The Washington Times

It might be a little premature to declare its demise, but among serious candidates, the use of federal matching funds in presidential primaries is dying. Far from a resource for a presidential primary campaign, matching funds have begun to look like an obstacle to raising what’s necessary to be competitive.

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The Washington Times

I guess we should consider Sen. Edward Kennedy’s op-ed in The Washington Post Sunday the state-of-the-art in sober, Democratic anti-war criticism of President Bush. The piece is noteworthy not for the shrillness of its tone or the harshness of its judgment – the senator left that to the wrecking crew on the Democratic campaign trail and their overheated comrades at MoveOn.org, et. al. – but for its elegiac, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone. The problem is that his own relatively sober description of events simply doesn’t support the charge of dishonesty that is the essence of Mr. Kennedy’s case against Mr. Bush.

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The Washington Times

Another hum-drum week for the Bush administration: a proposal to establish a permanent colony on the moon, possibly as a way station en route to a human expedition to Mars. And what was that other modest proposal again? Oh, yes, a reform of immigration laws that would liberalize and regularize the status of the 8 million or more people living in the United States illegally [to say nothing of collateral effects on employers and on those who benefit from illegals' labors indirectly in the form of cheaper goods and services].

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The Washington Times

“Is the United States Overstreched?” That’s the subject I had to speak to before a Paris audience last month. Well, even if one was feeling a steady tug on the ankles and a gradual elongation of the spine, one might not want to draw too much attention to the discomfort, either out of a stoic commitment to live through what one must, or in order not to give aid and comfort to those wishing one ill. The French moderator of the panel, a friend of mine, offered an out, namely, that putting the question in terms of an “overstretched” United States seemed somehow characteristically French. But nevertheless, let us say at the start of 2004 in Paris or Washington precisely this: The United States is stretched.

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