The Long Retreat

By Mark Steyn= "But you’ve got to figure that by now the world’s strongmen are getting the measure of the new Washington. Diplomacy used to be, as Canada’s Lester Pearson liked to say, the art of letting the other fellow have your way. Today, it’s more of a discreet cover for letting the other fellow have his way with you."...."For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.”"

Sunday Morning Obama @ CBS: Obama Stands Firm on CIA Investigation

Patterico.com "I doubt the 7 former CIA directors appreciate being painted as people only interested in protecting their former turf and employees. They are a bipartisan group of officials who supervised the CIA for much of the past 40 years. As stated in their letter, they are concerned this investigation will do serious damage to the CIA’s mission and its ability to work with foreign intelligence agencies."

ObamaCare and Red State Democrats

By Karl Rove "Part of Mr. Obama's problem is his language. His speech contained little new information and his tone was unpresidential. Instead of binding Americans to his cause, he called legitimate concerns "misinformation," "false," "demagoguery," "distortion" or "tall tales." Earlier in the week he declared them "lies." This was like calling people with concerns stupid, and it's not the way to win them over."

Brzezinski [from the Carter administration, incidentally] fantasizes about US shooting down Israeli planes

Rick Moran "Typical liberal. He would never dream of making war on our real enemies, only our allies."...."...I think this makes an Israeli strike on Iran even more probable. The more Obama tries to isolate Israel, the more the Israelis are made aware that they cannot depend on America anymore and must act without regard to American interests in the region.It takes a special kind of incompetence to anger your allies, appease your enemies, and leave the rest of the world looking at you with contempt. "

Reactionary Liberalism and the Peanut Narcissist

By Ralph Alter "With his strident assumption of moral superiority nd defective judgment hogging national headlines, Mr. Carter has assured that he will be able to contemplate the derision he has earned before he shuffles off this mortal coil. Once again the reactionary liberal movement has over-played its hand and thereby rendered itself and its useful idiot, Jimmy Carter, into laughing stocks. "

3 men in terror probe charged with making false statements

CNN "The alleged terrorist plot, which came to light last week after raids in New York, may have been targeting a major transportation center, like a large railroad or subway station, sources close to the investigation told CNN on Thursday."

In Defense of Capitalism

Frontpage Magazine "Capitalism is responsible for nearly everything that makes human existence easy and comfortable. The automobile, the supermarket, the personal computer, the washing machine, the hammer-drill, the iPhone, the airplane, the TV set, the chewing gum, electricity and countless other good things have all been birthed and mass produced by capitalism."

Romney says liberals think profits are wrong

The Hill ""The liberals, in their heart believe that the private enterprise system -- profitability, for instance -- that those things are inefficient and wrong, and that a government-run system would be better," Romney said in an interview on the Fox Business Network."

For Edwards, Drama Builds Toward a Denouement

NY Times "The story of the spectacular rise and fall of John Edwards, with its sordid can’t-look-away dimensions, is moving slowly but deliberately to its conclusion here in North Carolina."

One woman Michelle Obama will not mention

By Michelle Malkin "I’m re-printing my June 19, 2009 blog post and column again here in its entirety to get the message out about Michelle Obama’s role in creating a health care horror story she won’t be publicizing. I repeat: What have you done for Dontae Adams, lately, Mr. and Mrs. O?"

The Stimulus

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin

More Naiveté

By Max Boot "There is a danger that Obama is now sending a similar signal of weakness—one that will discourage our allies in Eastern Europe, who went out on a limb to stand with the United States, and one that will encourage our enemies, who will conclude that the U.S. will back down under duress."