Sulzberger Is Right (And Wrong)

June 25th, 2019 2:51 PM
I never thought I would write this, but the publisher of The New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger, is right. Sulzberger wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in response to President Trump's claim that his newspaper committed “treason” by publishing a story about U.S. efforts to compromise Russia's power grid should Moscow again try to meddle in U.S. elections. The Times says it consulted…

Praying (or Not) For the President

June 11th, 2019 11:04 PM
Only the most partisan person would begrudge prayers for the president of the United States, but a recent visit by President Trump to the mega McLean Bible Church in Virginia has rubbed some congregants the wrong way. The White House informed the church with only a few minutes notice that the president would be coming to the service after finishing a round of golf at a nearby course. It was a…

D-Day’s ‘Forgotten’ Woman

June 6th, 2019 5:44 PM
Observances of the 75th anniversary of D-Day are properly focusing on the troops and the architect of Operation Overlord, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who freed Europe from Hitler and his Nazi hordes. One person — a woman — has not received the credit she deserves for her efforts with the French Resistance. Without her daring and heroism, the war would most assuredly have been prolonged and many…

Robert Mueller’s Upside-Down Justice

June 4th, 2019 2:24 PM
It's a familiar quote from Charles Dickens’ classic Oliver Twist, but with special contemporary relevance in light of a statement last week by Special Counsel Robert Mueller: “‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble... ‘the law is a ass — a idiot.’” But it isn't so much that the law is fractured, rather it is practitioners who sometimes do it an injustice.

Once a Terrorist Always a Terrorist

May 28th, 2019 3:23 PM
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the release of self-admitted “American Taliban” member John Walker Lindh “unexplainable and unconscionable.” Lindh, who was paroled last Thursday from a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, served 17 years of a 20-year sentence for illegally aiding Taliban forces. Lindh had joined the terrorist organization before September 11, 2001. He was in Afghanistan…

The Pro-Life Movement’s Moment

May 21st, 2019 12:40 PM
Since 1973, when Roe vs. Wade ushered in what would eventually lead to abortion on demand, including partial-birth abortion and even the failure to protect babies born alive after failed procedures — the pro-life movement has achieved few legislative victories. That may be about to change. While New York and several other states have passed statutes effectively allowing infanticide, more…

My Sentimental Journey With Doris Day

May 16th, 2019 6:05 PM
It was Oscar Levant who uttered the famous line: “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.” In a way it was a backhanded compliment to a woman who represented in most of her film roles an image of chastity and virtue that was once mostly promoted in American culture, though not always practiced in private lives, including hers. Day, who died last Monday at age 97, became a friend late in her…

Remembering the Pioneers

May 8th, 2019 7:20 PM
In a country preoccupied with presidential candidates preaching extreme liberalism and even unabashed socialism comes America's greatest living historian, David McCullough, with a new and needed book. It's called The Pioneers and the subtitle is its theme: “The heroic story of the settlers who brought the American ideal west” (Simon and Schuster). Nowadays, while students at universities and…

New York Times, Part of the Anti-Semitism Problem

May 4th, 2019 2:30 PM
It took a few days, but The New York Times finally got around to apologizing for publishing in its international edition a grossly anti-Semitic cartoon depicting a blind President Trump wearing a yarmulke and being led by a dog resembling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The dog wore a Star of David around its neck. At first The Times blamed a single editor and poor oversight, but…

In Defense of Kate Smith

April 25th, 2019 5:52 PM
The long arm of the PC police has reached back to the '30s and arrested, prosecuted and sentenced the late singer Kate Smith. Smith, who popularized Irving Berlin's song “God Bless America” and was a female pioneer in early television, recorded songs that today in hindsight are viewed as racist. An old friend, Harry Covert, writes to recall the early days of black-and-white TV when he (and I)…

They’ve Only Just Begun

April 23rd, 2019 2:04 PM
Objectivity, like Elvis, long ago left the building in Washington and so the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is being read and interpreted through mostly biased eyes. Democrats, who had counted on Mueller to prove that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, were initially as crestfallen as they were on election night 2016. Still, they are undeterred in the pursuit of their ultimate…

The Exception That Is Costa Rica

April 19th, 2019 4:29 PM
LIBERIA, Costa Rica — In the ongoing U.S. debate about immigration, the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are mainly in the news because many of those crossing our border from Mexico are from these nations. Why isn't Costa Rica experiencing a similar mass exodus? I put the question to President Carlos Alvarado Quesada. In an email response he writes in part, “8…

God and the Democrats

April 9th, 2019 2:30 PM
For the last 27 years, Democrats have been trying to win over evangelical Christians who last voted in large numbers for their party's presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter, in 1976. At the 1992 Democratic National Convention, Al Gore gave it a go, but misquoted Scripture. In his acceptance speech for the vice-presidential nomination, Gore said, “In the words of the Bible, Do not lose heart. This…

If Not an Emergency, What Is It?

April 2nd, 2019 2:57 PM
The flood tide of illegal immigrants crossing our southern border cannot and must not continue. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has said of it, “The system is broken and overwhelmed. It is a national emergency.” The definition of emergency might help focus attention: “A sudden, urgent, usually unexpected occurrence or occasion requiring immediate action.”