Columnist.
Her opponent grabbed his 15 minutes of fame by depicting Nancy Pelosi as the Wicked Witch of the West in a campaign spot -- a sophomoric attempt at humor that accomplished nothing except to generate sympathy for its target.
Income inequality, we learn from the Census Bureau, has reached the highest level since data were first collected on the subject in 1967. Poverty has increased dramatically, with one of seven Americans now falling below the poverty threshold.
The poverty rate in the United States, reports the Census Bureau, increased to 14.3 percent last year, up from 13.2 percent in 2008, bringing the number of Americans living in poverty to its highest levels since 1994. This is not the change on which Obama voters were counting.
At the CNBC town hall meeting, President Obama responded appropriately to a supporter who mentioned, in passing, that his son had just been commissioned as a U.S. army officer. Before turning to the questioner's principal query, the president made it a point to thank the man's son for "his service to our country."
As a social conservative who has written extensively about abortion, stem cell research, family structure, failing schools, the degradation of popular culture, and abstinence education, I submit, without fear of misinterpretation, that the next two elections are not going to be about those issues.
Amid all the good news from primary season -- the surging grassroots rejection of leviathan government being the theme -- there was one tragedy. The voters of the District of Columbia rejected Mayor Adrian Fenty, and with him the bold education reforms undertaken by schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Democrat Adrian Fenty may have been an arrogant jerk who offended his constituents in a number of ways, but on his signature issue, education reform, he was getting results.
"Washington, We Have a Problem," proclaims Vanity Fair magazine. In an eerie echo of the verdicts passed during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, namely that the presidency was "too big for one man," Vanity Fair now declares, "The evidence that Washington cannot function -- that it's 'broken,' as Vice President Joe Biden has said -- is all around."
For once, I'm with Hillary Clinton. Regarding the Rev. Terry Jones, would-be Quran igniter, the secretary of state said, "It is regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and ... disgraceful plan and get the world's attention, but that's the world we live in right now."
Newly returned from a week in Paris and well sated with delicious cheeses, magnificent art, and glorious (inexpensive!) wines, one is disinclined to reflect upon the decline of Europe. But the demographic reality so scathingly limned in Mark Steyn's "America Alone" cannot be long avoided. Those adorable French babies are not quite as scarce as, say, Lithuanian ones (a 2.1 total fertility rate is required for a society to maintain itself -- Lithuania's rate is 1.2), but the French tots are not quite adequate (1.9 percent). As for Europe as a whole, it's disappearing -- the average fertility rate is 1.53.
Hamas sent a greeting card to the quintet of leaders meeting in Washington, D.C., this week to initiate negotiations about a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In a well-planned ambush, they killed four Israeli civilians near the city of Hebron, two men and two women (one nine months pregnant), creating seven orphans. The murderers escaped, and may perhaps have videotaped the atrocity. In Gaza that evening, 3,000 celebrants clogged the streets, waving flags, setting bonfires, passing out candy, and carrying their children on their shoulders. If there is videotape, it will presumably permit the revelers to relive the pleasure, even as the video of Daniel Pearl's beheading has circulated on the Internet.
On a regular basis, we are enjoined, usually by a leading Democrat, to overcome our reticence -- or, in Attorney General Eric Holder's formulation, "cowardice" -- and engage in a hearty national conversation about race.
President Obama has a weakness for thinking in categories. For someone who provokes swoons among liberals for his great intellect, he has repeatedly evidenced an unsophisticated, one might even say simple-minded, view of the world: Workers good; bosses exploitative. Borrowers good; lenders bad. Patients good; insurance companies bad. Again and again, the president and his spokesmen have justified their expansions of government power as efforts to help those who "through no fault of their own" find themselves in difficulties.
The Daily Telegraph brings welcome news -- "Old age begins at 27 as mental powers start to decline, scientists find." It seems that the University of Virginia conducted mental acuity tests on 2,000 adults over the course of seven years. The results: Your steel-trap brain is at its best around the age of 22. By the time 27 rolls around, you've already begun to depreciate.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the 43-year-old Iranian mother of two whose death by stoning was commuted to death by hanging (so generous) after an international outcry, appeared on Iranian television this week. Speaking unsteadily in her native Azeri, Ashtiani admitted to being an accomplice to her husband's murder and of committing adultery with her husband's cousin.
Do you associate dirt with great music? You might if you were the parent of kids attending the Interlochen summer music program in Michigan. For the third and second summer respectively, my teenage sons have plunged into six weeks of intensive music education, performance, and instruction. I arrived for the final weekend and was greeted by two artistically elevated, high-spirited, and undeniably grubby young men. (Several pairs of gray/brown socks that began life white have been sent to their reward.)
For now, the Iranian government has suspended the death by stoning sentence meted out to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the 43-year-old mother of two who was convicted of adultery. There is a lesson here.
I'm starting to wonder: Is President Obama fair to African-Americans? Asked about Rep. Charlie Rangel's ethics problems on CBS's "Evening News," the president could hardly have been more direct if he'd seized Rangel by the back of the collar and belt and pitched him out the door. "I think Charlie Rangel served a very long time and served his constituents very well, but these allegations are very troubling. And he'll -- he's somebody who's at the end of his career. Eighty years old. I'm sure that what he wants is to be able to end his career with dignity. And my hope is that it happens."
