The Washington Times

The 2008 presidential election will be a wide-open contest. Democrats are responding to this fact with gusto, as a gaggle of serious candidates has already come forward. The Republican field seems, by contrast, thin — or at least thinner than one would expect. How come? Actually, the reasons are straightforward in both cases. On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton has long been front-runner. But a funny thing happened on the way to her coronation in 2008: Democrats have decided that they are not in the mood to declare a consensus candidate early.     

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The Washington Times

Apparently, Israel didn’t get the memo about the inefficacy of military force as revealed by the difficulties of the United States in Iraq. With luck, the military campaign Israel is waging to expunge the threat of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon will serve as a counter-reminder: In dealing with a determined enemy which aspires to pose an existential threat to your country, power is a good thing to have, and the judicious application of military force is sometimes the only way — and at other times, simply the preferable way — to achieve your security objectives.

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The Washington Times

The bottom line is this: Are we going to finish the job in Europe, or are we going to turn our backs on those who haven’t yet made their way in from the cold? At a summit meeting in Croatia, that is the question as much on the minds of the representatives of the major Euro-Atlantic institutions, namely the European Union and NATO, as on the minds of those knocking on their doors in hope of joining fully in the modern Western world.

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The Washington Times

When I was a kid, on the Fourth of July, Dad and I used to drag the stereo speakers out onto the back porch in the morning and treat the neighborhood to a rousing full-blast rendition of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Fortunately for the composure of the neighborhood, stereos were a lot less powerful in those days than they are now. Nevertheless, it made an impression.

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