NRO

January 05, 2007, 0:30 p.m.

The Bureaucrat Who Couldn’t
Letting John Negroponte burrow in at State won’t serve our interests.

By Frank Gaffney Jr.

As President George W. Bush struggles to resuscitate his presidency in the wake of last year’s “thumping” at the polls and the increasing assertiveness of freedom’s foes around the world, his own State Department remains one of his biggest impediments. Under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — even more than during the tenure of her predecessor, Colin Powell — rank insubordination and assiduous bureaucratic sabotaging of Bush’s policies has become the norm.

Time Magazine

Saturday, Nov. 11, 2006
The New Muslim-Liberal Coalition
The victory of Minnesota's Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the Congress, shows the changing alliances that were set in motion by 9/11
By PETER SKERRY

The victory party for Minnesota's first African-American congressman, Keith Ellison, took place at a trendy nightclub in Minneapolis's downtown warehouse district. Down the block from a glitzy sex shop, Trocaderos is the kind of place where both gays and straights look to get picked up, either at the bar or on the dance floor. But on this occasion, the floor was packed with enthusiastic supporters of Ellison, who also happens to be the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress.

NRO

January 03, 2007, 7:00 a.m.

The Story of a Well-Lived Life
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, R.I.P.

By Robert P. George

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was a scholar as notable for her bravery as for her brilliance. After what she described as her “long apprenticeship” in the world of secular liberal intellectuals, it was careful reflection on the central moral questions of our time that led her first to doubt and then to abandon both liberalism and secularism. Needless to say, this did not endear her to her former allies.

Liberating Catholic Latin America

BY SAMUEL GREGG
December 29, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/45900

Few realize it, but May 2007 could be a decisive moment for Catholic Latin America. That is when Latin America's Catholic bishops will meet in Brazil for the Fifth General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops to consider the profound challenges confronting the area. The importance attached to this event by the whole Catholic world is evident from the fact that Pope Benedict XVI will be attending.

Bethlehem's Second Coming

BY DANIEL JOHNSON
December 28, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/45823

What's in a name? In the case of Bethlehem, a great deal. Few names on earth can compare in resonance to the birthplace of both King David and Jesus Christ. And the resonance of a place name can be a powerful weapon in the wrong hands.

Just before Christmas, the heads of the Anglican and Catholic churches in England — respectively, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor — led a delegation of all the main Christian denominations in Britain on a visit to Bethlehem. Their mission was supposedly to draw attention to the plight of Christians there. Instead, they allowed themselves to become tools of Islamist propaganda. Here is how it happened.

The Weekly Standard

The Right Type of "Surge"
Any troop increase must be large and lasting.
by Jack Keane & Frederick W. Kagan
12/27/2006 2:00:00 PM

REPORTS ON the Bush administration's efforts to craft a new strategy in Iraq often use the term "surge" but rarely define it. Estimates of the number of troops to be added in Baghdad range from fewer than 10,000 to more than 30,000. Some "surges" would last a few months, others a few years.

We need to cut through the confusion. Bringing security to Baghdad--the essential precondition for political compromise, national reconciliation and economic development--is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail.

Be Fruitful and Multiply

BY MARK STEYN
December 26, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/45707

Suppose for a moment that the birth in Bethlehem that Christians celebrate this week never happened — that it is, as the secularists would have it, mere mumbo-jumbo, superstition, a myth. In other words, consider it not as an event but as a narrative. You want to launch a big new global movement from scratch. So what do you use?

Basket Case

New York Sun Staff Editorial
December 26, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/45702

The most encouraging thing about U.N. Security Council Resolution 1737, the sanctions on Iran that were passed over the weekend, is that the American under secretary of state for political affairs, Nicholas Burns, greeted it with the declaration, "We don't think this resolution is enough in itself. We want the international community to take further action, and we're certainly not going to put all of our eggs in a U.N. basket."

The Wall Street Journal

GLOBAL VIEW
By BRET STEPHENS

Why We're 'Not Winning'
December 26, 2006; Page A13

President Bush startled reporters when he acknowledged in a recent interview that we are "not winning" in Iraq, after long insisting we were. That doesn't go far enough. Even as we are stalemated in Iraq, the gains the administration previously made in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and Palestine are steadily being eroded. Maybe it's a case of returning to the mean. Most people would call it losing.

So was the invasion of Iraq the original sin? Certainly not. What's happening, rather, is that we are suffering the consequences of policy mistakes of relatively recent vintage.

The Wall Street Journal

Jimmy Carter's Book:
An Israeli View
By MICHAEL B. OREN
December 26, 2006; Page A12

Several prominent scholars have taken issue with Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," cataloguing its historical inaccuracies and lamenting its lack of balance. The journalist Jeffrey Goldberg also critiqued the book's theological purpose, which, he asserted, was to "convince American Evangelicals to reconsider their support for Israel."