate and remind the forgetful, the self-doubting, and the skeptics among us of what we are up against.

At least two key things he mentions is that the primary battlefield is in the media, which they are pretty successful with. And the other point is that Iraq is everything to them; however it goes, so it goes for them.

Download the letter from the National Intelligence Director's website.

Scott over at Powerline has some good commentary.
Austin Bay also is said to be good on the subject. (Hat tip: Michele Malkin)

Bush's Speech at National Endowment for Democracy

Bush's speech

John Podhoretz's commentary - 7 October 2005
Daniel Pipes' commentary - 11 October 2005 -- Pipes says Bush has ushered in the 3rd stage in civilization's war on the Islamofascists.
USA Today's list of the 10 foiled terrorist strikes

Goods on Harriet Miers

Marvin Olasky's post over at World Magazine blog is a very good starting place for information on the latest appointment to the Supreme Court. There is a lot of discouraging reactions throughout the blogosphere and conservative, but Hugh Hewitt, again, is upbeat and optimistic.


UPDATE:
It really is amazing how controversial Meiers is with CONSERVATIVES! You would have thought Bush appointed a Ginsburg clone. Hewitt and Medved have been doing the Lord's work though. And Ken Masugi at the Local Liberty blog has some sensible things to say:

We have a better view of Bush’s ambition for Miers in Senator Cornyn’s defense of her, calling her a justice who would bring the “dangerously out of touch” court “back down to earth.” This means not just replacing one justice with another but altering the public perception of the court as well. Hence Meirs’ faith plays a political role. To tame the Court we need a combination of skills: Thomas’s originalism, Scalia’s rhetorical brilliance, Roberts’ legal skills, and now Miers’ practical experience, producing a plain reading of the Constitution.

Mark Helprin's New Website

Joe Knippenberg over at No Left Turns points out Helprin's new website, a valuable resource, if ever he links up his articles and commentary and essays to his favorite books.

Bill Clinton's Legacy Revives

Just when Clinton was back in the spotlight with Katrina charity work and Bush-bashing over the weekend, this story comes out to remind us of what is truly his legacy--are you ready for this?--the Clinton-Lewinsky Condom.

Gary Schmitt: Why the Sunnis Won't Deal

Schmitt on the way to success in Iraq.

Katrina

Jack Kelly on the fast federal response to Katrina.
Rightwingnuthouse has a timeline of all government action in response to Katrina.

Mark Helprin on the Conservative failure in the War on Terror

"They're All So Wrong"

CNN vs. FOX

One frequently hears about the political or ideological differences of the news channels and FOX, but here is a former news executive's analysis of the differences of CNN and FOX's coverage of a non-political event, the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina. (HT: Rich Lowry, The Corner)

Victor Davis Hanson: Our Civil War over the War on Terror

a piece on National Review Online (15 July) and transcript of Hugh Hewitt's interview from yesterday (15 July).

Great picture in need of caption.

Uberman vs. Unterman: Lesson of a Surviving Navy Seal

Wretchard at Belmont Club has a great post on the importance of perseverance and resolve on the battlefield. This, he says, is what the one surviving member of the Seal Recon team demonstrated. And the lesson bin Laden should glean from that is that he will lose. Wretchard draws upon our fight against the Japanese at Guadacanal as support.

Michael Ledeen at The Corner adds a few thoughts.

Eliot Cohen Reflecting on Iraq Now That His Son is Heading There

Steve Hayward recommended this article in Washington Post by Eliot Cohen, a self-described war hawk, thinking back through the War in Iraq in light of his son's soon deployment.

Blair: Our Determination

It is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world.

This is Blair's claim, and it is good. It needs to be said over and over again. But the question, for a good part of the West, as Bill Bennett says, is still an open question. How many of the left would echo Blair's determination?

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt got an email (regarding the bombing in London, the loss of the SEALS and Stockdale and Al Franken's interview of Tom Oliphant) from a Navy officer today unwittingly answering Bennett's question:

We at USNA are suffering this week as we lost not only two former alumni in Afghanistan, but we also lost a paragon of honor and bravery in VADM James Stockdale. But let me be very clear about today's events in Great Britain. The human refuse who committed these heinous acts are desperate and those of us who wear our country's uniform are MORE DETERMINED THAN EVER to put an end to their reign of terror. Unless America decides to lose its mind and allow the left and its buffoons like Oliphant and Franken to run the show, we WILL PREVAIL. Oliphant strikes no fear in anyone . Navy SEALS and ARMY SOF and Marine Force Recon scare the living heck out of Bin Laden. I will put my hat with them as well as all of the future officers we are producing at USNA, USMA and USAFA and let Oliphant and his ilk defend themselves. We are going to hunt the terrorists down and we will kill them, one at a time if necessary. Sleep well Mr. Oliphant, braver men than you are on the job!"

Alex Massie in 'The Scotsman' on the 4th

A nice column by Alex Massie in the Scotsman.

Lincoln on the 4th of July

Over at Powerline, Scott has a fine post on "The Eternal Significance of Independence Day," relying on both Lincoln and Coolidge.

Henniger's "Ground Zero to Baghdad"

Hugh Hewitt points out this piece, "Ground Zero to Baghdad: September 11 and the collapse of national unity," by Daniel Henniger and includes this quote:

On a very warm Wednesday this past May, during Fleet Week in New York City, a passerby at Ground Zero encountered some 150 astonishingly young Marines in fatigues, wet with sweat after a run, standing at attention on the site's edge, outside the fence. They were from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and they appeared to be in the middle of a formal ceremony. Yesterday the organizer of the May event, Maj. Dave Anderson, explained they were laying a wreath to honor the victims of September 11, and that the three Marines chosen to lay the wreath had earned Purple Hearts while serving in Iraq. When the ceremony ended, he said, a woman came out of the crowd, crying, and grabbed his wrist to say that her brother had died in there that day, and she said to him, 'When people see you Marines doing this, they'll know that you will take the fight forward.'

Henniger does think that the media has been changing its coverage of the Iraq War, moving from opposing to supportive. I look forward to that.

Pelsoi: "So this is almost as if God has spoken."

This confirms something I have said before, that is, the Democrats have staked their game for rule and relevance in the anti-democratic rulings of the courts . Court rulings, specifically, Supreme Court rulings have the weight of sacred decrees for liberals. If you doubt it, check out what Nancy Pelsoi has said about all the high court's rulings generally and the Kelo vs. City of New London specifcally.

Q Could you talk about this decision [Kelo etc.]? What you think of it?

Ms. Pelosi. It is a decision of the Supreme Court. If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken. It's an elementary discussion now. They have made the decision.

Courtesy Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner (emphasis added).

Actually, rereading my post linked above is spot on. In talking about the Schiavo case and Judge Greer's ruling, I quoted Jonathan Last's reference to Lincoln who said of Douglas: he takes a judge's ruling (Dred Scot decision) as a "Thus saith the LORD." Without reason or justification, liberals (like Douglas) take a human construct and give it divine sanction and weight. They have set aside not only conscience but even a standard and the desire to be able to judge something as wrong or right--even fear that the people or the people's representatives would vote on the issue.

Here is Lincoln's extended comments on Douglas:

This man [Douglas] sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a Territory from excluding slavery, and he does so not because he says it is right in itself,--he does not give any opinion on that,--but because it has been decided by the court; and being decided by the court, he is, and you are, bound to take it in your political action as law, not that he judges at all of its merits, but because a decision of the court is to him a "Thus saith the Lord." He places it on that ground alone; and you will bear in mind that thus committing himself unreservedly to this decision, commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but it is a "Thus saith the Lord." The next decision, as much as this, will be a "Thus saith the Lord." There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision.

Short-Term Memory

The guys over at Powerline point out that the Congressional resolution that authorized military action in Iraq was quite clear about the connection between the war in Iraq and 9-11 and the War on Terror. Kerry, et al. have no excuse.

President Bush and the Media's Caricature of Him

Gerard Baker of The London Times interviewed Bush recently:

In person Mr Bush is so far removed from the caricature of the dim, war-mongering Texas cowboy of global popular repute that it shakes one’s faith in the reliability of the modern media.

To Senator Durbin, From James Warner, Former POW

Significant update to my post below to Durbin's outrageous claim that Guantanamo prisoners sufferings resemble those found in Nazi camps, Soviet gulags, or Pol Pot's torture cells.

A former POW of Vietnam War, James Warner, replies to Durbin.