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Hugh Hewitt: What will happen when the Obama Sequester kicks in
When President Obama’s sequester kicks in on March 1, thousands of people will lose their jobs, but the president doesn’t care because he kept his.
When President Obama’s sequester kicks in on March 1, the nation’s military readiness will be diminished, but the president won’t mind because he intends the Department of Defense to...
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Talking with Pagans and Talking with Journalists
Sports Illustrated has come to my mailbox for nearly 40 years. I hope it comes for 40 more. But I also hope whomever is assigning the stories in the future begins to think more about the readers than their political and social agendas.
Super Bowl week featured a cover of a praying Ray Lewis rising from the water, and a cover story by New York Times’ religion...
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Remembering Captain Phil
He died on February 9, 2010. Fans and friends from around the world mourned the loss of their favorite TV sea captain — Captain Phil Harris. He wasn’t the kind of man Americans get to meet very often on TV. Not the kind of man TV writers know much about. They generally create soft, goofy men dominated by more capable and competent wives.
But not even the...
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The Problems with Hagel
For two reasons, Chuck Hagel is a disastrous choice for Secretary of Defense:
First, there’s the worldview problem: he clearly believes the nation would benefit from a less powerful military, with fewer resources devoted to national security. This attitude shouldn’t disqualify a nominee from serving in another Cabinet position, but it’s totally...
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The Moral Case for Conservatism
In the early 20th century, two of England’s towering minds, the socialist George Bernard Shaw and the Catholic G. K. Chesterton, engaged in a series of debates. Shaw was an atheist, socialist, and vegetarian; Chesterton a Catholic, moralist, and meat-eater. Shaw argued against private property, and for redistribution of wealth. Chesterton argued for private...
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A Morally-Confused Marine
Last week, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by a Marine captain titled, “I Killed People in Afghanistan. Was I Right or Wrong?”
The column by Timothy Kudo, who is now a graduate student at New York University, is a fine example of the moral confusion leftism has wrought over the last half century. Captain Kudo’s moral confusion...
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The Beginning of the Beginning of the Immigration Debate
The end of the first week of the debate over immigration reform proved that it is the roller derby of public policy debates for Republicans and Democrats alike.
Louisiana Senator David Vitter was the first to provide a face plant and skid over the rails. The blowback directed at Vitter for mocking Marco Rubio was intense, and the penalty box includes a copy of...
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The Wrong Argument for Immigration Reform
Republicans make a terrible mistake when they argue for immigration reform as a matter of GOP survival. First, it’s questionable that support for a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants will automatically win support from Hispanic voters, though it’s undeniably true that past anti-immigrant rhetoric from some conservatives has damaged the party...
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Two Rallies, Two World Views
Media bias emerged in particularly glaring terms in coverage of two Washington rallies. On January 25th, more than 500,000 people joined the “March for Life” to observe the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The next day, planners of the “Million Mom March Against Guns” sought an even bigger turnout, but drew only 6,000 participants with signs like...
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Immigration Reform, School Choice and the Proposed Border Commission
First, a terrific compendium of think tank analyses of immigration compiled by the wizards at FindGravitas.com is here.
If you are going to debate immigration reform, be smart about immigration reform, especially about the positions of the opposite party’s intellectuals.
This means among other things being smart about school choice for immigrant children....
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Ex Uno Plures?
It was, it seemed, a slip of the tongue. Al Gore was giving a speech in 1994 in Milwaukee when he uttered these words: “We can build a collective civic space large enough for all our separate identities, that we can be ‘e pluribus unum’ — out of one, many.”
Out of one, many. That’s how the then–vice president of the United States described the...
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The Obama Inaugural Address
To understand leftism, the most dynamic religion of the last hundred years, you have to understand how the left thinks. The 2013 inaugural address of President Barack Obama provides one such opportunity.
–“What makes us exceptional — what makes us American — is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two...
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Hugh Hewitt: National Review gathering previews the GOP future
National Review gathered dozens of talking heads and GOP elected luminaries along with nearly a thousand supporters over the weekend in Washington in proceedings designed to take the pulse of a bloodied but unbowed conservative movement.
The electeds who did star turns were, in order of appearance, Tom Cotton, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal....
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Why Obama Hides Good News on Guns
The president’s passion for gun control leaves him oddly unwilling to claim credit for one of the few signs of progress during his first term. After four years of Obama, poverty and food stamps are up, middle class incomes are down, while debt and deficits soared to record levels.
Rates of violent crime, however, continued their long decline, reduced by 13...
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When Is a Victory a “Rebuke”?
If an incumbent wins easy re-election but with reduced levels of support, is that a sign of public “rebuke”?
For American media, it depends on that incumbent’s political correctness. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cruised to re-election with his party winning nearly double the support of his closest rival. But most reports in the U.S. depicted...
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The GOP’s Immigration Mess
On Saturday I will be debating Mark Kirkorian on immigration policy before the National Review Institute.
I am a “wet,” on the topic. Have been since I opposed California’s proposition 187 in 1994.
Mark, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, is a “dry.”
Here’s the interesting thing about out...
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